In nature, this refers to prey animals not being able to recognize predators. When wolves were reintroduced to Yellow Stone the elk were not able at first to recognize them as a danger. Animals isolated on islands, are famous for this syndrome and often are not able to change fast enough, for example, the flightless pigeon, the Dodo, which sailors could just walk up to and hit on the head.
We are all raised to be naive prey of psychopaths. Everyone is told the fairytale that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin. But what if that is not so? And it is not. Believe me, psychopaths believe we are all idiots for not recognizing them.
On top of that, the human female starts out as genetically inclined to be naive prey to psychopaths. Male psychopaths have evolved to evoke genetically determined instincts (mothering and caring-of-a-child instincts) in women, I believe. Life can teach them otherwise, as attested in the survivor blogs. However, all men need to be aware of the female propensity to be naive regarding psychopaths, it might prevent traumatic shock. The truth is, you can’t save Weena.
From a later comment:
Here’s an account of early firearm buffalo hunts. I can’t vouch for its historical/biological accuracy, but it does convey a message. It goes like this, 1) the buffalo of the time didn’t and couldn’t recognize guns and gunshots as being dangerous (naive prey syndrome), 2) buffalo herds follow a dominant female, with a pecking order. So the hunter would lie down in some kind of blind, maybe just behind a log. Experienced hunters would know how to recognize the dominant female. So he would target that one. The others couldn’t fathom what had happened and couldn’t act on their own without a herd leader. Then the next in line dominant female would step up to be herd leader. Then she was shot, and the process continued over and over again, with the herd never panicking. The hunter wouldn’t ever have to move. “HEY, what happened to Martha? And Ethel? What the hay?? Dunno, just keep eating that grass, munch, munch, munch. Wow, that’s some delicious grass!” https://pathwhisperer.info/2018/05/07/annoying-neighborhood-psychopaths-and-anomalous-occurrences/#comment-139279
. . . munch, munch, . . ., munch, munch, munch.
The Path Whisperer 
Although I completely agree that women are frequently socialized to be naive prey, I disagree that there is any scientific evidence whatsoever that women are “genetically inclined” to be vulnerable to sociopaths; I think we are programmed in childhood to be vulnerable to sociopaths by being made to feel responsible for others’ happiness, by being raised to serve others, and certainly by religious indoctrination that tells, particularly females, to forgive, make others feel “good”, and “be nice”. When we train women to assert their own needs, feelings and opinions, and to recognize toxicity and abuse in relationships, and to make self-care a priority, we will see things improving in this regard.
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I have decided that the most dangerous person is the one who inject their beliefs into others. Literally, they can get others to believe what THEIR thoughts are. It is like they removed your brain and inserted theirs.
A psychopath/sociopath (whatever…you get the picture) actually convinced the co-worker who sat next to me that I was a ‘trannie’. This co-worker started squeezing my arm whenever she walked by me…finally I asked her to stop doing it…too bad I did not tell her that not only was she violating a boundary but I knew ‘why she was doing it…’
When I put on weight I turn muscular (because I am a mesomorph). My arms can look larger than the rest of me…otherwise I am usually petite and feminine appearing.
This sociopath/creep was jealous of me because the best looking men at work admired me. She herself was a ‘big girl’…much bigger than me…taller and with mighty legs. She could kick a guy’s teeth down his throat.
This job was a dead-end one at a very unprofessional place. A more astute HR department and much better supervisor would not have hired this woman. They would have smelled a ‘rat’.
I am glad to say I found a much better position while this ‘rat’ ended up working at a package store.
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Sorry, Babs…what a creep. But frequently these creeps are able to bypass department supervisors and the interview process. They are very convincing.
I am a mesomorph too. But we tend to be more curvaceous (Marilyn Monroe was considered ‘mesomorph’) but she had slender arms.
It can be a ‘death knell’ to be too muscular/masculine appearing as a woman…life can be miserable.
But it sounds like you are petite in every other area (and perhaps just need to exercise the flab off of your arms that makes you look muscular?)
Good luck to you. If men were admiring you, then you are definitely attractive enough. And that horrible woman is probably just a miserable person, Babs. She looks for victims everywhere. Feel sorry for her.
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“The truth is, you can’t save Weena.” How big and noble of you. How paternalistic.
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From the time I was born, there was a man who sought to keep me isolated from everyone else, and he was successful to some degree. So this explains for me, at least in part, why I have always been so gullible (and particularly so, it seems, when it comes to psychopaths). Yet even so, the instinct was always there, but the sort of backwards teaching you mention always kept me from heeding it.
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