We found a cluster of psychological traits that are associated with catfishing – known as the “dark tetrad” of personality. This includes psychopathy, sadism, narcissism, and Machiavellianism.
If you suspect you're dealing with a catfish, use an online reverse image search to find out if the person's photos are on anyone else's online profiles. You can also search their messages online. Take any particularly unique or romantic lines they've written to you and search to see if they pop up anywhere else.
How can you tell if someone is using a catfish picture?
Right-click their photos, copy the URL, and paste in the box at images.google.com. Google will then search for other sources of that image online. If nothing is found, try a few photos and see what crops up. Don't forget that Instagram images aren't indexed so Google won't be able to search them.
What Is a Catfish? For those who don't know what a catfish is, it is someone who makes an account on social media and pretends to be someone else, usually by using someone else's pictures instead of their own. Anyone who creates a fake profile on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. is considered an (online) catfish.
25 to 34-year-olds are the most likely to be targeted by catfishers, accounting for 24% of victims in romance scams. This statistic is a crucial piece of information when it comes to understanding the prevalence of catfishing.
Men tend to believe what they see online. 20% of victimized men admit they have been catfished more than five times. Men are also 25% more likely to fall for a catfishing scam than women. Women are often thought of as fragile.
Catfish will try and move the conversation onto a different platform, usually something like WhatsApp, Kik or email, for a few reasons. Scammers know that anti-scam technology software on the sites will likely pick up trends in conversation and shut down the profile.
They can be found on all continents except Antarctica. The greatest concentration of sensory organs on a catfish is located on their whiskers, also known as barbels. Catfish develop up to four pairs of whiskers. Catfish can survive from eight to 20 years in the wild, depending on the species.
The catfish genus can be defined as displaying an eel shape, having an elongated cylindrical body with dorsal and anal fins being extremely long (nearly reaching or reaching the caudal fin) with both fins containing only soft fin rays (Figure 3).
Asking for explicit pictures or videos. Asking for explicit pictures or videos can be a huge red flag. This could mean the asker is trying to combine catfishing with another dangerous form of cybercrime: sextortion.
The most common reason people will catfish others is a lack of confidence. If people aren't happy with themselves, they feel that by being someone more attractive, they are fully able to express themselves freely without their insecurities holding them back.
Catfishing is more common than people may think. Studies show that about 23% of women and 38% of men have catfished someone. Dating apps are the number one place for catfishing to take place—accounting for nearly 40% of all catfishing.
