Nov

19

Victimology‏, by Nigel Davies

November 19, 2009 |

The subject of victimology (Psychology Today, January 2009) has fascinating market implications. What if market predators had a similar unspoken consensus about selecting victims, and what would be the signs?

Within a few seconds, the convicts identified which pedestrians they would have been likely to target. What startled the researchers was that there was a clear consensus among the criminals about whom they would have picked as victims–and their choices were not based on gender, race, or age. Some petite, physically slight women were not selected as potential victims, while some large men were.

Don Chu comments:

Very true. And a very good read in the reference provided, especially the following: “the criminals were assessing the ease with which they could overpower the targets based on several nonverbal signals–posture, body language, pace of walking, length of stride, and awareness of environment.”

A natural question following the one posed by GM Davies above may be: what if the would-be ‘victims’ are actually predators of a higher order, masking their true abilities and intentions, and displaying their ‘weaknesses’ both as a ruse to deflect attention as well as a bait to lure an attack, all the while poised to engage+respond with hidden ‘primed power’(势)…

After all, deception is a large part of any engagment, be it in the natural world, war, individual confrontation or the financial markets.

The Thirty-Six Stratagems (三十六计): #27-Feign Madness But Keep Your Balance


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3 Comments so far

  1. Don Chu on November 20, 2009 11:50 am

    治乱，数也；勇怯，势也；强弱，形也。Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdivision; concealing courage under a show of timidity presupposes a fund of latent energy; masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions.

    -Sun Tzu, Chap V-势

  2. curmudgeon 5671 on November 20, 2009 1:18 pm

    Wow. Don Chu has a keyboard with Chinese characters.

    Should be useful now that web site names can include non Western characters.

  3. anton johnson on November 20, 2009 3:51 pm

    curmudgeon 5671 — Here is how it's done.

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