0:00

Hugh and Betty and the Nancy's

0:02

and Bill's and Joe's and James will

0:04

find in the study of science a

0:07

richer more rewarding life.

0:11

Hey, welcome to inquiring minds. I'm

0:13

Adam Isaac. This is a podcast

0:15

that floors the space where science and

0:17

society collide. We wanna find out

0:19

what's true, what's left to discover, and

0:22

why it matters.

0:31

Hello?

0:31

It's me, producer,

0:34

Adam filling in for Andre this week.

0:36

Today's episode is an interview

0:38

with science writer, Maria Konakova,

0:41

about her twenty six sixteen book The

0:43

Competence Game. Why we fall for

0:45

it every time. Injury did this interview

0:47

when the book first came out, but it

0:49

is perhaps depressing. still

0:51

as relevant as ever. While

0:53

it hasn't always involved pillow salesman

0:56

and cryptobillionaires, there have been

0:58

people trying to con you always. So

1:01

look, there's no better time than now to brush

1:03

up on all the ways people get conned,

1:05

the psychology of why it works, and

1:07

what you can do to avoid it.

1:10

Also, as an aside, I've

1:12

been making this show with André

1:14

for nearly a decade, which is wild

1:16

in and of itself But because

1:18

Andre and I are historically terrible

1:21

at social media, it feels like I've only

1:23

gotten to actually talk to a handful

1:25

of you. A lot of the time it's this weird

1:27

situation where I make a little episode

1:30

on my little computer and I put it on the

1:32

Internet, and it tells me that people listen,

1:34

but I have no proof of that. I

1:36

don't know if you're real.

1:37

So I would love it so much.

1:40

If any of you would message me over

1:42

email or Instagram or whatever and tell

1:44

me what you think of the show, especially

1:46

if you have thoughts on how to make it better,

1:48

things you wish would change, whatever.

1:51

You can email contact at inquiring

1:53

dot show, that just goes to me.

1:55

or you can message me on Instagram at

1:58

atom Isaac ISAAK

1:59

Anyway,

2:01

please consider it. I would love to hear

2:03

from you. And for right now, Please

2:05

enjoy this interview with Maria Konikova

2:08

about the psychology of getting conned.

2:14

Welcome to inquiring Mind's Maria Kanakova.

2:17

Thank you so much for having me. So

2:19

let's start at the beginning. What got you interested

2:22

in the topic

2:22

of cons? Well,

2:24

I've interested in it, I think,

2:26

for many, many years. And I think many

2:28

people are just because con are

2:30

so fascinating on so many

2:32

levels. I mean, just look at how many movies

2:34

we have about them and how many books we have about

2:37

them. Their stories,

2:38

there's just some very

2:40

appealing about that sort of

2:42

deception and that ability to

2:45

kind of get people to do what

2:47

you want them to do. it's definitely an

2:49

art. I think there's a reason they're called ConAgra.

2:51

But specifically, it

2:54

was a film that I

2:56

was watching. It was one of David Mammoth's

2:58

films. It was his first film as a director

3:02

House of Games. it's basically

3:05

a very elaborate, long con.

3:07

And the main character,

3:10

and this is what really drew me to the movie,

3:13

is incredibly complex. She's a psychologist.

3:15

She sees patients. She really knows the

3:17

ins and outs of human nature. She

3:20

just wrote a bestselling book, you know,

3:22

really smart and savvy woman. And

3:25

she thinks that she's in on this

3:27

long con and she knows that she's dealing with

3:29

con artists. And as it turns

3:31

out, she's the target as

3:33

is so often the case. It does not

3:35

end well. I remember watching

3:37

that movie and thinking if she can be a victim

3:40

than anyone can. And that's not normally how

3:42

we think of victims. Right? We normally think

3:44

of victims as, you know, gullible. stupid,

3:46

greedy that there's something wrong with them.

3:48

There's really nothing at all wrong with her. And so

3:50

I I thought how in the world could that

3:52

happen? And no one had ever really explored

3:54

it, so that was the next three years

3:56

of my life. And

3:58

that's a theme that runs

3:59

all the way

3:59

through your book. This notion that

4:01

we are very good at spotting

4:04

cons or people who are being scammed,

4:06

but we're not very good at spotting us spotting

4:09

it when when we ourselves are the

4:11

target. So

4:13

what is that all about? Why can we see

4:16

and interpret a series of events that

4:18

occurs to someone else? as being

4:21

obviously a scam. But

4:23

when the same events happen to us, we

4:25

don't recognize it as such. Yeah, that's

4:27

a it's a really fascinating dichotomy.

4:29

And I think we're just we're incapable

4:31

of being objective when it comes to

4:34

ourselves. When it's happening to someone

4:36

else, we see everything. we're not

4:38

involved. We're actually able to rationally

4:40

evaluate the evidence, look at what's

4:42

happening, you know, weigh the facts in

4:44

a pretty disinterested manner because

4:46

We don't have any skin in the game. When

4:49

it's happening to us, con

4:51

artists, one of the first things they do

4:53

is engage our emotion. And

4:55

once we're emotionally engaged, we

4:57

stop seeing clearly,

4:59

so emotion and reason are

5:02

not direct opposites, but pretty

5:04

close. So when we're when we're in

5:06

this kind of emotional state, when we

5:08

are ourselves part of the story,

5:11

we stop seeing the signs that we

5:13

would have seen from the outside. They're

5:15

not red flags to us. We don't

5:17

even see them. We think oh,

5:19

you know, that's perfectly understandable. We're

5:21

incredibly good at motivated

5:24

reasoning, which is basically seeing

5:26

what we want to see and not seeing what we don't

5:28

want to see. because now we're

5:30

involved. I mean, it's about us. We're

5:32

part of the story. We're empathizing

5:35

with the con artist we feel like

5:37

we're really kind of engaged in

5:39

this narrative. And when that happens,

5:42

just all logic and all reason goes

5:44

out the window. And there there have been a lot of studies

5:46

that actually show how kind of

5:48

this process is being

5:50

transported into a story, which is really

5:52

what artists do. They tell

5:54

you a story. They kind of build a different

5:57

reality for you. That process

5:59

of transportation makes us

6:01

blind. So people in

6:03

one study who were really transported

6:05

into a story ended up

6:07

not seeing inconsistencies even

6:09

when they were asked to look for them. In

6:12

retrospect, they thought everything made sense,

6:14

whereas people who aren't transported, who

6:16

read kind of similar facts, but in a way

6:18

that wasn't really engaging, we're able to

6:20

spot all of that quite simply.

6:22

So that kind of brings me to the question of

6:24

what makes a good story from

6:26

the perspective of a con artist.

6:28

And I I like the way that, you know, you you

6:30

underscore the fact that there is an artistry

6:32

to it. And of course, we think of

6:34

storytelling as being, you know, an important

6:37

feature of a lot of artistic works.

6:39

So what makes

6:41

the story compelling is can can

6:43

we you know, are there some features

6:46

that

6:46

bring us into it in

6:49

such a way that make

6:51

us forget to

6:51

look for these inconsistencies?

6:54

Yeah. So first of all,

6:56

they're obviously they're very emotionally resonant.

6:59

They are often negative, but they can also be

7:01

positive. They just really know

7:03

how to hit the right emotional

7:05

notes from the beginning. And they

7:07

have characters that we can

7:09

relate to either because

7:11

we really want to be them or we really

7:14

don't want to be

7:14

them. So there are people who are really

7:17

three-dimensional. Everything is very three-dimensional

7:19

about this. But I think that the most

7:20

important characteristic

7:22

when it comes other than emotion

7:26

when it comes to the stories that

7:28

a con artist tells is that they're

7:30

crafted specifically for us. So

7:32

the first step of any

7:34

con is the so called put

7:36

up. That's when the con artist

7:38

evaluates the mark or the victim.

7:41

and tries to figure out, okay, what makes

7:43

you tick? What motivates you? What are

7:45

your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What

7:47

is the version of the world that you want to

7:49

believe true. You know, what is it that

7:51

gets you up in the morning? How do

7:53

you see reality? And then,

7:55

that's the story that they tell.

7:58

And so it's a different story depending on

8:00

the person. Con artists really

8:02

do vary the tale dramatically

8:05

depending on who they're dealing with. because

8:07

that put up

8:08

will highlight

8:09

different different pressure points

8:12

in in different people.

8:12

And so I think that that

8:15

tailor

8:15

made storytelling is what really

8:17

makes it so irresistible

8:20

to so many people ultimately

8:22

because this

8:23

is the story that we already want

8:26

to believe. you

8:26

know, this is a better version

8:27

of the world than the world that we live in,

8:30

or it's a

8:30

version of the world that will make us into

8:32

better people. So is this just about the

8:34

fact that we are so self centered

8:36

centered that when someone really, you

8:39

know, it it feels as if they're they're they

8:41

know us in some way or is it, you know, is it about

8:43

flattery Is it as simple as

8:45

that? Or

8:46

is there something else going on?

8:48

Well, that's certainly part of it. I don't think

8:50

it's just as simple as that. But flattery

8:52

definitely gets you everywhere. So

8:54

I I read a few times that

8:56

the Con artist's bible is Dale

8:59

Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people. And

9:01

that's a business book. It's not a book about con

9:03

artistry. But it has a

9:05

lot of tips on winning

9:07

friends and influencing people. How do you get

9:09

people to like you? And yes, we are

9:11

all supremely egocentric.

9:13

And we're not just egocentric.

9:15

We're also incredibly biased

9:18

about ourselves. So

9:20

most of us go through life

9:22

with what's called an optimal

9:24

unbiased. And so we see

9:26

ourselves as much better than we actually are.

9:28

So everyone is above average at everything. Right?

9:30

That's the Lake Robogon effect,

9:32

which is the little mythic town of Lake

9:34

Robogon where all the children are smarter

9:36

than everyone else, better athletes, than

9:38

everyone else, etcetera, etcetera,

9:40

etcetera. But we really do have that sort of

9:42

approach when it comes to ourselves. I mean, have ever

9:44

met anyone who says, actually, you know,

9:46

I'm a pretty crappy driver. I don't

9:48

know who drives all the time, of course, because

9:50

this has to be something important to you. And I'm not

9:52

very nice that I'm kind of graceive. And,

9:54

you know, I'm probably just gonna be kind

9:56

of average in this class because I'm

9:59

an average student and I'm not particularly

10:01

smart. I mean, most people don't say that.

10:03

we really have this rosy conception

10:05

of ourselves that we're better at good

10:07

things and worse at bad things. And

10:10

the only people who don't have that

10:12

are people who are clinically depressed.

10:14

So if that goes to show

10:16

just how beneficial that optimism

10:18

vibes actually is, it

10:20

makes us hopeful. It

10:23

gives us kind of a sense that

10:25

tomorrow is going to be better. That's

10:27

that momentum that we need to get out of

10:29

bed in the morning. Otherwise, what's the point?

10:31

Which is obviously exactly what happens with

10:33

people who are clinically depressed. And

10:35

Connor definitely, they tap

10:37

into that because the version of

10:39

the world They sell us

10:41

isn't reality, but it's the one that's

10:43

real in our minds. They tell

10:45

us that we are better. They tell

10:47

us that we are more worthy they

10:50

feed into that hope. I think

10:52

ultimately, you know, what all of them

10:54

are selling. It doesn't matter if it's money.

10:56

It doesn't matter what it's about. It's

10:58

about hope at a very fundamental level,

11:00

at least for the marks, for the people who

11:03

become the targets of these games.

11:05

So do

11:05

you think that a person who is clinically depressed

11:08

is

11:08

a harder mark because they have a more

11:10

realistic view of the

11:11

zombie world? You know, that's actually it's a

11:13

really good question and

11:15

I wasn't able to find any

11:18

data on it because there

11:20

aren't very many studies of

11:22

clinically depressed individuals who who

11:24

become the terms of con artists. We do know

11:26

that depression actually makes you a

11:28

better target, but that's not clinical

11:30

depression. That's someone who's going through kind of a

11:32

traumatic experience. you know,

11:34

death or divorce or loss

11:36

of a job. That kind of

11:38

thing, it it makes you very emotionally vulnerable.

11:41

and then you become more vulnerable to con artists

11:43

because you want stability and you want certainty,

11:45

you want someone to reassure you. But that's

11:47

very different from clinical depression.

11:49

clinical depression is not a response

11:51

to one particular traumatic event. It's

11:53

a chronic state of being. And so I

11:55

would not be surprised if the clinically

11:58

depressed were less susceptible.

12:00

I would also bet that

12:02

they're still susceptible. Just

12:05

probably this a different type of con,

12:07

one that feeds into that realism, you

12:09

know, one that says, you know, we know that the world

12:11

sucks, that everything sucks. So

12:13

we're not gonna try to sell you anything.

12:15

and then you it from there. So

12:17

at the very beginning of your book, you described

12:19

the con artist in a way that I had never

12:21

really considered him or her to

12:23

be. which is not, you know, I sort of

12:25

think of them as sociopaths, people

12:27

who are cold and unemotional and

12:29

unem you know, have no empathy and so

12:31

forth. But But in

12:32

fact, you you suggest that the opposite

12:34

must be true because the first thing that they need

12:36

to do is

12:37

establish trust. So

12:40

tell me a little bit about that. What

12:41

is this? You know, how

12:44

can a person who's a con artist?

12:46

Who is so able,

12:48

apparently, to navigate social

12:50

relationships, you know, still choose

12:52

to swindle people

12:54

and, you know, do things

12:55

that just aren't moral? Well,

12:58

I think

12:58

that we actually have

13:01

an incorrect perception of what

13:03

empathy means. in

13:05

society. So when you

13:07

think empathy, you probably think,

13:09

you know, warm and kind and

13:11

someone who really understands other

13:13

people. But empathy is actually comprised

13:15

of two distinct parts. There's is

13:17

that emotion on empathy? There's also

13:20

very cold and cognitive empathy.

13:22

which is a logical understanding of

13:24

where someone's coming from, but without that

13:27

emotional

13:28

report. And that can

13:29

be learned that can be

13:32

be faked and in fact that

13:34

can be honed in the

13:36

absence of emotion. Because

13:38

emotion often gets in the way of

13:40

complete empathy because our own emotions

13:42

cloud our judgment and we're not

13:44

actually able to see things from other

13:46

people's point of view. It's the people who

13:48

are psychopaths often can be incredibly

13:50

cognitively empathetic, that

13:52

cold rational empathy because they

13:54

can actually just analyze without

13:57

any emotion in the situation. They can

13:59

listen to you and they can understand

14:01

exactly where you're coming from and

14:03

then they can fake the emotion. So

14:05

I think that that's what con artists are so

14:08

incredibly good at. So they're not all

14:10

psychopaths. Some of them are, and

14:12

so they don't have that emotional experience

14:14

to begin with, but some of them

14:16

aren't, but they have they make that division

14:18

very clear. They really

14:20

separate their emotions from

14:22

their kind of cold rational,

14:25

okay, I'm understanding you not

14:27

because I care about you. I mean, think of

14:29

what I'm calling you. I'm calling you a

14:31

mark. I'm not calling you a human. I'm

14:33

calling you a walking target that

14:35

I think that word just says so

14:37

much about that mindset. So I'm

14:39

very able to empathize in the

14:42

sense of seeing exactly what you want,

14:44

understanding you, building

14:46

trust, smiling and making

14:48

myself into the type of person that

14:50

you like, because I have

14:52

calculated exactly who that type of

14:54

person is. And my emotion

14:56

is completely divorced. It's completely separate.

14:59

So that side of empathy

15:01

isn't engaged at all. And I

15:03

write about one con artist very

15:05

briefly who failed that test and he probably

15:07

is not no longer working as a

15:09

con artist because he's clearly

15:11

not very good at it. So he was

15:13

he was doing this very common

15:15

IRS scam where you call and you

15:17

say, oh, you owe taxes. You know, if

15:19

you don't pay this amount of money now, you're going

15:21

to be arrested and all this bad stuff is going

15:23

to happen. So he was doing

15:25

this on the phone

15:27

with a young woman who then started

15:29

crying and saying, oh my god, I'm nine months

15:31

pregnant. I'm about to give birth. can't

15:33

afford this. What's gonna happen? I'm gonna lose my

15:35

job. I'm gonna lose everything. And she just

15:37

became hysterical. And

15:39

he said, lady lady don't worry about

15:41

it. It's scam. And so

15:43

obviously, you know, he felt empathy for

15:45

her on a real emotional level,

15:47

and that killed him. He wasn't able to

15:49

pull off the scam.

15:55

But

16:01

why aren't we very good at

16:03

detecting this kind of false emotional

16:05

expressiveness? I mean, you know, people talk about

16:07

cortical smiles, the fact

16:09

that you know, the the the the size of your

16:11

eyes don't light up in a in

16:12

a genuine smile the

16:14

way they do, you know, and

16:17

so we can we can see cortical smiles

16:19

immediately

16:19

when when we look

16:21

at photos of people who, you know,

16:23

whatever took a selfie or whatever.

16:25

And and so it seems as if we're actually

16:27

pretty good at detecting authenticity

16:30

in emotion, but is that

16:32

just not true or

16:33

is that another will be

16:36

gone exaggeration? Yeah.

16:37

It's actually not true. We're really bad

16:40

at we're very

16:42

good at reading what different emotions

16:44

are when you kind of give us a

16:46

set of photographs where we

16:48

can we can pretty universally And

16:50

I say universally because a lot of this work that was done by

16:53

Paul Ackman on emotion

16:55

recognition was done cross

16:57

culturally in a lot of different societies.

16:59

we're pretty good at saying, oh, you know, she's

17:01

happy. This is anger. There are

17:03

lots of universal expressions of emotions.

17:05

So we're good at that. But

17:08

when it comes to authenticity in

17:10

real life, we're actually

17:13

really really bad

17:15

at it. we are the opposite of

17:17

good lie detectors. So

17:19

mostly our ability to

17:21

detect truth from from a

17:23

life or authenticity from inauthenticity

17:26

is a coin toss that's fifty

17:28

fifty. Even though we think that we

17:30

are very good at it, And

17:32

in some sort of circumscribed

17:35

situation where, you know, you're showing

17:37

photographs of two different people and you'd say, okay, these

17:39

are different. Which one is which?

17:41

Then we can do it. But if you think about

17:43

real life, it's never like that. It's not a

17:45

laboratory. And con

17:47

artists aren't people who are

17:49

posing for a photograph as

17:51

a liar or even posing for a

17:53

video as a liar. These are

17:56

people for whom lying is central to their identity lying is

17:58

what they do, is who they are. Meaning

18:00

they lie every single moment

18:02

of every single day. for

18:04

the most part. You they live their lie. And so

18:06

to them, the lie isn't a

18:09

lie. There's no, you know, there's

18:11

no dissonance there. There's

18:13

no tension. And so

18:15

to them, the lies

18:17

second nature, and so we

18:19

can't see that. And as I I was actually really

18:22

surprised by this. It's

18:24

really evolutionarily advantageous

18:28

to be trusting and to be bad

18:30

at spotting lie detection. So

18:32

individuals who are more trusting who

18:34

have higher levels of what's called generalized

18:37

trust. end up doing better, emotionally.

18:39

They end up doing

18:41

better health wise. They end up being

18:44

more in challenge, and obviously, this noncorrelation or we

18:46

don't know what the causation is. And

18:48

socially, that's also true.

18:50

That societies with higher levels of trust

18:52

us do better. economically there, but

18:54

our social institutions are more

18:57

successful. And it actually makes sense if

18:59

you stop and think about it because

19:01

In order to progress, be it as

19:03

an individual or as a society, we

19:05

have to forge social connections and

19:07

we have to trust. we have

19:09

to actually get over that

19:11

mistrust of one another so that we can

19:13

create something bigger than ourselves. So

19:16

that makes sense. And then the other part of it

19:18

that we're bad at spotting lies

19:20

also makes sense because it's very protective

19:22

to the ego. When you

19:24

don't actually want to know

19:27

someone is lying to you because we lie all the

19:29

time in small ways. You don't wanna

19:31

know that someone thinks that you look actually

19:34

really crappy today rather than oh, you look really nice. You

19:36

know, did you do something different to your

19:38

hair? You don't wanna spot that

19:40

deception. There's just some fascinating

19:42

studies. One was done of marriage. and

19:44

it ended up that the couples that were more successful and that

19:46

were happier were worse

19:49

at reading cues of

19:51

deception in one another. which

19:53

made me laugh, but it

19:56

actually makes a lot of sense. You know,

19:58

they they fought each other's lives and

19:59

that made them have a happy marriage.

20:03

So,

20:03

I mean, this is just so counterintuitive. This

20:05

idea that the more trusting you are,

20:07

especially when it comes to

20:09

intelligence, you know, that there is this correlation. I

20:11

mean, it seems that it should be exactly the opposite

20:13

when I think about, you know, people who

20:15

are hyperrational, who are very logical

20:18

who, you know, don't take anything at face value, who

20:20

want to see the evidence before they

20:22

make any kind of conclusion, that

20:24

they represent kind of the seat of

20:27

higher intelligence. but, you know, you're

20:29

suggesting that that's, in fact, not the

20:31

case. Yeah. And

20:32

like I said, it was a surprise to me

20:35

as well. that this was the case.

20:37

I was I was at the exact same mindset

20:39

as you. I thought that, oh, of course, you

20:41

know, intellect should go with

20:43

more skepticism, but

20:45

you know, if it is the case

20:48

that it's more evolutionarily beneficial

20:51

to be, trust staying. Well,

20:54

then then the fact that the to go

20:56

hand in hand aren't necessarily

20:59

so crazy. And by the two, I

21:01

mean, intelligence and being

21:03

trusting. And if you think about the

21:05

only data that we have that's

21:07

really consistent over time, about

21:09

what makes people live

21:11

longer and have happier and

21:13

more fulfilled lives. It's

21:16

all about social connections.

21:18

I mean, the one thing that we

21:20

find over and over

21:22

and over is that the

21:24

biggest buffer against disease, against

21:26

sadness against, you know, passage of

21:28

time against mental decline even

21:30

is social connections and

21:32

love and emotion. and

21:35

that's all founded on trust.

21:37

So I think it plays an incredibly powerful

21:39

role in our lives and one that we

21:41

don't often acknowledge think a lot of the times that

21:43

people say, oh, I'm, you know, I'm so skeptical. I

21:46

don't trust anyone blah blah blah. They

21:48

do have people that they really trust. and not

21:50

like they're skeptical of humanity.

21:52

Some people are. There are also people

21:54

who are, on the one hand,

21:56

skeptical, but on the other hand, can

21:58

be incredibly trust in

21:59

certain situations. Well, and

22:01

you're hitting upon one point that I

22:03

was gonna bring up, which is this notion that

22:05

people who are highly skeptical often

22:08

you know, look at the scientific method and you

22:10

know data as being, you

22:12

know, essentially the final answer.

22:14

And in some ways,

22:16

they might be more willing to, you

22:18

know, trust a scientist or trust the

22:21

data even though, you know,

22:23

oftentimes when we're looking at

22:25

studies of you know, the human

22:27

experience, the data are

22:28

muddy, the the methods are

22:31

difficult. And so, you know, when

22:33

when someone finds a compelling

22:35

study that's, you know,

22:37

yeah, has some result. I

22:39

find that people who are most skeptical

22:41

tend to also be most trusting of

22:43

those data? Yes,

22:44

especially when those data are something that they want

22:46

to believe. So we have confirmation bias

22:49

there as well. We are

22:51

incredibly good at seeing, oh, yep, this is

22:53

definitive when we want to believe it,

22:55

when it actually goes along with our

22:57

mindset and really bad when

22:59

it doesn't. And

23:01

I think people who are very

23:03

skeptical have this false sense of confidence

23:05

because you're absolutely right.

23:07

you know, the world is incredibly messy.

23:10

It's not clear cut. Sometimes

23:12

results especially in psychology

23:14

are really, really messy because

23:17

humans are messy. And sometimes they're not what we want

23:19

to believe is true at all. You know,

23:21

it has it's absolutely agnostic

23:23

about our beliefs. It's just the

23:25

way that it is. And so if it

23:27

doesn't mesh with how we think the world

23:29

should go, well then we're we're we

23:31

end up, you know, getting it wrong because

23:34

we'll ignore that evidence. And

23:36

I think that it's an incredibly important point.

23:38

And by the way, it's one that common artists

23:41

understand very well because they always

23:43

sell us as I already said, the

23:45

world that we want to be

23:47

true, they get rid of the

23:49

messiness. They make it very

23:51

easy. They make it from shades of gray

23:53

into black. and white. You know, they give us that

23:55

certainty. That's why we trust them.

23:57

We love that. I mean, we that's what

23:59

we want the

23:59

world to be like.

24:01

So we've got the mark,

24:04

which is an important first

24:06

step in terms of

24:08

a con artist strategy,

24:09

then you've got

24:10

the storytelling of the

24:13

compelling emotional thing, and and

24:14

we've got this sense of building

24:17

a war world or presenting a world or

24:19

a story that someone who's

24:21

the mark wants to believe in,

24:23

how does the con then

24:25

get the person to do what they wanna do. What's sort of what's sort of

24:27

the next major thing that they've figured

24:29

out how to do? Well, this is actually

24:31

quite brilliant because one

24:34

of the features that con artists

24:37

possess is something called Machiavellianism.

24:39

And that comes from Machiavellian is ideal

24:42

prints. And what the ideal prints

24:44

does is manipulate people so that they

24:46

don't realize they're being manipulated. We

24:48

hate when we're manipulated. You know,

24:50

nothing makes you bulk

24:52

and kind of lose trust

24:54

and go away

24:56

more quickly than thinking

24:58

that someone's trying to kind of get you

25:00

to do something. when a car salesman's too pushy, you

25:02

end up leaving without a car, you say, oh,

25:04

he was so sleazy, he just didn't get

25:07

me at all. But when that same

25:09

car salesman, is

25:12

Machiavellian. When he

25:14

is able to plant

25:16

ideas in your mind so that

25:18

you think it's coming

25:20

from you, that you don't actually think that

25:22

anyone is asking you to do anything. It's of

25:24

your own volition. Then

25:26

all of a sudden you're buying them most expensive

25:28

car on the lot because you think that that's what

25:30

you actually want and that you deserve

25:32

it even though, you know, you would have walked away

25:34

from a cheaper car in the hands

25:36

of a sleazier for lack

25:38

of a better word. Salesmen, while

25:41

Salesmen kind of go together, I feel like in the

25:43

English language, And so

25:45

what good con artists do is

25:47

they plant kind of these seeds,

25:49

these ideas in our mind often through

25:52

their stories. So when we

25:54

were talking about storytelling and how

25:56

they engage in motion and how they make

25:58

us impervious to

26:00

incorrect information. Well,

26:02

we also absorb a lot of facts

26:04

and a lot of suggestions and a lot of

26:06

things under the radar because we

26:08

don't realize that stories can also

26:10

be tools of manipulation. And

26:12

so these ideas have

26:14

been planted in our minds, and so

26:16

then we think that it's coming from us. and not from

26:18

someone else. So the the origin of the word confidence

26:20

man is someone

26:22

who doesn't ask you for anything.

26:25

It's someone to you

26:26

willingly give your

26:28

confidence.

26:28

The original confidence man

26:31

was this guy in the eighteen hundreds

26:33

in New York City And by

26:35

original confidence, man, I don't mean the first confidence man. I mean,

26:37

the first person called the com of

26:39

confidence man. He would walk along the

26:41

streets of Manhattan and he would

26:44

ask people, hey, excuse me,

26:46

do you have confidence in me?

26:48

Do you trust me? Do

26:50

you give me your watch until tomorrow?

26:52

and they gave him their watch of

26:55

their own free will. He didn't rob

26:57

anyone because they just

26:59

thought, oh, well, you know, what a

27:01

fanciful request. Am I

27:03

the type of person who believes in

27:05

humanity? Well, of course, I have confidence in

27:07

you. I'm a gentleman and you are

27:09

a all about Gentlemen's agreements. And he

27:11

ended up with lots and lots of watches by the time

27:13

that he got caught. And so

27:15

that is the confidence artists

27:18

art. That's the that's their

27:20

crucial skill that you never

27:22

feel manipulated. You always

27:25

think that a lot of these notions, a lot

27:27

of these schemes are coming from

27:29

you. I mean, think of Bernie madoff

27:31

victims. He did not ask

27:33

anyone for monthly. People

27:35

begged him to take their money. because

27:37

they thought that he was just the end

27:39

all and be all of investing. And he

27:41

would turn them down. People had to wait

27:43

for years to to give them money

27:46

to madoff. because they,

27:48

you know, they just were so thrilled.

27:50

They said, oh, please take it, take more, take

27:52

more, and he had planted kind of that

27:54

the idea that he's so brilliant in their

27:57

minds over time.

27:59

And you're actually

27:59

touching upon something

28:02

that people say is a part of

28:04

networking that, you know, instead of

28:06

asking someone for

28:08

something that you need, first thing

28:10

that you do is you offer something that

28:12

you think they want, you know,

28:14

whether it's your time or advice or, you know,

28:16

a volunteer. That's that's the

28:19

first step in developing

28:19

a relationship. You know?

28:22

So in some ways, like, are we all

28:24

just conning each

28:25

other and that this seems to be

28:28

something that allows us to function

28:30

as a society. Should should

28:32

we be more overt about

28:36

you know, what it is that we want for relationships.

28:38

Yeah. I mean, we do

28:40

all perpetrate minor cons on a

28:42

daily level. I wouldn't call them cons

28:44

in the sense of the

28:46

con artist

28:47

because then the term

28:50

becomes completely,

28:51

you know,

28:53

inconsequential, then there's really just no

28:55

no difference between an everyday

28:57

person and a con artist. And

28:59

so to me kind of our everyday deceptions.

29:02

They're not cons. They're not

29:04

always even white lies. They're just kind of they're

29:06

the ways that we

29:07

operate in the world. And it's kind

29:09

of, you know, it's the

29:11

difference between going back to politics, between your

29:14

general politician, and

29:16

someone who's actually a competent artist

29:19

politician. And that's the difference of

29:21

intention. So are you is

29:23

your intent malicious? And is this

29:25

a means to a personal end?

29:27

that really has nothing to do with what you're what you're actually

29:29

doing. It has to do with power. It has to do

29:31

with control. You know, it has to do

29:33

with all sorts of things that you're

29:35

trying to get for yourself? Or are you

29:37

actually, like, genuinely trying to, you

29:39

know, trying to take make

29:41

the best of a situation? Are you really

29:44

trying to, yeah, you're selling something, but

29:46

you're selling a version of the world that you actually

29:48

believe then. You don't

29:50

have a malicious various intent.

29:53

So you're actually thinking that you're

29:55

not hurting anyone and that you're potentially

29:57

even making the world a better place.

29:59

until a lot of politicians end up falling under

30:01

that sort of rubric,

30:03

whereas some end up falling under the collar, this

30:05

rubric, where for them politics is just a means

30:07

to an end. and it really is

30:09

a big con. And politics, I

30:12

I purposefully chose something that's kind of at

30:14

one far end of the continuum. and that's

30:16

an end that's very, very close to Conner's. I mean,

30:18

that line starts getting very gray. But

30:20

I think in general, yes, we

30:23

use tools of persuasion sure

30:27

we sometimes consciously, sometimes

30:29

not use some of the same

30:31

tools that artists use in our

30:33

daily lives, but not

30:35

for the you know, we're not doing it to take

30:37

advantage of people in the same way

30:39

that artists are. We're doing

30:41

it for much more benign.

30:44

ends. And yes, we benefit from

30:46

that, but I don't think that makes us con

30:48

artists. The exact

30:50

same tools can be used in positive

30:52

and negative

30:53

context. So we've gotten

30:54

to the point where we kind of maybe

30:57

understand why, you know, how we get

30:59

cons. But the the

31:01

the last step, of course, is that a lot

31:03

of people don't get out.

31:06

They give, you know, they give more money.

31:08

So what is that all

31:11

about? Well,

31:11

I think, ultimately, the single

31:14

best con artist is

31:16

ourselves. So once we're in a

31:18

con, we've already talked about the fact

31:20

that we we stopped seeing red

31:22

flags. We stopped being

31:24

reasonable. We stopped being rational.

31:26

But what also happens

31:29

is we really don't want to believe

31:31

that we're being kind. We

31:35

want

31:35

more than anything to kind of

31:38

maintain that picture of ourselves

31:40

as very smart and savvy

31:42

and good judges of characters in our own

31:44

lines. And so we end up

31:46

justifying everything and explaining away

31:49

all the elements of con so that oftentimes

31:52

even when the con is exposed, we

31:54

refuse to believe that it was a

31:56

con. So I write about some exams and

31:58

this is totally crazy who after

32:00

their con artist is

32:02

exposed and is in the courtroom. standing

32:04

trial and they have evidence that this was a

32:06

con in front of them. They

32:09

insist that

32:11

no This is all a big conspiracy.

32:14

This was not a con. This

32:16

person is being railroaded and this is, you

32:18

know, this is just a show trial. And

32:20

there are people who end up paying

32:22

for the defense funds of

32:24

the con artists who already

32:26

fooled them, which to me is just

32:28

so crazy and yet It's not a one time occurrence.

32:30

It happens over and over and

32:33

over. So oftentimes, people fall

32:35

for the exact same con multiple

32:37

times. because rather than learning

32:39

from experience, they've done such a

32:41

good job rationalizing away all

32:44

the inconsistencies that they say, oh, it was just

32:46

bad luck, you know, this went wrong, that

32:48

went wrong. And so why not do it again? You know,

32:50

maybe my luck will change? Towards

32:52

the end of the book, you actually talk about what

32:54

are the reasons why we seem to get

32:56

sucked in and that, you

32:58

know, we have all of this

33:00

ego preservation and everything. And

33:02

that there

33:03

is one very human

33:05

thing that we do that seems

33:07

to

33:07

highlight this, and and that is

33:10

gossip.

33:10

So what do we know? Especially, I

33:12

I was hoping that maybe you talk about some of

33:14

the Robin Dunbar work about, you know,

33:16

our conversations and just how

33:19

you know, gossip is something that we all

33:22

do all the time.

33:23

Yes. Absolutely. I mean, it's

33:25

so Robin Dunbar. did

33:27

a lot of important work

33:28

on social connections. And

33:30

he started out studying

33:31

primates and grooming behavior on

33:34

primates. You know, why do primates? spent

33:36

so much time grooming one another and

33:38

literally nitpicking. And what

33:40

he found out was that this was

33:42

a way to foster social connection that

33:45

it actually shows you that, you

33:48

know, you're someone who is invested

33:50

in me because you're spending the

33:52

time grooming me. And there's a

33:54

limit to how big primate groups can

33:56

be because there are limits

33:58

to how much time you have in

34:00

the day. to build these connections. And those

34:02

connections are really important because they

34:04

determine your status in kind of a

34:06

troop of of of

34:08

primates, whatever the primate happens

34:10

to be. say you're a chimpanzee or whatever you are.

34:12

And so you develop reputation. It's

34:14

like, oh, this is someone who actually

34:16

rooms people. And

34:18

so this is someone who will protect. This is someone who cares about

34:20

our community. Oh, this is someone who doesn't

34:22

reciprocate. This you don't you don't groom

34:26

people. You don't do this. We're gonna kick you out or we're gonna, you

34:28

know, demote you to the lowest prong, so

34:30

you're always the last to get food and whatever

34:34

it is. So then he actually saw that there was a

34:36

relationship between the size of the

34:38

brain, the number of

34:40

social connections

34:42

that that primates had in the time they spent grooming.

34:44

So he came up with this mathematical formula. He

34:46

applied it to humans and he

34:49

thought, wait a minute, you

34:51

know, by by this particular

34:54

metric, we should be

34:56

spending basically all of our waking hours

34:58

booming and we don't. And yet, we are

35:00

able to have kind of a

35:02

bigger number of connections, so why is that? And he realized that

35:04

we groom in different ways.

35:06

We have a way of

35:10

broadcasting our reputation to

35:12

multiple people without actually

35:14

spending time grooming. And

35:15

that's through

35:17

gossip. Gossip isn't an inherently bad word.

35:19

It's become negatively tinged in

35:22

modern society, but all

35:24

it's about is sharing

35:26

information about other people.

35:28

And so, you know, you

35:30

now

35:30

I can groom my

35:33

monkey and then another

35:33

monkey can say, hey, did you see

35:36

Maria so good at grooming? You

35:38

know,

35:38

she she's really trustworthy and

35:40

So someone else says, oh, I heard that Maria is

35:43

very trustworthy. You

35:43

know, she's a great groomer.

35:45

And so my reputation spreads. I

35:47

have a good reputation. now imagine the

35:49

opposite that, you know, someone rooms me and then rather than reciprocate. I say,

35:51

thank you and walk away.

35:53

And then someone

35:56

says, you know, that Maria girl, she she's not very

35:58

nice. Someone else's oh, someone

35:59

else said Maria's not very nice. And the

36:02

gossip spread, you know,

36:04

reputation spreads.

36:05

And so it's a really important way of

36:08

managing social impressions

36:10

and of managing social networks

36:13

end of creating lasting friendship groups. I

36:15

mean, reputation stands in

36:18

as a proxy for so many

36:20

things because it's something

36:22

that really travels with

36:24

you throughout your life. I mean, that's why it's called

36:27

reputation. And it's something that

36:29

people

36:29

can use as a shortcut for

36:31

a lot of different things so that you don't have

36:33

to reestablish yourself every single time and it can

36:35

be incredibly helpful. By the way, the

36:38

fact that it's so popular and so

36:40

incredibly powerful is

36:42

one of the reasons we should

36:43

be really, really scared of the Internet

36:45

and of social media

36:47

because people's reputation can be ruined in

36:49

a second, and then it

36:51

lives on in the ether, kind of on the

36:53

Internet and Internet searches. really

36:56

colors our perception of someone we

36:58

might not even

36:58

know, and it might not even be true. But

37:00

that's the Internet's a very powerful

37:04

reputation and

37:04

reputation magnifier that we

37:06

should be really wary of. Yeah. I

37:09

think

37:09

you've essentially just

37:11

explained the Internet. from Craigslist to Facebook

37:14

and everywhere in between.

37:16

Even the common thread on YouTube.

37:21

So I wanna remind our listeners that your book

37:23

the confidence game while we fall for it

37:25

every

37:25

time is available from

37:28

booksellers ever Maria Konica, but

37:30

thank you so much for being uninquiring

37:32

minds. Thank you

37:32

so much for having me. This was

37:35

an absolute pleasure. So that's

37:37

it for another

37:39

episode. Thanks for listening. And if you

37:41

wanna hear more,

37:44

Don't forget to subscribe or dig into our totally

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inquiring lines. I also want to

37:58

especially thank Charles

37:59

Blial, Dale Lemaster,

38:02

David Noelle, Hearing Chang, Jay Henry, Joel

38:04

and Youshie Lim. Inquiring

38:06

Minds is produced by me, Adam Isaac,

38:08

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38:13

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38:17

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