Catfishing: The psychology behind the disturbing phenomenon

Kirat Assi had the world at her feet. A sweet-natured and successful presenter on a local radio station in London, she had her life on track until one day, Bobby, a clean-cut cardiologist living in Brighton, derailed everything. Over a tumultuous decade, the two embark on a virtual relationship, and Bobby coercively controls Kirat to the point where she retreats from her work, friends, family and loses her total sense of self. Without giving away any major spoilers, “Bobby” is not who he says he is. He is a catfish – a person who uses false information to cultivate an online persona that does not represent their true identity. 

But Kirat is not the first, nor the last, person to be a victim of catfishing. The term “catfish” was first coined by Nev Schulman in his hit 2010 documentary “Catfish”, after he discovered that the woman he’d been flirting with online for months was, in fact, an older woman using photographs of a model. 

Since then, several high-profile cases of catfishing have emerged. In 2011, the NBA star Chris Anderson became embroiled in a catfishing scandal that resulted in jail time for the perpetrator and in 2014, the singer Casey Donovan revealed in her memoir that a six-year relationship she had turned out to be fake (and the person had also lied about their gender). Nowadays, there are popular shows like Catfish UK, and The Circle premised on the effects of pretending to be another person online.

The latest show that has reignited interest in this curious phenomenon is the new six-part series Sweet Bobby by Alexi Mostrous at Tortoise Media. Mostrous tells us Kirat Assi’s jaw-dropping story from 2009 up until now. Along the way, Mostrous unravels a spider web of deceit, lies and betrayal of almost unimaginable proportions, which, as you can predict, makes for a listen that is as spine-chilling as it is enthralling. 

Nowadays, it’s estimated that over 40 per cent of people are in established relationships with partners they met online. But going online to find Mr or Mrs Right remains a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it brings ample opportunity to connect with others and to widen your horizons, but with this increase in internet activity comes an increase in cases of trickery and treachery. Cases have risen owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and the decrease in face-to-face meetings. 

But what sort of person would go to such extremes to conduct an act of fraudulence?

A study published in Sexual & Relationship Therapy in 2020 discovered that men are more likely than women to be a catfish and that people who had anxious attachment styles – meaning they found it hard to be secure or loved in a relationship, and needed reassurance and attention – were more likely both to catfish and be catfished. 

But, in truth, there is no sole reason why someone commits an act of catfishing. “They could be doing it for financial gains, to hurt someone emotionally, to gain sexual pleasure, or to satisfy some sort of emotional and psychological need,” explains Christopher Hand, a Senior Psychology Lecturer at the University of Glasgow who helped Mostrous with the psychology behind the Sweet Bobby case. “It might even be that the person has a more “innocent” motive – they’re not trying to hurt the other person, but it’s maybe that they’re just so uncomfortable “as themselves” that they take on another persona.”

“Those who are doing it ‘maliciously’ for extortion or similar reasons are likely to show characteristics like psychopathy, sadism, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. These are known as the Dark Tetrad.” We can discover more about the mind of a catfish by looking at the investigation conducted by the University of Queensland. Researchers conducted online interview with 27 people from around the world who self-identified as a catfish.

They found that these perpetrators were motivated by loneliness, struggles with social connection, dissatisfaction with their bodies, a desire for escapism, or a need to explore their gender or sexual identity. Loneliness was mentioned by 41% of the respondents.

One interviewee even said: “I just wanted to be more popular and make friends that could talk to me, some part of the day.” One-third of the responses also claimed dissatisfaction with their physical appearance as a reason. One said: “If I try to send my real, unedited pictures to anyone that seems nice, they stop responding to me. It’s a form of escapism, or a way of testing what life would be like if you were the same person but more physically attractive.” 

Other responses, as Dr Hand predicted, included a desire to use false personas to explore their sexual or gender identity, a desire to escape, and even a quarter of respondents said they began catfishing “out of practicality”, such as being too young for a website or game, so they had to build a new persona. 

If you’d previously heard of catfishing before reading this, chances are you likened it to acts of financial fraud. But if this research has proved anything, it’s that a substantial portion of people are not doing this for monetary gain. Rather, they are exploiting the trust of others for psychological reasons. 

Scientific American also noted that catfishing could be encouraged by a phenomenon called the “online disinhibition effect,” where online anonymity, as we have seen in cases of trolling and conspiracy spreading, makes people less likely to adhere to the moral codes they would use in real 3-D life. 

“All the wonderful tools we have at our disposal carry a double edge” says Dr Hand – photo editing software, website creation, social media profile creation, easily accessible open resources; all of these things make it easy to do fantastic, legitimate things. But, at the same time, they also make it easier to create a false online identity and false (but highly convincing) digital footprint.”

Is there any way we can deal with this growing problem? 

“I was really happy to be a part of Sweet Bobby because of how methodically and rigorously they went about their investigation.” Dr Hand states. “That’s the key – methodologically rigorous research, involving victims, perpetrators, the public, mental health professionals, legislators and so on.

We need to get all the stakeholders involved in the research, and develop small and large-scale impactful research projects to better understand what motivates people to do it, why people become victims, how we  can better support victims and perpetrators and how we develop systems that balance people’s rights to anonymity and to presenting themselves ‘differently’ against the malicious use of these freedoms. 

I personally don’t like the idea of removing anonymity as this has implications for things like witness protection, survivors of interpersonal violence, stalking victims, people with social anxiety disorders, and so [when it comes to catfishing] we have to think of fair, balanced and sophisticated solutions.”

You can listen to all the latest episodes of the Sweet Bobby podcast here.

If you think you could be a victim of catfishing, read How to Spot a Catfish by Age UK.