- Title
- Catching the catfish : exploring gender and the dark tetrad of personality as predictors of catfishing perpetration
- Creator
- Lauder, Cassandra; March, Evita
- Date
- 2023
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/194679
- Identifier
- vital:18391
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2022.107599
- Identifier
- ISSN:0747-5632 (ISSN)
- Abstract
- Catfishing, the act of deceiving and exploiting another person online, can have significant negative impact on the target. To date, limited research has explored individual differences in perpetration of catfishing. We address this paucity by adopting an evolutionary psychology theoretical framework (the “cheater strategy” hypothesis) and exploring the utility of gender and the “Dark Tetrad” personality traits of psychopathy, sadism, Machiavellianism, and narcissism to predict catfishing perpetration. A sample of 664 participants (55.8% men, 40.3% women) with an average age of 28.84 years (SD = 9.60) were recruited via social media and completed an anonymous online questionnaire which comprised measures of personality and catfishing behaviours. Combined, the variables explained 62.6% of variance in catfishing perpetration. Results partially supported the hypotheses, with only psychopathy, sadism, and narcissism emerging as positive predictors of catfishing perpetration. Findings of the current study indicate that evolutionary psychology may be a useful theoretical framework when exploring antisocial online behaviours. Further, these findings provide crucial information regarding the psychological profile of a “catfish” and may have important practical implications by informing the prevention and management of this online behaviour. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- Relation
- Computers in Human Behavior Vol. 140, no. (2023), p.
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
- Subject
- 4608 Human-centred computing; 5201 Applied and developmental psychology; 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology; Catfishing; Cheater strategy hypothesis; Dark tetrad; Deception; Exploitation; Online
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