Why Smart Women Fall for Psychopaths and Narcissists

If you were a target, these five reasons are eye-opening.

Photo by Timothy Dykes

Written by trauma and psychopathology expert, Shahida Arabi, MA

There is a misconception that smart, high-achieving women (and people in general) in our society can’t be prey to or are less susceptible to the manipulation of psychopaths or narcissists. Yet over the course of ten years of conducting research and writing on this topic, I’ve conversed with highly intelligent and insightful women from all walks of life who’ve fallen prey to the con artistry or schemes of emotionally manipulative people. This includes people from all walks of life: nurses, doctors, journalists, counselors, CEOs of companies, lawyers, wise mothers, skilled entrepreneurs, psychiatrists, authors, experts in their fields – you name it!

It doesn’t matter what industry they hail from or what university they attended or how articulate they are, how well-versed they are in manipulation tactics, or what life wisdom they have accumulated; no one is entirely immune to a psychopath’s cycle of manipulation, no matter how brilliant and insightful they may be. Even experts such as Dr. Robert Hare, creator of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, admit to being duped from time to time by the psychopathic individuals he’s come face to face with – even while possessing all the knowledge and expertise possible to protect himself against dark triad personalities and their disarming charm.

That’s because falling for a narcissist or a psychopath has very little to do with a lack of intelligence, knowledge, strength, or character.  In fact, the more people possess these desirable traits, the more they can be targeted for their resources. The cycle of manipulation has more to do with the strength of the predator’s false mask, the qualities that make us “useful” to a manipulator, as well as the target’s propensity toward empathy, their internal wounds, unmet needs, desires, and humanity in general.

Here are five reasons why smart women (and men) fall for psychopaths:

1. Your tendency to be introspective, project your own morality, empathy, and conscience onto people who have no remorse can make you vulnerable to manipulators by default.

Most people are socialized to give people the benefit of the doubt, to rationalize abusive behavior, attribute toxic behaviors as signs of childhood trauma (which may not even exist according to longitudinal studies on narcissism and primary psychopathy), and look for reasons to excuse the toxicity of an individual.

Intelligent individuals tend to be more introspective, so they may even try to share in the blame for the mistreatment they endured and “look within” for any and every possible explanation for the toxic behavior of others that minimizes callous and malicious intentions.

This introspectiveness can be used against them by psychopaths and narcissists. We sympathize with the assumed plight of even those who are callously cruel and are prone to pointing to what must be their “low self-esteem” or traumatic childhood that led to them behaving this way. While targets of psychopaths are busy excusing their behavior, they’re busy getting away with their grandiosity and numerous crimes.

Simply being human makes you vulnerable to these types because you have a conscience and a natural inability to recognize when you’re dealing with the conscienceless without more information. You can’t always “fathom” that someone might lack empathy or remorse because that’s simply not how you are wired, so you assume everyone else feels similarly. It takes a lot of deprogramming to even begin to recognize that a manipulator may not have tour best interests at heart – and that they do not care about who they hurt in the process of getting what they want.

2. Predatory manipulators naturally gravitate to those who have the qualities and resources they need. Many survivors are targeted because of their intelligence, resources, status, connections, beauty, and success, not in spite of it.

Think about it: a wealthy or resourceful, successful, articulate, empathic and beautiful woman is a “shiny object” to a narcissist or psychopath who wants some eye candy on his arm or an extra source of income. The most sadistic of these manipulators may rejoice in taking down a particularly strong target and making her feel weak and attempting to “humble” her. Think of public figures such as Britney Spears (without her we wouldn’t even know who Kevin Federline is!), Shakira, Cardi B, Halle Berry, Sandra Bullock — all of whom have been betrayed and violated by charismatic partners with lesser status who sought to manipulate and demean them. The more you have, the more likely you’ll be a target, because manipulators want to tap into your internal and external resources for their own use.

Some narcissistic men will specifically target successful and desirable women to "trap" or “humble" them early on in an attempt to break them down through mistreatment, betrayal, infidelity, put downs, or sabotage. Whether it's marriage, pregnancy, a shared business, or some other form of deep investment, they were always seeking power and control over their "dream woman" — an unattainable woman they idealized and love bombed just so they could attempt to "humble" her and continue to have access to her long-term, even after they took off their false mask and revealed their true selves. Once she is invested in him, they will lash out in envy by doing the following…

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They will fabricate imaginary flaws that don’t exist, minimize her or downplay her, or hypercriticize and neg her to get her to doubt herself. They will exploit her resources to meet their own agendas while engaging in infidelity or harm.

3. Past traumas may have conditioned you into associating love with chaos.

While this factor doesn’t apply to everyone, there are survivors who have also endured childhood abuse or bullying in addition to their relationship with an emotional predator. These subconscious wounds can make you more susceptible to tolerating abusive behavior as well as denying or minimizing when it occurs because you may have more porous boundaries and have learned to associate love with violence, chaos, or danger.

This can also work vice versa: a victim who has had a loving childhood can also fall prey to these predatory types because they haven’t encountered a conscienceless individual before and may not know what to look for to identify one. In fact, the loving relationships they witnessed growing up may have led them to believe that tactics such as love bombing — showering praise, gifts, constant attention and affection on an individual for a hidden agenda — was simply an early stage of fairytale romance.

4. Your vulnerabilities have very little to do with your intelligence or the rational parts of our brain – they have more to do with your wounding and core unmet needs.

Psychopaths and narcissists possess the cognitive empathy (though they lack the affective empathy) to identify the emotional gaps in our lives; they prey on what they believe are our deepest desires and wherever they think they can temporarily meet a void. If they know that you’re recently out of a breakup and feeling especially lonely, or that the successful woman they’re targeting desires romantic love or to build a family, they know how to mirror the target’s deepest desires and unmet needs.

They learn all of your strengths and weaknesses while love-bombing you, so they know how to morph into what we’re most desperately looking for. The traumas they inflict on you through the idealization, devaluation and discard cycle dysregulate the emotional parts of our brain, like your amygdala, which processes fear and emotions. They try to keep you in perpetual fight, flight, fawn, and survival mode. This affects your subconscious, which can trigger hardwired beliefs and insecurities you may not even be aware of. Even the smartest of individuals may know deep down they’re being duped, but their desire to be loved (a very normal human desire, mind you) may take precedence over what they know to be logically true, even when discrepancies show up, and this effect is amplified by manipulation tactics such as gaslighting.

5. Skilled manipulators have a lifetime’s worth of practice – and their victims may have a history of doubting themselves.

Even the most discerning of individuals can gaslight themselves when meeting a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Women especially are gaslighted by society to distrust their perceptions and invalidate their own emotions. Narcissists and psychopaths tend to be charming and can fool even judges, psychiatrists, law enforcement officials and experts. We believe in and invest in the false mask because the abuser’s true self does not come out until later in the relationship. By that time, these emotional con artists are already off gallivanting with their latest victim.

If you were the victim of an emotional con artist, know that it was not your fault. You can own your agency and power in rebuilding your life without blaming yourself. You can attain the knowledge and self-trust to practice being more discerning in the future, to learn the red flags, and to work on healing any wounds or vulnerabilities that make you extra susceptible to these types and build legal safeguards to protect yourself — but you must also forgive yourself for being a target in the first place, whether in the past, present, or even in the future. It was never your fault.

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