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People reliably differ in the extent to which they are sensitive to being victimized by others. Importantly, “victim sensitivity” predicts how people behave in social dilemma situations: Victim-sensitive individuals are less likely to trust others and more likely to behave uncooperatively—especially in socially uncertain situations. This pattern can be explained with the sensitivity to mean intentions (SeMI) model, according to which victim sensitivity entails a specific and asymmetric sensitivity to contextual cues that are associated with untrustworthiness. Recent research is largely in line with the model’s prediction, but some issues have remained conceptually unresolved so far. For instance, it is unclear why and how victim sensitivity becomes a stable trait and which developmental and cognitive processes are involved in such stabilization. In the present article, we will discuss the psychological processes that contribute to a stabilization of victim sensitivity within persons, both across the life span (“ontogenetic stabilization”) and across social situations (“actual-genetic stabilization”). Our theoretical framework starts from the assumption that experiences of being exploited threaten a basic need, the need to trust. This need is so fundamental that experiences that threaten it receive a considerable amount of attention and trigger strong affective reactions. Associative learning processes can then explain (a) how certain contextual cues (e.g., facial expressions) become conditioned stimuli that elicit equally strong responses, (b) why these contextual untrustworthiness cues receive much more attention than, for instance, trustworthiness cues, and (c) how these cues shape spontaneous social expectations (regarding other people’s intentions). Finally, avoidance learning can explain why these cognitive processes gradually stabilize and become a trait: the trait which is referred to as victim sensitivity.

Victimization experiences and the stabilization of victim sensitivity