Psychological Reasons Behind Catfishing

To generally go over the psychological reasons behind catfishing, many people often wonder the reasons why someone would catfish another person. Catfishing is very manipulative and often times the catfish feels guilty emotions later on for using lies to trick another person into such a vulnerable position. There are many reasons that stem into the idea of deciding to make a fake identity, one of them being just out of loneliness. Someone may be really self-conscious but seeking a form of human connection that they believe they can’t get unless they pose as someone else. They may not be confident in their appearance and use a better looking person as bait to attract.  Social anxiety is another common issue associated with catfishing, the person may feel more comfortable with hiding behind a screen and using a mask to socialize with others. Another reason why someone may catifish is wanting to contact someone they already know to see how they would react to talking to a new person. This has be done for instance to test if their boyfriend/girlfriend is loyal or to stay connected with someone that is distancing himself or herself away from the real person. Of course from an outside perspective this is pointless behavior because a relationship without trust is unhealthy and if someone does not want to associate with you anymore you shouldn’t force a connection. But to a catfish this is not comprehendible with their selfish needs to please themselves. Negative emotions such as anger from being rejected may be associated as well for the reason people catfish. Many feel the need to seek revenge on someone that may have done them wrong so they create a fake profile in order to mess with them on an emotional basis or seek materialistic things. The non-typical reason why someone would be a catfish is out of boredom. They created a fake account just as a form of entertainment because it brings them excitement to see how someone would talk to them thinking that they’re someone else or this may be the case of being a pathological liar. Once it gets to a certain point where the receiver wants to meet up, they feel uncomfortable admitting that they aren’t the person that they acted as. There have been many serious cases of making fake profiles used to cyber bully. An example of this was the John Doe case. Four Illinois teenagers from his high school created a Facebook Profile used to impersonate him. They used many of his pictures on the profile and added a lot of friends from school to make it seem legit. The students that were running this page made very vulgar and racist posts to make John look bad. This page was so believable that even a football recruiter for a college that was considering him raised concern about this page. Doe suffered from sever emotional distress and since then the profile has been removed and law charges have been made. [ i ] Catfishing has been taken more seriously over the years and laws have been enforced on those that take is lightly.

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[i] Liebelt, Jim (Sepetember 29, 2009). Cypberbullying: Four Teens Sued for Creating Fake Facebook Profile. Retrieved from http://www.crosswalk.com/blogs/liebelt/cyberbullying-four-teens-sued-for-creating-fake-facebook-profile-11609103.html