{"id":103904,"date":"2023-06-01T08:46:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T12:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=103904"},"modified":"2023-06-01T13:13:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T17:13:08","slug":"the-confidence-game-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/the-confidence-game-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The Confidence Game: Book Overview (Maria Konnikova)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What is the book The Confidence Game<\/em> by Maria Konnikova about? How do con artists get away with manipulating their victims? How can you see past their games?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psychologist Maria Konnikova claims that con artists have existed for as long as human communities have. Con artists are people with an uncanny ability to gain someone\u2019s trust, swindle them, and disappear before the victim even grasps what\u2019s happened\u2014a ruse known as a confidence game, or \u201ccon.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read below for our The Confidence Game<\/em> book overview to get the main ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Confidence Game<\/em><\/strong> by Maria Konnikova<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In The Confidence Game<\/em><\/a> book, published in 2016, Maria Konnikova uses social psychology to reveal the inner workings of cons: What makes a good con artist, and what makes a person an easy target, or \u201cmark\u201d? Through her analysis of common human biases, Konnikova demonstrates that a con artist doesn\u2019t just rely on their own wiles\u2014they rely on our instinctive confidence in the stories we tell ourselves<\/em><\/strong>. <\/em>Konnikova suggests that by understanding these manipulation tactics, we might learn to identify and extract ourselves from cons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Konnikova is the author of the New York Times<\/em> bestsellers Mastermind<\/em><\/a> (2013) and The Biggest Bluff<\/em><\/a> (2020). Her research for The Biggest Bluff,<\/em> about balancing skill and luck, led to her becoming an international poker champion and professional poker player. She is also a contributor to The New Yorker <\/em>and hosts a podcast, \u201cThe Grift,\u201d about con artists and their stories. In The Confidence Game, <\/em>she examines what makes us consistently fall prey to con artists through a wide range of real examples like the first Ponzi scheme, psychics and clairvoyants, fine art fraud, and spiritual cults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Characteristics of a Con Artist<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Konnikova writes that the terms \u201cconfidence game\u201d and \u201cconfidence man\u201d likely date back to 1849 in the description of a legal case for a man named William Thompson. Thomspon would approach people in public in New York City, asking \u201cHave you confidence in me to trust me with your watch until tomorrow?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The case demonstrates that Thompson\u2019s success depended partly on the victims\u2019 confidence in a certain kind of person (in this case, affluent people) and partly on Thompson\u2019s ability to prey on the right person<\/a> and manipulate them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many vulnerabilities that make people susceptible to scams, but what are the characteristics of a successful con artist who\u2019s pulling the strings? Konnikova claims that there are three traits that each make people more likely to become a con artist: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism (being manipulative to get what you want)<\/strong>. In addition, two environmental criteria increase the likelihood of becoming a con artist<\/a>: opportunity and rationale.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Elements of a Confidence Game and Why They Work<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Konnikova claims that the con has 10 key elements (the put-up, the play, the rope, the tale, the convincer, the breakdown, the send, the touch, the blow-off, and the fix). We\u2019ve consolidated these elements into five general steps: identifying a vulnerable person (the mark) and figuring out their desire, gaining the mark\u2019s trust, persuading the mark to do something, seeing how far they can push the mark, and finally, escaping and ensuring that the mark won\u2019t speak out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, Konnikova asserts that throughout the con, the con artist takes advantage of natural human instincts\u2014ones that generally evolved to help us in some way<\/strong>. They also prey on our innate desire to believe in ourselves and that good things can happen to us because we deserve it. In the rest of this section, we\u2019ll explain how each of these tactics unfolds and the human biases that make us play into the con artist\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 1: Identify and Size Up the Mark<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This first step requires the con artist to read you (the mark) accurately. Konnikova says this might include detecting your mood, making observations about how you like to be perceived (like noticing if you seem to have spent a lot of time on your appearance), or keying in on details, such as your occupation or where you\u2019re from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these details help the con artist with the subsequent steps by revealing your unspoken desires<\/strong>, which the con artist can then leverage to gain your confidence. For example, if the con artist observes that you\u2019re a low-income college student, they might infer that you\u2019re particularly susceptible to someone offering you a quick and easy way to make cash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 2: Gain the Mark\u2019s Trust<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The next step of the con, Konnikova explains, is using the information from the first step to gain your trust. The con artist uses three main tools that automatically make us more likely to trust someone: similarity, familiarity, and appeals to emotion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When leveraging similarity, the con artist might mirror back the traits, interests, or experiences they observed in you. For example, they might pretend they graduated from the same university as you or lived in the same town. This subtly nudges you to trust the con artist because you\u2019re so much alike\u2014in other words, if you think of yourself as trustworthy, then you assume this other person just like you must also be trustworthy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To appeal to familiarity, the con artist might pretend they\u2019re a friend of a friend. This appeals to your sense of being a good judge of character<\/a> by suggesting that if they\u2019re already linked to you through a mutual friend, then they deserve your trust. Or, they might pretend that they work at the same company as you and stage a casual run-in before introducing the con in your second encounter. Since they\u2019re an \u201cacquaintance\u201d that you\u2019ve had one positive experience with, you\u2019re automatically more likely to trust them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Konnikova notes that both similarity and familiarity can be faked with very little background information. In addition, the more we trust someone, the more information we share, giving the con artist an even greater advantage in manipulating us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly, Konnikova explains that con artists gain your trust by appealing to your emotions. In particular, when someone tells you a sad story, it activates your empathy and makes you more likely to let your guard down and trust that person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 3: Persuade the Mark to Do Something<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Konnikova writes that once the con artist has sized you up and gained your trust, they will persuade you to do something. They achieve this by making an action seem more appealing as well as removing any potential reasons not<\/em> to take the action<\/strong>\u2014tactics that psychologists refer to as alpha and omega, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 4: Get the Mark to Double Down<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In the next part of the con, Konnikova explains, the con artist will see exactly how far they can push you and try to get you to recommit or double down. At this point, something might seem slightly off or go awry\u2014for example, you might notice evidence that the con artist isn\u2019t who they say they are, or you\u2019re starting to lose<\/em> money rather than earning<\/em> the money you were promised. During this step, the con artist relies on your self-serving bias<\/a>, your natural instinct to reduce cognitive dissonance<\/a>, and the sunk cost fallacy<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Konnikova claims that when you\u2019re influenced by the self-serving bias, you help the con artist by focusing only on rationales and evidence that justify the choices you\u2019ve already made\u2014trusting the con artist and taking some sort of action, like investing your money. In other words, you focus only on the good because you want to avoid thinking about loss and facing regret. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Konnikova, cognitive dissonance is a similar phenomenon where you re-frame the story you tell yourself to reconcile contradictory information<\/strong> about reality versus what you thought was true. For example, you thought you met a great new friend and business partner, but after you gave them some money, they\u2019re nowhere to be found and their phone\u2019s disconnected. Instead of logically connecting the dots and realizing you\u2019ve been conned, you might reduce cognitive dissonance by telling yourself they just had a phone mishap, and everything\u2019s fine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see how far they can push you, the con artist might even disappear for a while, reappear with a reasonable excuse (therefore reaffirming your optimism that you didn\u2019t<\/em> make a mistake), ask you for more money, and then disappear again. Lastly, Konnikova explains that the sunk cost<\/a> fallacy makes you more likely to double down on your decisions<\/strong> when you\u2019re in the middle of a con. The sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to keep pursuing one route once you\u2019re already invested in it, and this investment could be time, money, effort, or a personal relationship. It\u2019s irrational because it\u2019s better to cut your losses once there\u2019s evidence that you\u2019ve made a mistake, but instead, you\u2019ll more likely stick with it in the hope that you\u2019ll turn out to be right after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Step 5: Escape and Ensure Silence<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Konnikova writes that in the last part of the con, the con artist completes their trick and in most cases simply escapes with the money or goods they\u2019ve swindled you out of. However, a key part of ending the con is making sure you won\u2019t make an official complaint or tell others about what they\u2019ve done<\/strong>. At this point, Konnikova explains, the con artist relies heavily on your sense of shame and embarrassment that you were fooled and the fact that you likely don\u2019t want to tarnish your reputation or self-image by admitting fault. She writes that these tendencies are often enough to ensure that people stay silent, thereby enabling the con artist to keep playing the trick on new marks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is the book The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova about? How do con artists get away with manipulating their victims? How can you see past their games? Psychologist Maria Konnikova claims that con artists have existed for as long as human communities have. Con artists are people with an uncanny ability to gain someone\u2019s trust, swindle them, and disappear before the victim even grasps what\u2019s happened\u2014a ruse known as a confidence game, or \u201ccon.\u201d  Read below for our The Confidence Game book overview to get the main ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":81943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,20,9],"tags":[1042],"class_list":["post-103904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-ethics","category-psychology","tag-the-confidence-game","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Confidence Game: Book Overview (Maria Konnikova) - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In her book The Confidence Game, Maria Konnikova teaches you the ways of the con artist, so you know how to avoid falling for them. 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