Psychopathy and assumptions about vulnerability to exploitation

Abstract

Psychopathic appear to have an advantage in judging vulnerability in others using physical cues. In the current study, we investigated whether this extends to judgments of personality traits of people who are vulnerable to exploitation/manipulation. First, 173 women completed both the HEXACO personality inventory and the Life Events Checklist and were categorized as victims/non-victims. Women with a history of violent/sexual victimization rated themselves as lower on Agreeableness and higher on Openness to Experience and also tended to rate themselves as lower on Conscientiousness. In Phase 2, 510 men used HEXACO facets to rate two hypothetical individuals (difficult versus easy to manipulate/take advantage of). The “easy to manipulate” target was rated as higher on Emotionality and Agreeableness and lower on Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. In other words, there was a disconnect between victims' self-reported personality traits and those traits assumed to be related to vulnerability to exploitation. However, men with higher levels of psychopathy rated the “easy to manipulate” person as being more similar to actual victims' self-ratings than did those with lower psychopathic traits providing support for the idea that psychopathy may be related to a better understanding of the personalities of people who are vulnerable to exploitation.