Trust Me: Psychopathic Traits and Judgments of Vulnerability and Trustingness

The social predator hypothesis suggests that people with psychopathic traits are skilled in judging vulnerability in others, which enables successful victim selection. The current study investigated this premise using recorded dyadic interactions. In Phase 1, we recorded female participants (victims/nonvictims) in dyadic interactions with a confederate. Videos were coded for known cues of vulnerability/submissiveness and dominance. As expected, women with sexual victimization histories displayed more cues of submissiveness than those without victimization histories (specifically, less vocal tone variability). Furthermore, trustingness was associated with victimization history. In Phase 2, undergraduate men (N = 123) rated the women on various adjectives relating to vulnerability and dominance after viewing the dyadic interactions. Psychopathic traits were positively correlated with accuracy overall for ratings of naivety and cynicism. Importantly, the positive relationship with accuracy held for victims only. Psychopathic traits were negatively related to accuracy in nonvictims.