To the Psychological Portrait of the Victims of Telephone Fraud

The article presents the results of an empirical study of the relationship of psychological characteristics (traits of the Big Five, values, cognitive styles) with behavior when contacting telephone scammers pretending to be bank employees. The relevance of the study is associated with an increase in the number of victims of telephone fraud, especially among the elderly, and the need to clarify psychological characteristics that allow to resist manipulative influence.

The aim of the work was to identify the psychological characteristics of people at risk of telephone fraud and prone to manipulative influences. The research is based on the hypothesis that such characteristics are revealed as “Cooperation” and “Conscientiousness” on the “Big Five”, as well as the style of thinking “naive optimism” and security values.

The study involved respondents aged 50+ (N = 70, 26 of them were men, the average age was 61 years). The following questionnaires were used: an abbreviated version of the “NEO-FFI” questionnaire “NEO PI-R” by P. Costa and R. McRae; “Portrait value Questionnaire by Sh. Schwartz — Revised PVQ-R”; CTI Constructive Thinking Inventory, by Epstein. In order to find out whether the respondents had encountered fraudsters, what feelings it had caused and what actions would be taken when contacting “imaginary” bank employees by phone, the authors developed a questionnaire.

According to the results obtained, respondents who constitute a risk group exposed to the manipulative influence of fraudsters were identified. People aged 50+ with pronounced security values, naive optimistic way of thinking, high self-control, who put the interests of the group above their own, inclined to cooperate, make up a group at risk of being manipulated by telephone scammers.

It is concluded that 1. The key characteristics of a victim of telephone fraud are not the
desire to get rich, but the fear of losing what is available. 2. At the level
of attitudes, it is possible to form the ability to resist telephone fraud in
people aged 70+. 3. The characteristics of resistance to manipulative influence
may be a combination of low self-control and cooperation with other people, the
lack of significance of security values and the lack of naive optimism.

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