Why people try to make you look like the bad guy
Hi! I’m Katie, and I’m a cultural and social psychologist—but you can think of me as your BFF with a PhD. I live in the desert of Texas alongside the cacti, roadrunners, and horned lizards. If you’re looking to understand your inner landscape and the whirlwind of the world around you, I hope you find something of value here. Make sure to subscribe—and you won’t miss a beat! Thank you so much for being here.
Paula was a hardworking employee at a tech startup.
However, when her boss started to feel threatened by her success, he began to undermine her in front of their team.
He would take credit for her work and low-key criticize her in meetings.
Soon, Paula's colleagues began to see her as a "difficult" employee and avoided working with her.
Paula realized she was being made out to be the "bad guy" even though she was just trying to do her job.
Sam and his girlfriend had been together for two years when she suddenly broke up with him.
She told their mutual friends that Sam had been dishonest—even likely unfaithful—throughout their relationship.
Soon, everyone was avoiding Sam and he felt like the "bad guy."
However, when he talked to his ex-girlfriend, she admitted that she had made up the stories to justify breaking up with him.
Sam realized that sometimes people will make you out to be the "bad guy" to cover up their own mistakes.
Lisa was a newlywed who had married into a big family with some strongly set-in-stone family dynamics.
At a family gathering, Sarah accused her sister-in-law, Lisa, of being rude to her.
She told everyone that Lisa had made snide comments and ignored her all night.
However, Sarah's husband overheard the conversation and saw that Sarah had actually been the one making unkind comments to Lisa.
Lisa realized that her new arrival into this family system felt threatening to Sarah and Sarah was portraying Lisa as the “bad guy”.
I’m certain you can relate to one or all of the above scenarios.
It’s likely you've encountered your own situation or setting where someone made you out to be #thebadguy.
Let’s talk about the psychology behind it.
Think about your specific situation.
Oftentimes, we can trace this back to you (either actively or passively) pushing against a status quo, set hierarchy, or the standard “way we do things around here”.
Maybe you’ve entered into a family system via marriage and your mere fresh presence is threatening the way the family has functioned for years.
Maybe you’re disrupting the status quo of a corporation with your fresh ideas and bold drive.
It’s likely that if you’re being made out to be the “bad guy” in a situation or setting, it’s because you’re disrupting something for that antagonist.
When you’re part of a group or institution that relies on conformity and group membership, questioning any traditions, beliefs, or standard goings-on of that system can threaten the system and its identity.
And, not just questioning it overtly—but questioning it even passively by the way you do things or your presence in some way.
This may lead to you being labeled, typecasted, and even dehumanized.
Institutions (think big and small institutions—big corporations all the way down to small friend groups) may use weaponized belonging to maintain conformity and push individuals to agree with their modus operandi.
This is often a result of dualistic thinking.
Something that is on hyperdrive more than ever in our culture today.
However, if you find yourself in a setting where your presence is either passively or actively challenging a status quo—this can be healthy and sometimes even necessary for the growth of the institutions and individuals in those institutions.
It requires courage to keep showing up even if you’ve been branded the “bad guy”.
And, it takes courage to continue to be yourself and challenge a system's structures and push back on those cultural norms that may be backing you into a corner.
So, first and foremost, resist responding by backing down, making yourself small, or giving into the narrative that you’re the one in the wrong.
CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO
Suppose you belong to an organization that relies on group membership to sustain its system or culture.
In that case, it's essential to that system for you as a group member to uphold the party line, believe in its principles, and endorse them.
Think of family systems, churches, workplaces, and even individual one-to-one relationship dynamics, to name a few.
Considering how this works in larger systems and structures may be a bit easier.
You begin to question the traditions in your church or the culture of the company you work for.
However, this can also happen in family systems or individual relationships.
You may desire to rewrite an unhealthy family pattern or redefine gender roles and expectations in your marriage.
First, make note that when you begin to stray from the norm and challenge the status quo in any way, you go against the very system that keeps everything in place.
THREATENING THE IDENTITY OF A SYSTEM OR THE PEOPLE
For a system and structure to operate effectively, the majority must agree and work to support and uphold the system.
Any pushback on the system or questioning its processes can be seen as a challenge to the system’s identity and the identity of the people maintaining it.
It’s important to recognize this and remember that if you are shaking up the status quo of a system in any way, you may be viewed as not only challenging the system itself but also the people who are responsible for maintaining it.
This can be a delicate matter, as it begins to threaten the solid nature of one’s identity.
Therefore, any questioning or seeming disagreement can have significant social consequences.
Here's a great example: if you question an aspect of your religion, your questions and hypotheticals may be viewed as more than just theological or theoretical.
Those who are a part of the religious hierarchy or others who greatly depend on the church system functioning normally may see your questions as direct threats to their own individual identity.
The religion may be enmeshed with who they are, and to question the foundation of the religion may also fundamentally question who they are.
MORAL TYPECASTING
When asking questions about an institution or system, evoking change, or challenging the status quo in any way, members of that system may act out of this perceived threat.
One common way an institution and those working to uphold that institution may respond is by branding you.
This labeling is rooted in the concept of moral typecasting, which divides individuals into two categories: victimizer or victim.1
Good guy and bad guy.
This approach perpetuates an "us versus them" mentality, where individuals are either with us or against us.
Asking questions, pushing back on the status quo, or flipping the script for how things are normally done, can sometimes lead institutions and systems to label you as a victimizer, painting you as an adversary.
For example, you ask a question about your religion, and you are branded “a naysayer”, “difficult”, “a rabble-rouser”, “demanding”, “bitter”, or “just angry”.
David Livingstone Smith, a philosopher studying the concept of dehumanization, has identified this as the first step in forming a narrative around you.2
If the system can ostracize you and brand you as a “them”, then they can ignore and thus avoid your important questions or challenges or change you may be presenting.
It's important to recognize this phenomenon and the impact it can have on you.
Let's delve deeper into this topic.
WHEN YOU’RE BRANDED THE BAD GUY
Challenging institutions and systems—overtly or passively—may sometimes lead to being unfairly labeled as a victimizer.
This is particularly nefarious because psychology research has shown that once someone has labeled another person or group as either victim or victimizer, it can be challenging to change that perception in the future.
If someone categorizes you as a victimizer, it's challenging to change their perception of you as time goes on.
However, this strategy works to the system's advantage.
If they can brand you as an aggressor, bad guy, or a victimizer, then they carry control of the narrative in the situation.
They can paint themselves in the light of being in the right and you as being in the wrong simply for asking a question, doing things differenty, posing a thought or merely existing.
This same thing can happen in one-on-one relationships, as well.
Have you ever found yourself in conflict with someone else like Sam in the story above, and suddenly they've spread the narrative to your friends and family that you're the "bad guy"?
This is also a form of moral typecasting.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS STICK
Psychological research has found that even in cases of law or other similar fields when an individual has been previously perceived as a victim, it becomes challenging for others to change their perception and see them as capable of victimizing others.
This phenomenon is often observed within institutional and systemic contexts where the victim's mentality is reinforced.
Once you have been branded as the “bad guy”, it’s very difficult for that impression to be changed, even if you may share your side of the story or plead your innocence to being against the system.
You may simply be experiencing doubt and expressing confusion about your religion, for example, not working to tear the whole thing down.
Yet, once a person or system perceives a threat in you and your questions, the damage may already be done.
WEAPONIZED BELONGING
Powerful institutions or even powerful figures in family systems or one-to-one relationships may seek to divide people into two groups—those with them and those against them.
This creates a sense of weaponized belonging, rooted in the concept of fitting in rather than true belonging a lá Brené Brown.3
Unfortunately, this can make it difficult to be yourself without fear of repercussions when you’re a member of one of these systems or communities.
OUR CULTURE IS BUILT ON DUALISTIC THINKING
Have you ever felt pressured to conform to a group's beliefs, values, and actions to avoid negative social consequences?
This is exactly what I mean by weaponized belonging, a phenomenon where individuals are forced to comply with the group's agenda or risk being ostracized.
While many institutions and their leaders may not be consciously implementing such measures, others may also be baking this into their system's culture without even knowing it.
Your awareness of this issue is crucial as an individual and can serve as a reminder that you are not alone if you find yourself being typecast as “the bad guy”.
Generally, there is something much deeper happening behind the scenes.
It's no secret that our Western culture is built on dualistic thinking.
This means that everything is categorized as either right or wrong, good or bad, with no room for uncertainty, questions, or gray areas.
Unfortunately, this mindset trickles down into our societal systems and institutions, creating a rigid structure that leaves little room for alternative perspectives and can harm individuals.
We all, at times, find ourselves in the messy middle.
This is what it means to be human.
And, dualistic thinking is a limiting way to view social communities, social interactions, and experiences in life.
It is a limiting way to view people.
It takes courage to stand out, stand up, be yourself, ask questions, and even push back against systems and culture when you’re being branded the bad guy.
All of this can be good and achieved healthily, even amidst the uncertainty that can make us feel so uncomfortable when change is on the horizon.
CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO IS A GOOD THING
We all have our unique viewpoints.
You can see things that I am blinded to.
I can see things that you may be unaware of.
However, what's most important to recognize is that challenging or questioning institutions, belief systems, and traditions is not only acceptable but can be helpful to any of these things growing and evolving.
Challenging the status quo when something is no longer working to support the greater good or the good of the individual can be a positive first step forward toward growth.
If you find yourself in a situation where you feel the lack of freedom or safety to be yourself, show up in your boldness, ask questions, it's unhealthy to avoid that.
An institution, system, or person that doesn't challenge itself can be harmful.
Remember that it's important to ask questions, and it's okay.
Failing to ask questions is an unhealthy practice for an individual.
An unwillingness to be curious and inquisitive in our lives, relationships, values, and beliefs can be detrimental to our growth.
Human development research has shown that our beliefs should grow and change over time.
One way of setting the table for that growth and change is by asking helpful and challenging questions of ourselves, our relationships, our beliefs, our traditions, and the systems we a part of.
When you belong to a group or institution that values conformity and group membership, doing things differently or questioning can be perceived as a threat to the system's identity.
This can lead to being typecasted or even dehumanized.
Some institutions use weaponized belonging to enforce conformity and discourage individuals from diverging from their values and beliefs.
This is often due to dualistic thinking and a deep existential need for certainty and stability (lack of change).
However, questioning and doubting are essential for personal, communal, and institutional growth.
It takes bravery to challenge the identity of a system and push back against cultural norms, even if you’re being branded the bad guy.
Make sure to read the one where I talk about why socializing sometimes sucks.
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For more on this topic, read: Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M. (2009). Moral typecasting: Divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(3), 505–520.
For more on this topic, read: Smith, D. L. (2021). Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization. Harvard University Press.