A victim mentality may manifest itself in a range of different behaviours or ways of thinking and talking:

 Identifying others as the cause for an undesired situation and denying a personal responsibility for one's own life or circumstances.[9]
 Exhibiting heightened attention levels (hypervigilance) when in the presence of others.
 Awareness of negative intentions of other people.
 Believing that other people are generally more fortunate.
 Gaining relief from feeling empathy for oneself or receiving empathy from others.

It has been typically characterized by attitudes of pessimism, self-pity, and repressed anger.[10] People with victim mentality may develop convincing and sophisticated explanations in support of such ideas, which they then use to explain to themselves and others of their situation.