Stacey Wood, professor of psychology and Molly Mason Jones Chair in Psychology, described common financial elder abuse trends in a Newsweek article about the alleged financial abuse of Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols. While Woods did not speak specifically about the Nichols case, she likened abusers’ tactics, such as isolation and dependency, to a “siege mentality, us against them.” She added that “it can be hard for family to persuade the older person that that’s not the case. It has this cyclical affect where the elder becomes more dependent on the alleged influencer, which only increases their influence.”