Feeling Resentment: Exploring the Role of Empathy in the Social Construction of Victims and Villains

Empathy and resentment are very relevant emotional phenomena in social dynamics. While resentment has been analyzed in sociopolitical processes, the role of empathy in the moral construction of victims, villains, and heroes underlying social interactions of cooperation and conflict remains unclear. The concept of resentment has been interpreted in many ways, but it can be defined as an emotional response by a victim who perceives injustice or discrimination. Scholars distinguish various forms of resentment, understood both as an emotion and as an emotional mechanism, depending on its capacity to foster attitudes and actions of a prosocial type based on compassion, indignation, and a sense of justice or, conversely, of antisocial type oriented towards violence, revenge, and destruction of the other (Demertzis 2020; Tomelleri 2023; Salmela e Szanto 2024). The sociology of emotions has interpreted empathy as a process of taking on the others' emotions and as a “bridge” able to connect different cultural worlds (Shott 1979; Clark 1997; Hochschild 2016; Ruiz-Junco 2017). Empathy can be seen as a means of connecting individuals and making possible the activation of emotions (positive and negative) that can favor or limit the closeness or distance between personal and collective identities (Cerulo 2024). Therefore, different forms of resentment can be identified depending on the degree and type of empathy enacted toward victims and perpetrators by those involved in the interaction. The goal of the analysis is to explore the relationship between empathy and resentment in the psychosocial and cultural processes of victimhood/blaming as it emerges from the narratives and life stories of individuals. Based on the biographical experience of subjects from Italy, differing in cultural background, socioeconomic status, gender, age, education and ethnicity, the research aims to shed light on the role of empathy in the dynamics of resentment at the micro- and macro-social levels.