Why Selfish People Love to Use Religion to Hurt People

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.

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.

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.

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.

But here is the catch. When researchers actually measured their behavior, communal narcissists were no more prosocial than anyone else. They just believed they were. The gap between how good they thought they were and how good they actually were was enormous.

This is the person who stands up in a public space and preaches at people who did not ask to be preached at. This is the person who records the confrontation. This is the person who posts it online with a caption about being persecuted for their faith.

They are not doing this because they care about your soul. They are doing this because the performance of caring is what feeds them.

The genius of this strategy is that it is almost impossible to call out.

If you push back against someone who is using religion to provoke you, they have a ready-made defense: you are attacking their faith. You are persecuting a believer. You are proving their point.

This is exactly what Ok’s research predicted. The virtuous victim signal works because it puts the target in a lose-lose position. If you react, you become the villain in their story. If you do not react, they escalate until you do.

The research also showed that people who frequently signal virtuous victimhood are more willing to lie, cheat, and exaggerate claims of being harmed. This was not a side finding. It was a core result across multiple studies.

These are not people who were wronged and are asking for help. These are people who manufacture conflict because conflict is profitable.

None of this is an argument against religion. The research actually makes the opposite point.

People with intrinsic faith tend to be more humble, more forgiving, and more empathetic. Genuine belief appears to be protective against exactly the kind of manipulation described here.

The problem is not faith. The problem is people who use the language of faith as a delivery system for narcissistic supply.

When someone preaches at strangers on a train and keeps going after being told to stop, they are not practicing religion. They are farming content.

When someone records the reaction and posts it online, they are not spreading the gospel. They are building a brand.

When someone frames your discomfort as persecution, they are not defending God. They are feeding a personality disorder.

The sermon is not the point. The reaction is the point.

Your discomfort is the product.

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Ok, E., Qian, Y., Strejcek, B., & Aquino, K. (2021). Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as Indicators of Dark Triad Personalities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(6), 1634-1661.

Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. M. (1967). Personal Religious Orientation and Prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5(4), 432-443.

Gebauer, J. E., Sedikides, C., Verplanken, B., & Maio, G. R. (2012). Communal Narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(5), 854-878.

Nehrlich, A. D., Gebauer, J. E., Sedikides, C., & Schoel, C. (2019). Agentic Narcissism, Communal Narcissism, and Prosociality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(1), 142-165.

Personality and Individual Differences (2026). Between Ego and Faith: Motivational, Affective, and Cognitive Dimensions of Religious Engagement in Narcissism.

Hermann, A. D., & Fuller, R. C. (2018). Grandiose Narcissism and Religiosity. In A. D. Hermann, A. B. Brunell, & J. D. Foster (Eds.), Handbook of Trait Narcissism. Springer.