A Violent Predator’s Perception of Vulnerability

What violent offenders see, and what we all need to understand about body language and personal safety.

We often imagine that personal safety is about tools, alarms, or martial arts. But what if a major factor that influences whether a predator targets someone isn’t their gender or size, but the way they walk?

Psychological research suggests exactly that.

What Violent Predators or Criminals Actually Look For

In 1981, psychologists Betty Grayson and Morris Stein conducted a now-famous and deeply revealing study that has become a cornerstone in understanding how predators perceive vulnerability. As part of their research, they filmed everyday pedestrians walking along the streets of New York City as they walked by (between 10:00 AM and 12:00 pm over a three-day period). These were ordinary people, going about their daily routines, entirely unaware they were being recorded for a psychological experiment.

The researchers then showed these silent videos to imprisoned violent offenders, individuals with first-hand experience in selecting and targeting victims, and asking them to select those individuals who they would target/victimise (on a scale from 1 to 10), in order to discover if there were any identifiable non-verbal cues that were commonly picked up on/identified.

The question was simple: “Who would you choose to attack?”

What emerged was a disturbing consensus. Most of the prisoners independently identified the same individuals as ideal targets. And, even more significantly, their selections had nothing to do with obvious demographic factors like age, race, or gender. Instead, the deciding factor was movement, how a person walked, carried themselves, and occupied space.

The individuals deemed vulnerable often displayed:

• Shorter, hesitant strides

• A slower, less purposeful pace

• Minimal or a complete lack of eye contact

• Restricted, stiff, or guarded arm movements

These subtle, nonverbal cues conveyed uncertainty, distraction, or a lack of situational or environmental awareness, signals that, as it turns out, predators are highly attuned to. The offenders could read vulnerability almost instinctively, identifying it not through conscious reasoning, but through years of learned predatory behaviour.

What makes this study so powerful, interesting, unsettling, but also helpful to anyone involved in helping others to live a safer life, is that it exposes a rarely acknowledged truth: perpetrators of violence don’t just look for opportunity, they look for perceived weakness. They observe the world differently, scanning for signs of hesitation, fear, and disconnection.

This research challenges the still somehow conventional perception that random chance or sheer bad luck determines victim selection. Instead, it suggests that the way we present ourselves to the world, our body language, pace, posture, and level of awareness, can all play a role in either deterring or attracting unwanted attention. It does not, under any circumstances, place blame on victims, but it does highlight the importance of understanding how we may be perceived by others, how aware we are of our surroundings, and the broader principles of personal safety.

Decades later, this study remains a crucial insight for those with a professional interest in crime prevention, self-protection, criminal behaviour, and behavioural science.

Psychopathy and the Ability to Detect Vulnerability

Decades after Grayson and Stein's foundational research, a 2013 study led by Psychologist Dr Angela Book along with Kimberly Costello and Joseph A. Camilleri, took these insights even further, shedding light on the disturbing precision with which some individuals can detect vulnerability. The study titled "Psychopathy and Victim Selection: The Use of Gait as a Cue to Vulnerability" was published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

It explored whether people with noticeable psychopathic traits possessed a heightened ability to spot those more likely to be victimised. Forty-seven inmates from a maximum-security prison in Ontario, Canada, participated. They were shown silent video clips of individuals walking, just as in the earlier study. Some of the people in the clips had documented histories of being victimised, while others had not. The inmates were instructed to evaluate the likelihood that each individual had previously been victimised.

The results were both compelling and unsettling. Those inmates who scored higher in social and emotional traits associated with psychopathy, such as manipulativeness, a lack of empathy, and emotional coldness, were significantly more accurate in identifying individuals with a history of victimisation. Importantly, they did this without hearing a single word. Their judgments were based solely on nonverbal cues: the way someone held their body, their gait, subtle shifts in posture, and how much spatial confidence they appeared to project.

In other words, some predators are not just impulsive or opportunistic, they are highly observant and disturbingly accurate in their assessments. This points to a form of predatory intelligence that functions with near-instinctive precision. It reinforces the idea that certain offenders develop a kind of radar for vulnerability, refined through repeated exposure, manipulation, and observation.

This finding also forces us to rethink what it means to be safe. It’s not only about locking doors or avoiding dark alleyways, but also about developing a great level of awareness of how we carry ourselves, how present we are in our surroundings, and how we might be unconsciously signalling vulnerability.

Here is the good news. The implications for personal safety, trauma recovery, and even criminal profiling are far-reaching. If predators can identify victims through such subtle signals, then recognising and reclaiming one's presence, physically, emotionally, and psychologically, becomes an incredibly powerful act of self-protection.

What This Means for Personal Safety

The takeaway is, of course not, to instil fear. It’s to share helpful information and knowledge. If body language communicates vulnerability, it also means body language can communicate confidence and awareness.

Let’s be clear: the responsibility for assault or attack always lies with the perpetrator. But understanding how certain behaviours are perceived by those with harmful intent can offer an effective layer of personal protection.

So, what does it actually mean to walk purposefully or walk with confidence?

Maintain a tall, upright posture, keeping your head up and your shoulders back, as this conveys self-assurance. Walk with purpose, meaning move in a way that shows you know where you're going and why (imagine you must collect your children from school, have a medical appointment, or want to meet a good friend at a specific place). Walk at a deliberate pace that is neither rushed nor overly slow. Make brief, natural eye contact with those around you; completely avoiding eye contact can inadvertently suggest fear or submissiveness. Allow your arms to swing naturally at your sides, as excessive tension or stiffness in the upper body may signal anxiety or discomfort.

Confidence isn’t a performance. It’s a habit, something that can be practiced and internalised over time. Surround yourself with people who reflect your strengths back to you, those who remind you of what you’re capable of. And engage in activities that allow you to succeed, even in small ways, because each success ultimately reinforces your belief in yourself.

We often teach women to carry alarms, avoid shortcuts, or share their location. In fact, I wrote an entire 530-page trauma-informed book titled NEVER A VICTIM about it. But, in my opinion, we don't talk enough about the science and psychology of how predators perceive body language. That needs to change.

Understanding how the appearance of vulnerability is interpreted doesn’t mean blaming the victim. It means equipping people with knowledge that could tip the balance in their favour.

Because confidence, awareness, and presence are not just mental states. They’re visible, and they matter.

Violence is rarely random. Predators very often assess, select, and calculate. The more we understand their mindset, the more strategic we can be in both prevention and response.

Personal safety education must evolve. We need to move beyond outdated notions and embrace psychological insight. We need to prepare, not just protect, and we need to stop focusing solely on what women must avoid and start supporting what women can actually own: space, confidence, awareness, trust in their own intuition, and autonomy.

I fully understand there’s something unsettling in the idea that a walk to the shop or a morning commute could be interpreted by a predator as an invitation. But I also strongly believe there’s something empowering in knowing that small changes in posture and movement may help deflect unwanted attention.

This is, of course, not a complete solution, but it is a piece of the puzzle.

Read my full article on predator psychology and body language on Academia.edu

For ongoing insights into the psychological and physical aspects of women's safety, I invite you to explore my regularly updated blog dedicated to personal safety for women.