Episode Details

There is a type of person who will walk into a room full of strangers, start a fight, and then tell everyone they were attacked.

They will say something offensive on purpose. They will wait for the reaction. And then they will point to that reaction as proof that they are being persecuted.

This is not random behavior. This is a strategy. And researchers have now measured it.

The Study That Changed Everything

In 2021, researcher Ekin Ok at the University of British Columbia ran six studies on people who publicly display two things at the same time: their virtue and their victimhood.

She wanted to know what kind of person does this the most.

The answer was clear across all six studies.

The people who combined virtue signaling with victim signaling scored highest on three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. These three traits together are known as the Dark Triad. They represent the most manipulative, self-serving, and emotionally cold personality profile psychologists have ever measured.

But the most important finding was not who these people were. It was what they were doing.

Ok and her team found that this combination of signals was not about expressing real pain or real goodness. It was a resource extraction strategy. The research showed that people who signal virtue and victimhood at the same time are more successful at getting other people to give them things. Attention. Sympathy. Money. Status. Followers.

Psychologists call this nonreciprocal resource transfer. That means the signaler takes, but never gives back.

And the people who do it the most are not the ones who have actually been hurt. They are the ones who score highest in manipulation.

Why Religion Is the Perfect Weapon

Now here is where it gets worse.

Religion gives narcissistic people something no other institution can offer: a moral framework that comes pre-installed with authority.

If you claim to speak for God, you do not need credentials. You do not need evidence. You do not need anyone’s permission. The authority is built into the claim itself.

Psychologist Gordon Allport spent decades studying why some religious people behave well and others behave terribly. He came up with a framework that splits religious motivation into two types.

The first type is intrinsic. That means a person practices their faith because they actually believe in it. They have internalized the values. Their religion shapes how they treat people, how they make decisions, how they live. Their faith is the point.

The second type is extrinsic. That means a person uses religion as a tool. They go to church for the social network. They quote scripture for the authority it gives them. They perform devotion because it gets them status, comfort, or control. The faith is not the point. The benefits are the point.

Decades of research have confirmed the same pattern. Extrinsic religiosity is linked to prejudice, manipulation, and dysfunction. Intrinsic religiosity is not.

And here is the part that should concern everyone.

A 2026 study published in Personality and Individual Differences found that every single facet of narcissism was linked to extrinsic religious orientation. Agentic narcissism. Antagonistic narcissism. Neurotic narcissism. Communal narcissism. All of them. Every type of narcissist uses religion as a means to an end.

Not one type of narcissism was linked to intrinsic faith.

The Communal Narcissist Problem

There is a specific type of narcissist that thrives in religious settings more than any other. Researchers Jochen Gebauer and Constantine Sedikides identified what they call communal narcissism.

A communal narcissist does not brag about being rich or powerful. They brag about being the most caring person in the room. The most selfless. The most giving. The most spiritually evolved.