And of course - Virtue Signalling

This is my shocked face - a paper from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:

Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as Indicators of Dark Triad Personalities
Ekin Ok, Yi Qian, Brendan Strejcek, and Karl Aquino
University of British Columbia
We investigate the consequences and predictors of emitting signals of victimhood and virtue. In our first three studies, we show that the virtuous victim signal can facilitate nonreciprocal resource transfer from others to the signaler. Next, we develop and validate a victim signaling scale that we combine with an established measure of virtue signaling to operationalize the virtuous victim construct. We show that individuals with Dark Triad traits—Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy—more frequently signal virtuous victimhood, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic variables that are commonly associated with victimization in Western societies. In Study 5, we show that a specific dimension of Machiavellianism—amoral manipulation—and a form of narcissism that reflects a person’s belief in their superior prosociality predict more frequent virtuous victim signaling. Studies 3, 4, and 6 test our hypothesis that the frequency of emitting virtuous victim signal predicts a person’s willingness to engage in and endorse ethically questionable behaviors, such as lying to earn a bonus, intention to purchase counterfeit products and moral judgments of counterfeiters, and making exaggerated claims about being harmed in an organizational context.

They talk about Virtue Signalling and quote the OED (alas, behind a paywall):

Virtue signaling is defined as “the conspicuous expression of moral values, done primarily with the intent of enhancing one’s standing within a social group” (Oxford English Dictionary)

And a nice writeup on the paper and on current society in general over at Reason:

Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Manipulators Are More Likely To Engage in 'Virtuous Victim Signaling,' Says Study
New study links virtue signaling to "Dark Triad" traits. Being accused of "virtue signaling" might sound nice to the uninitiated, but spend much time on social media and you know that it's actually an accusation of insincerity. Virtue signalers are, essentially, phonies and showoffs—folks who adopt opinions and postures solely to garner praise and sympathy or whose good deeds are tainted by their need for everyone to see just how good they are. Combined with a culture that says only victimhood confers a right to comment on certain issues, it's a big factor in online pile-ons and one that certainly contributes to social media platforms being such a bummer sometimes.

I am not in the least bit surprised - the people acting out; the "peaceful protesters"; are people with serious behavioral pathologies. These are not adults. These are infantilized people in adult bodies. This is the legacy of our educational system for the last 20 years.