LINGUISTIC AND COGNITIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF A FRAUD VICTIM
Nadezhda Anatolievna Chernyavskaya, Olga Alexandrovna Usacheva · Bulletin of Chelyabinsk State University · 2025
The article is an interdisciplinary study of the socially significant phenomenon of fraud with primary attention to the linguocognitive interpretation of victim behavior. The subject of consideration is the cognitive characteristics that form the conceptual component of the concept of “fraud victim”. During the linguo-conceptual analysis of modern media texts, the ideas that have developed in society about two types of victims - typical and atypical, each of which has a special set of dominant features reflecting physiological, emotional, mental, and social personality characteristics, are identified and systematized. The portrait of a typical victim forms a complex of such conceptual features as credulity, mental immaturity, and a tendency to affective behavior. The “atypical victim of fraud” paradigm consists of categories of victims whose mental development and level of social success are quite high. The effectiveness of a fraudulent strategy in relation to an atypical victim is determined by situational factors: the short-term emotional and physiological state of the victim, the haste of the decision, as well as the professionalism of the manipulative fraudster. According to the authors, a complex of psychological, rather than socio-demographic parameters, is fundamental in the diagnosis of personal victimization. The close interaction of the conceptual and axiological components of the concept under consideration is revealed: the dominant signs of the victim, as a rule, are accompanied by an ambivalent emotional assessment with a clear predominance of negative characteristics.