💰 How Financial Scammers Target Vulnerable Brains

New research reveals that a specific cocktail of health, social, and emotional traits makes people more exploitable

According to the FTC, Americans lost over $10 billion last year to financial fraud, with older adults often the primary targets. But why are some people more likely to fall victim than others?

A new multi-study investigation offers the most comprehensive picture to date. Across three, diverse samples in the U.S., researchers identified key psychological, social, and health-related factors that predict how likely someone is to be financially exploited. And crucially, they found that many of these risk factors interact—meaning that someone’s vulnerability can’t be fully understood in isolation.

If you’ve ever wondered how people fall for seemingly obvious scams, this research shows it’s not just about gullibility or age. It’s about the full context of a person’s health, cognitive ability, emotional patterns, and social connections.

⚠️ What makes people financially exploitable?

In a 2025 study published in Nature Communications Psychology, researchers combined data from three survey-based studies involving 1,918 U.S. adults:

• Study 1: Focused on older adults (aged 50+) in the Philadelphia metro area (N = 680).

• Study 2: Replicated the study in people aged 50+ across Pennsylvania (N = 305).

• Study 3: Expanded to a national sample across age groups (N = 933).

Participants completed a battery of validated questionnaires assessing:

• Financial exploitation risk using the Older Adult Financial Exploitation Measure (OAFEM) and the Financial Exploitation Vulnerability Scale (FEVS-SF).

• Trust and fairness via economic games (Trust Game and Ultimatum Game).

• Physical, mental, and cognitive health

• Psychosocial traits, including persuadability, emotion regulation, perceived social support, and the need to belong.

The researchers then used regression analyses to identify which factors predicted higher exploitation risk and how those factors interacted with each other.

The data suggested that the most robust predictors of financial exploitation were psychosocial and health-related, especially when combined with low socioeconomic status:

• Poor emotion regulation, especially the tendency to deliberately worsen one’s own emotions (as measured by survey items such as “I looked for problems in my current situation to make myself feel worse”), was strongly linked to higher exploitation risk. This was especially true for people with lower socioeconomic status.

• Greater persuadability and insensitivity to trustworthiness cues (e.g. trouble detecting who is untrustworthy) were both reliable predictors across all studies.

• Poor physical health, mental health, and greater subjective cognitive decline were also associated with higher vulnerability.

• Lower perceived social support and a high need to belong also correlated with greater risk, suggesting that social isolation or unmet interpersonal needs might make people more susceptible to manipulative tactics.

Interestingly, how people performed on fairness or trust-based economic games did not predict exploitation risk, despite prior assumptions that these factors would be central. The researchers suggest this could be due to the hypothetical nature of the games and the relatively small amounts of money involved. Since financial exploitation comes with substantial real-life consequences, it may be hard to model its effects or predictors—the emotions, stakes, and decision-making processes—in lab-based games.

In short, being emotionally vulnerable, socially unsupported, or cognitively impaired—especially if you’re also lower in income—can create a perfect storm of risk for financial scams.

⭐️ Takeaway tips

#1. Don’t overlook the risks of poor emotion regulation

• People who habitually dwell in negative emotions or struggle to regulate how they feel are at greater risk of being exploited. Mental fitness matters as much as financial literacy. Interventions that support healthy emotional habits may offer protection.

#2. Watch for persuasion-prone cognitive traits

• Traits like persuadability and poor detection of untrustworthy behavior aren’t just minor quirks—they’re risk factors for real vulnerability to financial exploitation. Being aware of your own tendencies or the tendencies of your loved ones in these areas can help you to build better safeguards.

#3. Risk is contextual rather than isolated

• The combination of poor health, social isolation, financial strain, and the psychological risk factors mentioned above are far more predictive of exploitation risk than any single factor. If someone in your life checks multiple boxes, that’s a red flag, and you can reduce their vulnerability by reminding them that they can always ask you for support when they need it.

“We believe truth is more important than the trouble it takes to get it.”

~ Judge William Clark

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