The Grievance Engine

"Jake scrolls through LinkedIn at 2 AM, watching former classmates announce promotions while his retail paycheck barely covers rent. The unfairness burns steadily and low-not sharp rejection, but chronic injustice. By morning, that heat will find an outlet: snapped words with his girlfriend, a confrontation with his manager, or another angry post that his friends will quietly unfollow. The word "resentment" has become unavoidable in discussions of modern violence, especially when trying to understand why some young men-often white, often isolated-transform grievance into destruction."

"This matters because resentment isn't just a character flaw or a political trend-it's a well-documented psychological process affecting millions of people who will never cause harm. Understanding how it works doesn't justify violence, but it can help us recognize when normal frustration is turning into something more dangerous. If anger is a flash fire, resentment is a slow cooker-set to "low," always on, and guaranteed to boil over at the worst possible moments."

Resentment operates as chronic, simmering grievance built by rumination and moral storytelling, distinct from anger's brief, sharp reactions. Social media amplifies resentment by turning private frustrations into public, validated grievances that intensify perceived injustices. People with high justice sensitivity experience unfairness more intensely and become prone to long-term grudges. Resentment creates mental infrastructure that makes hostile narratives more accessible and normalizes retaliatory thinking. Most resentful people never commit violence, but resentment functions as "available fuel" that can facilitate aggression under certain conditions. Recognizing triggers and the slow-building nature of resentment can help distinguish ordinary frustration from potentially harmful escalation.

Read at Psychology Today