Research has shown that exposure to civil war and criminal violence increases prosocial behavior in many different sociopolitical contexts, yet explanations for this finding remain unclear. This paper proposes a unifying theoretical framework and employs a mixedmethods research design to explore the moderating role of social contexts in linking victimization to altruism and political participation. Qualitative interviews with direct and indirect victims of violent crimes in Mexico suggest that positive social interactions and supportive relationships are important psychosocial resources in the aftermath of victimization. Results from a lab-in-the-field experiment show that recollection of supportive relationships and exposure to empathic messages increase altruism and participatory behavior within a sample of victims of violent crimes. Finally, data from nationally representative survey shows that social capital has a moderating effect on political participation, and that this effect is significantly stronger for crime victims than for comparable non-victims. Taken together, these findings shed light on the importance of socialization processes and social contexts in facilitating or hindering transformation of past suffering into collective action, and call attention to the conditions under which pain and loss events become sources of political mobilization.