The Art of Manliness - #169： The Psychology of Scam Artists & How Not to Get Duped

00:00:00.000 Brad McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so we've probably

00:00:18.920 all seen some sort of scam or fraud there was the Bernie Madoff thing a couple years ago

00:00:23.420 where lots of people got duped into a Ponzi scheme the Nigerian prince that guy in Nigeria

00:00:29.480 wants to send you lots and lots of money but in order to complete the transaction you got to wire

00:00:33.200 over $100 first there's psychics there there there's a ton of them out there and whenever we

00:00:39.040 see these things we probably tell ourselves man those people are just dumb like how could they

00:00:43.520 fall for that how could they how could they not see it was a fraud like I am way too smart that

00:00:48.380 could never happen to me well my guest today wrote a book saying well that might not be the case her

00:00:55.140 name is Maria Konnikova she's the author of the book the confidence game why we fall for it every

00:01:00.080 time and in it she looks at the psychology of scams and what scam artists do to get inside our brains to

00:01:08.020 make us convince ourselves that the scam they're selling is actually a good idea and how really

00:01:14.700 really smart people tracking doctors experts in in art fall for scams all the time how even really

00:01:20.860 smart people can fall for scams and how sometimes they're even the easiest people to scam really

00:01:26.820 interesting podcast with some great takeaways on how to scam proof your life so without further ado

00:01:32.500 Maria Konnikova and the confidence game

00:01:35.160 Maria Konnikova welcome to the show thank you so much for having me Brett so your new book is called

00:01:48.920 the confidence game and it's all about con artists frosters scamsters whatever you want to call

00:01:54.500 them and the psych psychological principles that underlie what makes scam artists able to do what

00:02:01.360 they do I'm curious what set off the research into this book you did a lot of research into this I

00:02:08.680 mean what was there like a scam artist you came across or a scam you were you scammed you're like I need

00:02:13.300 to figure out why I'm why I'm so predisposed to being scammed what happened there so I was actually

00:02:20.140 one finding I was watching House of Games David Mamet's first movie I believe and Mamet is obsessed

00:02:31.020 with cons and has explored them in lots of movies but in this particular movie the protagonist is a woman

00:02:38.960 who is a professional woman she has a PhD she's a psychologist she's just written this best-selling

00:02:45.240 book she's a really smart sophisticated person and she falls for this very elaborate long con

00:02:54.560 and she thinks she's one step ahead of the con artists the whole time that she's kind of in on it

00:02:59.880 and it ends up that they anticipated that and that actually she's not in on it at all and she loses all

00:03:05.360 of her money she loses a lot of other things too but at the end of this movie I just thought first of

00:03:11.980 all wow you know what what a different way of looking at the con because normally you see these

00:03:18.080 victims who are just saps and this woman really was not and then I thought well you know how how does

00:03:25.980 that happen how does someone who's so intelligent so savvy and who knows so much about human psychology

00:03:32.980 become a victim and so I started trying to find a book that would explain it to me and it didn't

00:03:38.820 exist so I wrote it well there you there you go I like that I think uh I've done that quite a bit

00:03:43.520 too where nothing's out there so you got to find out on your own yeah um so you start off the book

00:03:48.840 talking about what makes a con artist a con artist right the cycle the psychology of a con artist

00:03:55.760 con artist um and so you really prevent this very nuanced approach to it is a con artist something

00:04:05.040 that you're you're you're born a con artist or is it something that you develop over time or is it a

00:04:10.300 little bit of both I think it's a little bit of both and I think there's definitely a huge component

00:04:17.160 of developing over time um so by a little bit of both I mean that there are certainly predispositions

00:04:25.040 not everyone will become a con artist right you can put a lot of the same people in a certain situation

00:04:31.240 and most of them will be just fine and one of them will turn to the grift as a way out um and so

00:04:38.520 that one probably had some sort of predisposition toward it that said in 99 other situations he might

00:04:46.560 have been just fine as well and so I think what we need to understand it's that con artists are are

00:04:55.500 made really it's predisposition but it's predisposition that meets opportunity um at the

00:05:00.980 right time at the right place at the right point in the person's life um and I think the exact same

00:05:06.460 person who could become a con artist or a perfectly functional um and respected member of society

00:05:12.400 depending on how the chips fall and by predisposition what is it is it psychopathy

00:05:17.380 machiavellianism narcissism I mean what is that makes someone predisposed to perhaps be a con artist

00:05:22.060 so I do I talk about the dark triad which is machiavellianism narcissism and psychopathy

00:05:28.500 um and I think any of those three or any combination of those three can give you the necessary

00:05:36.000 predisposition so by psychopathy um I mean the condition where you don't really experience

00:05:41.540 emotions the way that other people do um you don't experience empathy and that really makes

00:05:46.340 you able to take advantage of people because you don't feel bad for your victims and you can't feel

00:05:52.860 victims the moment you do you're no longer a good con artist so that's one narcissism because you have

00:05:58.660 to feel like you're not just the center of the universe but you deserve things you have things coming

00:06:03.320 to you you know you you really deserve to have someone else's money you deserve to have their

00:06:09.080 trust their reputation so it's this real sense of entitlement um and machiavellianism gives you the

00:06:15.360 ability to persuade other people to do things um for your own and directly from machiavelli's the

00:06:23.620 prince from the ideal prince and and how he's able to manipulate those around him right and so

00:06:28.760 one situation like if you went down if you're put in a certain environment you might

00:06:32.320 become a con artist but if you have these traits you could become an attorney a politician

00:06:38.040 right absolutely and marketing genius and advertising guru yep all all respectable well

00:06:47.560 some people would say respectable um all all legitimate professions right so I'm curious uh if you came

00:06:56.000 across this in your research I don't remember reading this in your book um but we we call scam artists

00:07:00.580 con men um are are men more predisposed to be con artists than women are or is it pretty cut uh down

00:07:08.760 the line about the same you know it's a really really interesting question and unfortunately there

00:07:13.860 hasn't been any systematic research into it I will say that more of them are probably men than women

00:07:22.220 and I will say the reason I say that is because we know that some con artists are psychopaths and we

00:07:28.960 know that almost no psychopaths are women um it's a fewer than one percent of psychopaths are female

00:07:37.320 um and so that's just a really tiny tiny percentage so from that you can make the assumption that there

00:07:43.440 are more um that there are more con artists who are male and historically we also have more examples

00:07:51.380 of historical con men who are men not rather than con women that said maybe the women are just better

00:07:57.740 so they're not getting caught because we know that some of the best spies in history for instance

00:08:03.560 were female are very good at a lot of these types of skills of deception and manipulation

00:08:09.480 right and as I was reading you know the the traits of a of a good con artist and by good I mean

00:08:16.020 they're good at conning um it was kind of uncomfortable because like I felt like there

00:08:21.200 was like a very hazy line between being an emotionally intelligent person and being a good

00:08:28.260 con man right the thing that really made like for example you talk about the q test um can you explain

00:08:35.160 what the q test is and I'll share what I the test that I it was similar to that but it gave like a

00:08:40.600 different outcome or a different uh interpretation sure so that test um was described by richard

00:08:48.960 wiseman and basically what it asks is that you put your finger your index finger of whatever your

00:08:56.480 dominant hand is to your forehead and you draw the letter q so I'm assuming now you've done it and

00:09:05.360 then you look well which way did you draw it is the tail facing to the right as you look at it or to

00:09:09.940 the left so have you drawn it from your own perspective or from the perspective of someone

00:09:14.080 who is looking at you and what this test shows

00:09:18.620 is that people who draw it from the perspective of others are more sensitive to how they're perceived

00:09:28.700 they're more sensitive to how others we respond to them they want to create a better image of

00:09:34.800 themselves in the eyes of others and so those types of people probably have a slightly higher

00:09:41.160 tendency towards the types of things that go along with being a con artist I'm not saying that they

00:09:47.120 are con artists I'm saying that they have some of those same underlying predispositions that make

00:09:53.600 people want to deceive right so when I read that so like the version I heard was the e-test where

00:09:59.420 you draw an e on your forehead and if you do it in the way that okay you write the e so that someone

00:10:05.020 who's looking at you would see it as a rate like a forward-facing e well that meant well you're an

00:10:09.540 emotionally intelligent person you have empathy right and so when I did that I was like oh because

00:10:14.400 that's how I did I drew it how someone would they could see it right and I'm like wow I'm an

00:10:18.780 emotionally intelligent person and then when I read about the q test in your book and their

00:10:21.960 interpretation I'm like wait maybe I'm a psychopath and like I'm like possibly have tendencies to

00:10:27.160 deceive so I mean is that what you found when you're doing your research there is sort of a

00:10:30.500 blurry line between I mean are con men emotionally intelligent people or super emotionally intelligent

00:10:35.360 people absolutely oh my god yes so con men are people and by the way you can be incredibly

00:10:42.320 emotionally intelligent and be a psychopath because you can understand people well enough that you don't

00:10:51.200 experience emotional empathy you experience cognitive empathy and in some ways cognitive empathy is

00:10:56.560 actually stronger because you're really able to go into someone else's shoes you're not blocked by

00:11:00.860 emotion whereas the emotional intelligence the emotional side of empathy you often have things that stand in

00:11:07.240 the way and so good con artists are definitely people who are phenomenal at reading others they can read the

00:11:14.880 most subtle signs in order to take advantage of them they need to be they need to be extremely wonderful

00:11:23.200 psychologists in a sense because that's how they're able to find their victims find the weak the weak

00:11:29.720 spots of their victims

00:11:31.120 right and we'll talk a little bit about how they do that in a little bit here but before we get there

00:11:38.940 let's just talk about the mark right us who might possibly be getting scammed by the the con artist

00:11:44.900 um why are we so bad at spotting liars and frauds like we always think like you were saying

00:11:51.820 like the lady who thought she was really smart and she like uh was you know she was ahead of the the

00:11:56.580 scam artist in the movie but she really wasn't um and oftentimes you the stories you share of the

00:12:03.360 the victims like they never knew until the very end and like these some of these people are really

00:12:08.560 smart like they had double degrees you know phds and they still couldn't tell see that they were

00:12:15.000 getting um duped why are we so bad at that well i think there are two reasons reason number one

00:12:22.600 it's actually more evolutionary advantageous to trust people than it is to spot deceptions because

00:12:29.460 deceptions often make society go around and function well it makes us get along with others

00:12:34.960 because all of the little white lies that we tell each other um are are really essential for

00:12:41.800 people to get along um if no one lied and if you were able to catch everyone who lied people would

00:12:48.760 be so pissed off at each other all the time it would not be a very pleasant place to live so that's the

00:12:55.640 first part of it um the second part of it is that we are phenomenally good at self-deception so

00:13:04.320 basically the best con artists of all are ourselves because we really are able to rationalize

00:13:11.060 almost anything in order to fit with a certain image of ourselves so a lot of people even when

00:13:17.960 they should see that they're being conned they don't because they don't want to admit that they

00:13:23.820 could be so foolish and so they rationalize away and they make up all of these excuses and at the end

00:13:31.380 of the day they don't even realize sometimes they have been conned a lot of people at the end will say

00:13:37.380 oh i was just unlucky they won't admit it even when they have the evidence right in front of them

00:13:42.100 right so i guess con artists are just taking advantage of this evolutionary like they're

00:13:46.100 evolutionary freeloaders in a way you know kind of a way to describe them they're taking advantage

00:13:50.700 of the fact that most people are trusting absolutely i love how you organize the books you

00:13:55.420 you break it down to the different parts of a con and i think it's interesting i i learned a lot

00:14:00.640 about con artists and there seems it is sort of an artistry um they there's like things that they

00:14:04.820 pass on to one another and they they learn things and they it's sort of a system and it is a technique

00:14:10.000 right and they have different uh names for different parts of the con so you break it down

00:14:15.660 and you talk about the psychological biases that con men use or take advantage of in each part of the

00:14:21.380 con um so you start off talking about the put up um what is the put up and um what psychological

00:14:27.980 biases or psychological advantages that con men use to uh get the put up going

00:14:34.460 the put up is the first stage of the con where you really profile and identify your victim so in

00:14:41.680 some ways it's the most important part in order for the con to ultimately be successful because

00:14:47.660 if you choose the right victim and if you size your victim up properly then you can really sell him

00:14:53.720 just about anything and so what you need to do um this is some of the some of what we were talking

00:14:59.840 about with empathy and with being able to really understand someone else and not just understand

00:15:05.500 them in terms of their personality but emotionally where they're coming from what drives them what they

00:15:12.940 want what their kind of deepest needs are um psychics are really really good at this because they do

00:15:18.760 something called the cold read where they can look at you they look at your body language they look

00:15:24.780 what you're wearing they look at things that you say and they're able to tell you things that you

00:15:30.560 don't realize you've given them the information to discern because we are always throwing off cues

00:15:38.980 without even realizing it and so it's something very subtle it can be something along the lines of

00:15:45.520 oh you're from new york too aren't you or you're not from new york either correct um so it's the exact

00:15:51.880 same sentence and phrased in a way where we will then tell them yes or no and then they will use

00:15:58.940 that information to get even more from us and we won't realize that we gave it to them so it's this

00:16:04.140 beautiful dance where they're able to get so much from us that we don't realize we're telling them

00:16:13.680 and that's one of the ways that they're able to figure out okay what do you want what can i sell you

00:16:19.680 right and they're they also you know speaking of the psychics it seems like they're also

00:16:23.540 by the nature of the profession they're self-selecting the their marks right they're

00:16:28.960 finding certain people who are probably more predisposed to being conned in the first place

00:16:33.880 because they know something about that person already because they're coming to see a psychic

00:16:37.600 right absolutely a lot of cons have come with a pre-selection mechanism so like the 419 scam the

00:16:47.040 nigerian scam that you will see in your email you know there's a fabulous inheritance if only you can

00:16:53.140 just give them the small wire transfer fee um a lot of those have really bad typos spelling errors bad

00:17:00.600 english and you think how in the world you know doesn't doesn't they doesn't doesn't this person

00:17:06.060 know what a spell checker is well here's the the true answer is yes they do um and they used to send

00:17:15.840 very wonderful literate emails and the thing that happened is they got too many responses

00:17:20.740 and so then they had to really work hard to weed out the suckers now it's such a poorly written email

00:17:28.560 only the true suckers respond so it's a pre-selecting mechanism so that they don't need to work nearly as

00:17:33.820 hard um and so a lot of scams do have kind of one step beforehand where you're already selecting

00:17:41.520 victims and it doesn't even need to be like the nigerian scam it can be something like a catfishing

00:17:46.340 sweetheart scam on a romance site well by very virtue of signing on to a romance to a matchmaking

00:17:52.180 site you're already saying something about yourself you're saying that you want a relationship that

00:17:58.460 you're lonely that you want some sort of connection so you're already self-selecting in a sense into a

00:18:03.820 pool of potential victims gotcha so after they've identified their mark and i guess the comment is using

00:18:09.880 their their emotional intelligence and depthness to figure this out how do they get the victim to

00:18:16.120 start trusting them because you know most people they don't trust strangers right away we are even

00:18:21.340 though we are trusting species um we do put up a front for a little bit but con men are somehow able

00:18:27.660 to take down that guard what exactly do they do or as psychological biases within us that they

00:18:33.300 manipulate to uh bring that guard down they do a few things um one that i think is quite easy and quite

00:18:44.280 easy to understand as well um is their ability to fake similarity and familiarity which are two of the

00:18:51.560 markers that we use to try to figure out whether or not we like someone and liking often comes right

00:18:59.440 along with trusting um so first there's similarity and that is how how much does this person resemble

00:19:05.880 me and we tend to trust people who are more like us and we tend to trust people who are less like us

00:19:14.040 and this is a really really ingrained way of looking at the world um and it can be very superficial

00:19:20.100 things like we like people who like the same sports team that we like it doesn't need to be like

00:19:25.120 oh the person is my age and went cool and you know is in the same profession although all of those

00:19:30.200 things help um and similarity is remarkably easy to fake because it's kind of like we were what we

00:19:37.160 were talking about with the psychics all you need to do is read a few cues from the person and then you

00:19:43.040 pretend that you are exactly the same if you think about how many first dates um seem very promising

00:19:50.080 and you initially have very you know a very good relationship and they realize oh this person

00:19:57.240 isn't at all who i thought because they were really faking that similarity well a con artist doesn't need

00:20:02.780 to do it for the length of a relationship a con artist just needs a few good first dates um in order to

00:20:07.620 hook you and that's quite easy to do and the other is familiarity which is do i recognize you are you

00:20:15.340 someone who i feel comfortable with just because i've seen you around a lot so we're much more likely

00:20:19.660 to trust someone who is our neighbor and we see all all the time or even someone who we see at our

00:20:26.080 local gym just by by the sheer virtue of seeing them around they become a familiar presence and this is

00:20:32.400 something called the mere exposure effect where merely being exposed to something or someone makes

00:20:39.140 us like that thing or that person more and so a con artist can do something like start dropping in at

00:20:44.700 your local coffee shop um and even saying hi to you on some mornings and all of a sudden you're much

00:20:51.280 more likely to trust that person when they finally strike up a conversation just because you've already

00:20:57.880 just because you've already seen them multiple times so those are kind of very basic things that can

00:21:03.220 happen in order to establish that baseline level of trust right and as you're talking about that seems like

00:21:08.240 this is very easy to do on the internet right online uh you can fake familiar similarity very easy and

00:21:14.160 then the familiarity aspect if you just interact with people via twitter or facebook frequently you

00:21:18.780 can build that trust even though you've never seen this person in person absolutely absolutely one of

00:21:26.540 the things i learned when uh writing this book is never accept a facebook request unless you know

00:21:31.200 exactly who the person is because that's that's the way that con artists are able to infiltrate

00:21:36.300 networks because then once you get one week link um suddenly you're in my friend network then the

00:21:42.400 next person's more likely to um to accept your friend request because you know me and so you've

00:21:49.880 already been vetted and all of a sudden we've got 20 friends in common of course you must be a decent

00:21:56.260 person right um okay so we've gotten the they've met got the mark they've built that trust the next step is

00:22:03.280 the uh the play uh what's the play and what psychological biases do con artists take advantage

00:22:09.920 of to uh get the play going the play is all about emotion um it's about really telling the story that's

00:22:18.160 going to emotionally involve the person so now you trust me i am going to make you emotionally

00:22:26.380 invested in this and the psychological principle at at play in the play um is that when we are feeling

00:22:34.340 emotional we stop thinking rationally um emotion really clouds our judgment and we make decisions that

00:22:41.760 are much worse um in general we just don't look at the world in the same way that we normally would

00:22:48.060 our logic falls by the wayside um and that's the that's the goal of this stage of the

00:22:53.780 so if you can get um someone really hot and really riled up um then basically they stop thinking

00:23:02.040 critically and they start believing what you say rather than questioning it and it might be a

00:23:06.060 question of telling a sob story of telling a sob story and they become very empathetic that's

00:23:12.960 basically you have to be a storyteller and storyteller who's able to engage your marks emotions because

00:23:18.420 the moment that the emotions are on high that's when that's when you have them that's when they stop

00:23:23.560 thinking critically right and it's not just stories i mean some of them like i guess uh cults take

00:23:28.540 advantage of sort of thing too right they seclude people and just really get people thinking emotionally

00:23:33.280 instead of rationally right they do all these sort of exercises to get people crying yelling doing all

00:23:39.600 this stuff absolutely absolutely i think that's a really strong technique um and it also makes some

00:23:46.400 bond with the people that they're with rather than the outside world so it's a two-pronged um approach in

00:23:53.320 that particular case right and the stories don't even have to be you know a sob story i mean i think

00:23:58.700 you gave some examples of some cons of like stories about you know buried treasure from a pirate right

00:24:03.840 or that you know that and people got really into it and like i guess they get really emotional about

00:24:07.620 that because it plays on i don't know excitement wonder adventure i mean it doesn't have to be

00:24:12.300 your typical emotional sob story to to be a good play oh absolutely not it could be any sort of a

00:24:20.480 good story that has an emotional component and our emotions are can definitely be engaged in any number

00:24:26.580 of ways um and we need to be careful not just when somebody gives you a story of oh i'm so sorry you

00:24:34.800 know i need to make it to my kid who's in the hospital but oh my god this is so incredibly excited

00:24:40.460 i have just found this treasure and i'm going to share it with you that's also a story and that's

00:24:47.500 also pretty emotional right and as i was reading this i was like this is like what marketers do

00:24:52.540 right like they tell they tell stories about brands i'm like again like are marketers con men i mean

00:24:57.340 what's going on here absolutely absolutely well you know it's a thin line it's really a thin line

00:25:03.260 between advertising marketing and cons right well and speaking of the marketing tactics you have the

00:25:09.460 next section about the rope and you you go through a list of tactics that con artists used to uh get

00:25:17.660 people hooked into the con and i thought it was interesting he's like these are the same things

00:25:22.640 that i've read about in like advertising books or marketing books or like even like rhetoric you know

00:25:27.120 being persuasive when you're public publicly when you're speaking publicly um so what are some of the

00:25:31.540 tactics used in the rope um i'll tell you about one of them um which i think is quite effective um

00:25:39.380 it is the door in the face technique and that is first you get someone to slam the door in your face so

00:25:50.040 you ask them for something outrageously big um and they obviously say no they slam the door in your face

00:25:56.500 but then they you probably feel really guilty because it doesn't make you feel like a very good

00:26:01.920 person to slam the door in someone's face and so the next time you come knocking and you ask them

00:26:08.580 for something that seems much more reasonable in comparison which by the way can still be a very

00:26:12.960 big favor but just compared to the first thing that you asked it's quite reasonable this guilty

00:26:17.880 feeling person is going to say yes because they've so bad for slamming the door in your face the first

00:26:24.300 time around and this is such a brilliant psychological maneuver and it works beautifully i've had it done

00:26:32.120 on me actually um i've realized in retrospect where people have asked me to you know like volunteer for

00:26:40.700 a day um with some organization i don't even remember which organization um and i just couldn't do it

00:26:48.680 uh because it was you know a day of my time and i just was in no position to say yes but then when

00:26:56.840 they asked me to then donate a piece of my writing um also for free which i never do i have a rule of

00:27:02.780 never write for free um i did it um because i felt guilty for not volunteering for a day um and that's

00:27:08.820 classic door in the face and con artists love doing this because we really don't want to feel guilty it's a

00:27:13.780 really bad feeling and so we'll do almost anything to assuage our guilt right so yeah this is a very

00:27:18.980 i love this chapter it's great for like being on the lookout for yourself but then also i'm like i

00:27:23.360 don't know i'm thinking like how can i use this to like persuade other people to possibly do things

00:27:27.620 that they need to do for you know if i'm a leader or a manager and you know it's great great tactics

00:27:32.500 there's a lot to be there's a lot to learn from con men um was one of the things i got from the book

00:27:36.940 um so you talk about the tail and this goes back to what you said earlier about human beings being

00:27:44.820 we're like the the ultimate con we're the best con artist right we start we convince ourselves uh

00:27:51.100 we're good at self-deception so the tail is the part where the con man uh well actually the comment

00:27:58.580 doesn't do anything the person the victim starts convincing themselves yeah the plan is actually great

00:28:04.360 how how does that happen right how do you how does something that seems like if even if you're

00:28:08.480 really smart or intelligent how do you start convincing yourself that this actually i could

00:28:12.920 definitely make a lot of money from this even though i know it's probably too good to be true

00:28:17.160 well because we are very very good at and i love that you phrased it the way that you did

00:28:22.840 because um you just said it's probably too good to be true and at this point you have to remember that

00:28:29.340 we've already gone through all the other stages of the con so we already trust this person we're

00:28:33.580 feeling some sort of connection with them we're already emotionally invested and so we latch on

00:28:39.760 to that word probably because we think well it's probably too good to be true but but probably look

00:28:48.060 and in this particular case i deserve it and so we instead of thinking it's too good to be true start

00:28:55.420 thinking actually no it's not really too good to be true i just deserve my lucky break i've been

00:29:01.760 working really hard for this i deserve whatever it is that that we're dealing with in this particular

00:29:06.780 con and so we just change our mindset completely because we want to justify everything that we've

00:29:15.000 felt and gone through up to this point and we're so incredibly good at justifying that at saying oh

00:29:21.920 well there's a reason i like this person there's a reason i trust this person there's a reason i'm

00:29:25.320 emotionally involved in this story and that reason is that it's a good story it's a good person

00:29:31.120 i'm doing everything correctly and no no this is not something that's too good to be true actually

00:29:38.880 this makes a whole lot of sense and because

00:29:42.840 because we have so many externality biases which means we like to feel ourselves exceptional in almost

00:29:51.020 any respect those really play into this particular stage of the con because we can we can use those

00:29:59.960 to justify almost anything really right and so there's a lot going on here so yeah you talk about

00:30:06.140 in the book that a lot of people think we're human beings we're the rational animal i know a lot of

00:30:11.240 people say like oh yeah i'm very logical and blah blah blah blah but like the research says it's not true we

00:30:16.380 actually feel something first and then we come up with reason afterwards to justify those feelings

00:30:22.500 or like we make a decision with our emotions first and then we come up with the reasoning um ex post

00:30:27.440 facto right yes right that's exactly what happens um we we justify our decision after the fact and we

00:30:37.340 think but we we do it so well that we convince ourselves that actually we did it before right we do it

00:30:44.860 we we have this just very perverse circular logic and when it happens to someone else you're very

00:30:52.740 well able to spot it when it happens to yourself you never think it you never think that it's

00:30:58.860 happening to you right and the i love the the emphasis on how we deceive ourselves in thinking

00:31:03.360 that we're above average and that you know we won't get duped and yeah maybe i this time it'll work

00:31:08.860 for us because we're smart and we're great um there's a name it's like the lake wabagon effect is that

00:31:14.140 what it's called or there's something else there's another name for it yes right it's yep um and there

00:31:20.840 are lots of other names for it but it's it all comes down to the same thing which is there's also

00:31:26.260 the very simple name for it is the better than average effect and one of my favorite illustrations

00:31:32.180 of this was a study that was done in the hospital of people who had just gotten into car accidents

00:31:38.060 and a good number of those people had actually caused the accident themselves and what the

00:31:44.940 researchers did was ask them what kind of a driver they they were and everyone said that they were

00:31:50.620 above average driver even the people who had caused the car accident and were in the hospital

00:31:58.240 which is kind of crazy but it shows just how strong this effect is right right and that's great to know

00:32:03.720 not only to avoid being conned but i think it's great just life advice realizing oh wait i think

00:32:07.860 i'm smarter than i am but maybe i'm not as smart as i think i am can make a lot of progress in life

00:32:13.160 with that sort of attitude absolutely but it's a hard attitude to maintain because deep down inside

00:32:19.460 you still think you're smart right yeah even though even though all right so there's a there comes a

00:32:23.820 point in in the con in every con well not every con because not sometimes cons don't even get

00:32:28.120 discovered but in a lot of in some cons where things start breaking down and the the victim

00:32:33.720 or the mark starts realizing something is up i mean what happens psychologically um whenever we

00:32:41.660 realize we're being duped is there um like do we suddenly like see that it's like a parapetia where

00:32:47.580 we're like oh yeah okay i am being duped and i'm just gonna stop doing this or do we is there

00:32:51.960 something going on we try to convince ourselves well no maybe it's not as bad as we think we are and

00:32:55.740 it's okay well this is where that concept of cognitive dissonance really comes into play

00:33:00.980 and that means that as soon as we see red flags it's much easier to dismiss the red flags than to

00:33:08.960 admit that we've been wrong and so that's exactly what we do we engage in what's called dissonance

00:33:15.040 reduction we try to reduce the mismatch between what we think and the evidence that we're seeing

00:33:21.000 and we do that by saying this evidence doesn't make sense by explaining in a way and so we see

00:33:27.420 the red flags but we say oh it's not actually a red flag look doesn't it look pink to you oh it's not

00:33:32.060 even a flag it's a handkerchief it's a pink handkerchief okay i'm good and and that's exactly

00:33:37.840 what we do with all of the signs that we might be getting conned and so a lot of people by the end of

00:33:45.160 the con so we're we're getting to the stage of of the final um the final stage of the con a lot of

00:33:51.720 people even then won't realize they've been conned because they were so good at reducing dissonance

00:33:58.160 and at convincing themselves that no con is actually happening right you gave a great example of it was

00:34:03.480 like the guy who did the first ponzi scheme um before ponzi right the guy who started the investment

00:34:08.940 fund and even when people realize like you know the i guess the the law enforcement was in on it

00:34:14.720 they're closing the bank down there's a little his bank quote-unquote bank and uh people are like yeah

00:34:20.040 there's something's going on here but they still have people like coming to the bank and like i want

00:34:23.480 to deposit more money um he's a great guy i mean that was it was insane what happened like even like

00:34:29.320 made more money while he was getting uh discovered that he was a fraud yes yes and he is not the only

00:34:36.800 one this happens again and again the first time you say well franklin was just a really this is the

00:34:42.580 guy who ran the franklin syndicate the con you're talking about um he must have just been a really

00:34:47.500 really good really good at this and he was don't get me wrong but con artists tend to be very good at

00:34:55.120 this um some of my favorite stories involve um people who ended up paying the legal fees for the

00:35:01.640 people who conned them when the con artist was already on trial um and a lot of times the victims

00:35:07.440 are the ones who end up paying what i thought was interesting too is that most people um who are

00:35:14.360 conned and they find out about it they don't report it that's why um like financial fraud just kind of

00:35:21.460 one of the most underreported crimes in america or in the world i mean what is it why don't people

00:35:27.260 report is it is this like a sense of shame what's going on there i think it's two things one is

00:35:32.020 reputation management people don't want others to know that they could have been so stupid

00:35:36.960 and they really want to preserve their reputation even at the cost of knowing that this person is

00:35:44.200 still out there doing the same thing to others and the second thing is you might be so incredibly

00:35:48.580 good at self-deception at all these different biases that you and i have talked about that you don't

00:35:53.740 realize that you've been conned and you persist in saying that you were not a victim even even after

00:36:02.000 even after the con is done and so a lot of people will say oh it's just bad luck it could have gone

00:36:07.200 the other way i wasn't conned this is not a con artist oh i'd invest with him again if the chance came

00:36:14.640 around um so i think that that's the other reason why people don't end up reporting it so as i was

00:36:20.540 reading this book i was uh you know one it made me uncomfortable in a lot of some places but also

00:36:25.440 i'm like man i don't want to get scammed but it looks like my brain is like waging a war against me

00:36:31.560 and trying to get me scammed and duped um what are some things we can do like just a few brass tack

00:36:37.360 things that people can do to uh steal themselves from being scammed all the while here's the catch like

00:36:43.680 not while still being a trusting and caring person at the same time yeah i think i think that that's a

00:36:52.040 very important distinction because we don't want to be someone who's just completely emotionally

00:36:57.760 closed off um that's not a very good way to be so i think one thing that we can do is to really

00:37:03.520 try to know ourselves as well as we can try to do the put up on ourselves try to do a self-analysis

00:37:11.240 in the way that a con artist would what are the things that drive me what are the things that are

00:37:16.500 important to me what are the things that i want what are my weak spots and then when something happens

00:37:23.760 that really falls into one of those categories you should suddenly have little red flags in your head

00:37:30.380 and a little alert that says wait this is exactly what i want and now it's happening

00:37:34.640 let me analyze what's going on here is it because i've done something and it really should be

00:37:41.860 happening or is it because this really nice man who well i only met him a week ago but he's awesome

00:37:46.500 um is is offering me something or is telling me something that fits into that so it's a really

00:37:54.200 difficult actually piece of advice to give because what it says is the moments where you want to be the

00:37:59.080 least skeptical because no one wants to question when good things happen people want to question when bad

00:38:03.980 things happen but at those moments where you want to be the least skeptical you actually need to be

00:38:08.780 the most skeptical i think that's the single most important thing you can do to try to avoid being

00:38:14.380 scammed awesome well maria where can people find out more about the confidence game um they can go

00:38:20.160 to my website which has links to a whole lot of stuff about the book and that's just my first

00:38:27.100 name dot my last name dot com so maria konnikova dot com great well maria thank you so much for your

00:38:32.840 time it's been a pleasure thank you so much brett i really enjoyed the conversation my guest name is

00:38:37.680 maria konnikova she's the author of the book the confidence game and you can find that on amazon.com

00:38:41.820 and bookstores everywhere and you can find out more information about her work at maria konnikova dot com

00:38:45.860 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:38:53.120 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy this

00:38:57.060 podcast i'd really appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher it help us get the word

00:39:00.960 about the show as always thank you for your continued support and until next time this is

00:39:04.360 brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:39:06.800 you

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The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#169： The Psychology of Scam Artists & How Not to Get Duped

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