Victims have a certain way of walking, and psychopaths can spot it. That’s the conclusion two bloggers for Psychology Today reached, based on a scientific study released last year.
The study, Psychopathic traits and perceptions of victim vulnerability, was authored by Sarah Wheeler, Angela Book and Kimberly Costello of Brock University. The abstract states:
The purpose of this study was to determine whether individuals scoring higher on psychopathic traits would be better able to judge vulnerability to victimization after viewing short clips of targets walking. Participants provided a vulnerability estimate for each target and completed the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale: Version III (SRP-III). Higher SRP-III scores were associated with greater accuracy in assessing targets’ vulnerability to victimization.
Psychology Today blogger Marisa Mauro, Psy.D., explained the study further. A group of male university students were asked to watch video clips of 12 people walking. The videos were shot from behind, and the students were asked to rate the ease at which each could be mugged. Several of the individuals had, in fact, been victimized. The students who scored high in psychopathic traits were better at picking out the people who had already been mugged.
Mauro works as a prison psychologist. Based on her experience and this study, she wrote:
Certain personal characteristics are associated with tendency to be on the receiving end of bullying such as harassment and manipulation. I have found that the demonstration of confidence through body language, speech and affective expression, for example, provides some protection.
Wallflowers
Another Psychology Today blogger, Jeff Wise, also commented on the study and what it says about victims. Wise wrote that he recently came across a guy who seemed to have the traits of a psychopath. The man was charming, good-looking, athletic, financially successful—and he left a trail of destruction in his wake. His victims sounded like wallflowers. Wise wrote:
The women who wound up on the receiving end of his attentions were individuals who, in their own description, were not very worldly, experienced, or outgoing. They were psychologically vulnerable and hence ill-equipped to either resist this fellow’s predations or to deal with them emotionally after they had occurred.
Wise concluded that, “people who are on the receiving end of crime often do mark themselves out, if only subliminally.” Mauro suggested that people can decrease perceived vulnerability by projecting dominance—more eye contact, less movement of the hands and feet.
If only it were that easy.
Traits of targeted women
The research both bloggers quoted described a particular situation—people walking down the street, and how vulnerable they might be to being mugged. It should not be generalized to describe all victims of psychopaths. After all, how many of us were involved with muggers?
Consider the research by Dr. Liane Leedom on women who were targeted by psychopaths. She found that they have three traits in common:
- Extraverts. The women are outgoing, competitive, strong-willed and liked excitement. Sometimes they are free-spirited.
- Cooperative. They are high in empathy, tolerance and compassion. They value getting along with others, and are willing to compromise their own interests for the larger picture.
- Invested in relationships. They like being around people. They are sentimental and focus on special moments.
Dr. Leedom’s research relates to women. But I’ve heard from many Lovefraud readers, both men and women, who were successful, take-charge individuals—until they met the psychopath.
Personally, I don’t think anyone who watched me walk down the street would tag me as timid or vulnerable. I’m an athlete, and my stride is confident. But I was victimized by a psychopath, who took $227,000 from me, and cheated on me incessantly. And the guy started setting his hooks via e-mail, before he ever saw me walk.
Maybe projecting dominance would work to avoid muggers. But it’s not going to stop victimization by a card-carrying psychopath intent on finding a resourceful new supply.
Chiming in on this thread and here’s my thoughts;
They can be very intelligent, have high IQ’s (Intellectual Quotient) which allows them to make good busiiness men who make lots of money, as in the case of my ex-S! but they have extremely low EQ’s (Emotional Quotient)…no emotional intelligence. Their high IQ allows them to figure out how to manipulate and exploit ohters and can also show them how to fake things with some learned cognitive skills like playing an instrument. BUT they can not feel nor hear the music. They can not feel the process of acheiving a goal without the exploitation and manipulations.
They are intellectually intelligent to know how to fake emotions, empathy and guilt….yet they cant trully feel any of those….and so they are stupid because they DO recognize the essence of their evil doings, but DONT change their behaviour pattern.
So in my opinion, they are intelligent but not smart. They use their intelligence to manipulate, skeem and win over…..their lack of smartness drives them to do the stupid things they do that inevidatly destroys us.
Aeylah,
I agree , And furthermore, i think its inevitable that ultimately these stupid things destroy THEM too. When they run out of “supply”, ie, people to schmooze, con, use,manipulate,suck dry.Ive often wondered, what eventually happens to these sickos? It can t be good!.
The law of atrophy must mean that eventually they downward spiral into oblivion.And who will care for them then, and pick up the pieces of their SQUANDERED LIVES?
Whem they run out of sympathetic lovers, wives, husbands, friends, who have been used and abusd once too many.times.
When they run out of cash, good looks, charm,{superficial tho it is,}lies. con tricks,supply, what then? A lonely and probably frightened old age. Totally alone, or else dead, or in jail.
We mustnt fall into the trap of feeling sorry for them.They LOVE that, and feed on it!
GemXX
thanks donna! wallflower? me? hardly! and i’ve never thought of any of us here on facebook as weak or timid. we’re a bunch of warriors … warriors targeted by empty demons who wanted to steal our love and light, because they have none of their own. there’s no challenge for them if a woman is already seen as a ‘victim.’
Yes, I don’t consider sociopaths to be the brightest people in the world. For me, it takes training to detach and not care about what befalls a sociopath. It goes against my nature (my make-up), feeling empathy and compassion towards others – someone ending up with a miserable end to their life saddens me, being unable to be completely unemotional about it.
Gem;
I think your right, they do shrivel up and become scared lonely creatures. To some degree I’m seing it with x-S as since loosing me, his main source of supply and the loss of his erction due to protate surgery, his charm is wayning and his money aint buying too much happiness either. Top it off that his reputation in the comunity is well known I do believe that he’s going to age into a shriveled up, sick, scared alone old, old man. …Serves them right!
Aeylah,
I agree with your thoughts….my ex spath is a physician. The field he is in in medicine usually requires very high scores on testing in order to get a residency position. He did.
During the time we dated and he was pursuing me he would write these long sort of love letters…altho as I look back there wasn’t emotion in them, it was more a description of what our life would be together, not his feelings. After we married I remember thinking what a dumba_ _. Seriously, he was smart in his one focused field of practice but everywhere else he was an idiot. I knew more about the world, about politics, film, music and even vocabulary. He didn’t know what posthumous meant nor how to spell it. I always wondered about that.
Anyway, when we were in China adopting our daughter we had someone film us as we saw her for the very first time. (It is a 25 min. dvd of Mia’s story, very sweet). During the filming, when I finally let go of Mia and let him hold her, I remember this one time where he was standing and we were talking to the orphanage workers and as he was holding her he tried to wipe his eyes. I looked up at him, confused, because it didn’t appear as tough he was crying. But I assumed it and thought, oh how sweet….DUH! So, now when I see that video and see that one moment of him holding the sides of his head with his fingers, trying to wipe his eyes….it looks completely fake. I can connect those old feelings of incongruity to the reality now, which is he has no Emotional intelligence, and he has learned the behavior of emotion.
That was one way he “hooked” me. He could make himself cry and early on in our relationship it made me think he had so much empathy. Later on, in therapy, he stated, “I have no empathy of compassion for the women close to me”.
well, there you go! That’s when I realized there is nothing for me to work with and I left him.
pollyannanomore;
Good for you!!!!!!! sounds like you are trully healing and finding your inner strenghts again. You go girl! 🙂
Dear Chinagirl,
Yep they can sure fake it. I hope things continue to go well with you and that you are still able to make contact by e mail and phone with your daughter and maybe have been able to visit with her in person since you last posted.
You are in my prayers! (((hugs))))
Polly, good to see you back posting too! Glad you are doing well! (((hugs))))
Different predators want different things.
My exP has a friend, H, who is a loner that lives in a shack down by the river. I stopped in to see him a while ago. He told me that when he first saw me, in 1987 or so, I was sitting in the P’s car and he thought to himself, “she’s got it all, that woman would be high maintenance” So that is how I appeared to others, when in fact the P was high maintenance and I had to pay for everything. Many of the P’s friends had disabled girlfriends who got disability checks and one guy he was “helping because they are homeless” was a pimp with a prostitute girlfriend. I would say those guys were picking up weak prey, while my exP was picking the “fattest cow”. But I was only 17, so that is a weakness in itself. My exP likes the long con. He thinks that the longer he stretches it out, the more “normal” it appears and the harder it is for people to see that it is a con, or that there is a connection between the dots. He is a “boil the frog slowly” kind of con artist. And sure enough, when he got impatient, he misjudged, turned up the heat too fast and I got away. The reason he got impatient was because I had caused him too many narcissistic injuries and he let his rage rule his mind. I had stopped enabling him. And like others have posted, he said, “who are you? I don’t even know you anymore.”
At the time I thought he was projecting, actually saying, “who am I? You don’t know the real me.” Maybe he meant it both ways.
Dear 1 Step:
I totally agree, I don’t fit the profile either, quite the opposite actually-too good of a person-