RT Article
T1 What's in a word? Victims on ‘victim'
JF International review of victimology
VO 24
IS 2
SP 151
OP 164
A1 Fohring, Stephanie
LA English
YR 2018
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1687203210
AB Identifying as a victim of crime is a complex process involving both social and personal motivations. This paper utilises data gathered from victims of crime to examine how their thoughts, feelings and reactions to the victim label are influenced by societal stigma, and how this influence is mediated by personal beliefs and cognitive processes. It does this firstly by examining participants' thoughts and reactions to the word ‘victim', where findings indicate a distinct disconnect between how an incident of crime is labelled and how a victim identifies themselves, suggesting an acknowledgement of the incident as wrong and illegal, but denial of victimhood. Secondly, key themes considered by participants to be characteristic of victimhood are identified. These include weakness as a core characteristic of victims, the fluidity of the state of victimhood and the importance of effective coping versus suffering.
K1 Victims
K1 Identity
K1 Labelling
K1 Stigma
DO 10.1177/0269758018755154