Wrbouschek, M., & Hametner, K. (2026). Moral breakdowns and their (failed) repair: The role of socionormative concerns in ressentiment formation.

Theory & Psychology, 0(0).

Abstract

Conceptualizations of ressentiment imply different assessments regarding the question whether the subject of ressentiment’s (SR) initial conflict is about constitutively socionormative concerns or whether moralizing anti-sentiments and self-glorifications ground in self-centred feelings of impotence and inferiority. Although the self-deceptive affective and cognitive dynamics of ressentiment development ultimately result in a distorted evaluative outlook, the SR’s repetitive obsession with socionormative matters should not be dismissed as an a posteriori coping mechanism.

Rather, the SR’s inability to realize feelings of value points to a constitutively socionormative problematic involving a fundamental disruption of implicit value orientations (moral breakdown) as well as a structurally (re-)produced inability to engage in processes of communicative repair. It is concluded that ressentiment is a psychosocial phenomenon that can only be understood by looking simultaneously at its psycho-affective as well as sociodiscursive underpinnings.

Learn more: https://doi.org/10.1177/09593543251407229