PDF Summary:The Confidence Game, by Maria Konnikova

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’s trust, swindle them, and disappear before the victim even grasps what’s happened—a ruse known as a confidence game, or “con.”

In The Confidence Game, 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 “mark”? Through her analysis of common human biases, Konnikova demonstrates that a con artist doesn’t just rely on their own wiles—they rely on our instinctive confidence in the stories we tell ourselves. Konnikova suggests that by understanding these manipulation tactics, we might learn to identify and extract ourselves from cons. In this guide, we’ll also include actionable advice for avoiding cons and explore how the manipulation tactics apply in more recent examples.

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(Shortform note: Some researchers refer to the tendency to trust people who are similar to us as the “similar-to-me” effect and argue that it can have both positive and negative effects depending on the circumstances. For example, it can cause managers to hire people who have similar life experiences, personality traits, or physical characteristics as them, leading to less diverse staff and perpetuating gender disparities in some industries. On the other hand, if shared traits foster more trusting relationships between managers and employees, this can improve job satisfaction and performance for the whole team.)

To appeal to familiarity, the con artist might pretend they’re a friend of a friend. This appeals to your sense of being a good judge of character by suggesting that if they’re 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’re an “acquaintance” that you’ve had one positive experience with, you’re automatically more likely to trust them.

(Shortform note: In addition to being more likely to trust people who are familiar, people also have a natural tendency to prefer items that seem familiar—a bias that’s often important for marketers. For example, in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Al Ries and Jack Trout explain that the first brand available for a product tends to become the default product that consumers will buy because it’s more familiar and people form an attachment to it.)

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. (Shortform note: A con artist might also get a mark to reveal more information by first pretending to be vulnerable with them. If the con artist shares information about their past, for example, the social norm of reciprocity might make people feel pressured to share something about their past in return.)

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.

(Shortform note: Recent advancements in AI have led to new types of scams that target emotions such as high fear response. Instead of convincing the mark to trust a stranger, AI technology can now “clone” the voice of the mark’s loved one (replicate it based on an audio clip) and use this familiar voice that the mark already trusts via a phone call. The AI voice can then convince the mark to pay money to get the loved one out of harm’s way. For example, in one incident, a con artist used AI to clone the voice of a teenage girl who was away from her family and then used it to call her mom, stage a kidnapping scenario, and demand a ransom.)

Trust Is More Beneficial Than Skepticism

Konnikova writes that this part of the con is possible because humans have a natural instinct to trust others. Trust was evolutionarily beneficial for our human ancestors, as they were more likely to survive when living in groups that could better defend their people and provide resources collectively. Living cooperatively required trust and as a result, our ancestors benefited from trusting by default. We thus don’t have an astute ability to detect when people are deceiving us.

(Shortform note: Research suggests that in addition to the evolutionary advantages of trusting others, early experiences in life can influence how trusting and cooperative people tend to be in adulthood. For example, when children grow up in an environment with stable and reliable caregivers, they’re more likely to trust others later in life.)

Emotion Clouds Judgment

Another evolutionary explanation for why con artists can easily gain our trust is that emotional reactions impact our cognition before we have time to make a logical assessment. According to Konnikova, this is biologically advantageous because emotions like fear activate a flight response (allowing us to escape and survive) without us having to process what’s happening. She writes that we interpret emotions largely based on nonverbal cues like tone, facial expressions, and posture, so con artists can make a strong, emotional first impression on us that will continue to impact our decisions even after we’ve learned contradictory information.

For example, a con artist might make a positive emotional impact on us (and therefore gain our trust) by appearing friendly, generous, and charming using both nonverbal and verbal cues. These might include using a soothing or upbeat tone of voice or striking up a friendly conversation. Then, even when things go wrong, we’ll be reluctant to accept the truth because we’re so attached to our initial positive emotional response.

(Shortform note: The tendency to base decisions on emotional impressions is often leveraged in sales techniques as well. For example, in Contagious, Jonah Berger says that to engage your prospective customers when marketing a product, it’s important to inspire an emotional response rather than giving them lots of information. This strategy is consistent with Konnikova’s idea that an emotional response overrides a rational assessment. Berger writes that physiologically arousing emotions—such as awe, excitement, amusement, anger, and anxiety—are particularly useful for getting customers to buy a product.)

Step 3: Persuade the Mark to Do Something

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 to take the action—tactics that psychologists refer to as alpha and omega, respectively.

Alpha and Omega Tactics

An alpha strategy a con artist might use is making an ask they know you’ll reject, then taking advantage of the subsequent guilt you feel by making another smaller ask. Konnikova cites psychologist Robert Cialdini’s claim that this appeals to your natural sense of obligation to reciprocate and increases the likelihood that you’ll accept the second request. Other alpha techniques are when the persuader poses as an authoritative or powerful person or when the persuader makes an opportunity or item seem scarce—increasing your desire to not miss out.

Omega strategies try to convince you that there’s no good reason not to do something. For example, they might use a statement like, “What’s the harm in giving it a try?” to make it seem low-risk.

Alpha and Omega Strategies in Sales Tactics and How to Resist Them

In Exactly What to Say, Phil Jones recommends several sales strategies that combine the benefits of eliciting an emotional response as well as the alpha and omega persuasion techniques. For example, he suggests using phrases such as, “How would you feel if…” to stimulate either a positive emotion that you want the customer to feel if they were to buy the product (the alpha strategy) or a negative emotion that the customer would feel if they didn’t buy the product (the omega strategy). Because research shows that losses and negative emotions affect us more intensely than gains and positive emotions, the second phrasing is more likely to be successful.

Jones also echoes the alpha strategy of appealing to the mark’s guilt after they reject your first offer. After an initial rejection, he recommends using the phrase, “Just one more thing…” followed by a down-sell. However, he frames this as a last resort rather than a persuasion strategy to start with.

So how can you avoid becoming a target of alpha and omega strategies? In Getting to Yes, Roger Fisher and William Ury explain that to resist these kinds of persuasion strategies—including when the persuader poses as an authoritative figure or claims that an opportunity or item is scarce—it helps to simply call attention to the tactic, which will reduce its effectiveness and potentially cause the persuader to back down.

Superiority Bias

Konnikova also explains that when the con artist is persuading the mark, they appeal to what’s called the superiority bias. To use the superiority bias, the con artist will make you feel worthy and exceptional, specifically appealing to things you value as an individual. This kind of flattery makes you more inclined to take someone up on an offer because you feel uniquely suited for it. For example, if the con artist knows you like to think of yourself as intelligent, they might say something like, “With your extensive knowledge on X, you know better than most people that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

(Shortform note: In The Like Switch, Jack Schafer and Marvin Karlins assert that people may perceive compliments as insincere because they assume the complimenter has an ulterior motive. Therefore, in addition to using the more direct flattery described above, con artists might use more subtle tactics to deliver compliments. For example, Schafer and Karlins say one such strategy is mentioning the compliment to a third person who will then tell the targeted person the nice thing you said about them.)

Konnikova notes that, ironically, being an expert in a certain sector (like finance or art) makes you more susceptible to cons related to those areas because the superiority bias makes you vulnerable to being overconfident.

(Shortform note: On the other hand, having a lack of knowledge can also make you more vulnerable to being conned. For example, in a con by Elizabeth Holmes, a CEO who conned investors out of billions of dollars by promoting her nonexistent medical technology, the investors were at a disadvantage because they didn’t notice red flags in her description of the technology that biomedical researchers might have picked up on.)

A Master Persuader

In one extreme example of an expert con artist, Konnikova describes a man named Gregor MacGregor who in 1822 convinced hundreds of Scots that he was the prince of a lush, gold-filled, fictional South American country he called Poyais. He persuaded them to board ships and settle there with extravagant promises of how great a financial opportunity it would be (an alpha strategy), appealed to their natural sense of adventure and savviness (leveraging the superiority bias), and made it seem like there was absolutely no downside (an omega strategy), all while posing as royalty (prestige which added to his persuasive power).

Konnikova says he raised exorbitant amounts of money from investors for the project—which he used to purchase bonds for himself—and only one-third of the settlers survived after they arrived at a completely desolate and inhospitable shore in modern-day Honduras. The survivors were rescued by a nearby ship and taken to Belize. In addition, MacGregor went on the run and pulled the same con for a second time in France.

Fyre Festival: A Modern Con Propelled by Social Media

A similar con was orchestrated in 2017 by entrepreneur Billy McFarland, who earned $26 million from investors and customers for an exclusive, high-end music festival on a remote island that didn’t have any of the basic infrastructure (like food and housing) or the concerts that he’d promoted. Although McFarland’s con didn’t result in the deaths of his victims like MacGregor’s did, it left hundreds of attendees stranded and hungry on the island until they could get a flight out. McFarland was charged with multiple counts of fraud and sentenced to six years in prison.

Unlike MacGregor’s scam, in which the settlers had no evidence of the utopian destination, McFarland leveraged social media posts by models and celebrities at a picturesque island to promote the event. During and after the disaster, word also spread quickly on social media of the events unfolding.

Despite this backlash, McFarland announced that he’s planning a Fyre Festival II—a move that echoes MacGregor’s decision to duplicate his con in a new location. McFarland has referred to Fyre Festival II as “the biggest comeback of all time,” suggesting that the festival will be legitimate this time.

Step 4: Get the Mark to Double Down

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—for example, you might notice evidence that the con artist isn’t who they say they are, or you’re starting to lose money rather than earning the money you were promised. During this step, the con artist relies on your self-serving bias, your natural instinct to reduce cognitive dissonance, and the sunk cost fallacy.

Konnikova claims that when you’re influenced by the self-serving bias, you help the con artist by focusing only on rationales and evidence that justify the choices you’ve already made—trusting 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.

According to Konnikova, cognitive dissonance is a similar phenomenon where you re-frame the story you tell yourself to reconcile contradictory information 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’re nowhere to be found and their phone’s disconnected. Instead of logically connecting the dots and realizing you’ve been conned, you might reduce cognitive dissonance by telling yourself they just had a phone mishap, and everything’s fine.

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’t make a mistake), ask you for more money, and then disappear again.

Lastly, Konnikova explains that the sunk cost fallacy makes you more likely to double down on your decisions when you’re in the middle of a con. The sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to keep pursuing one route once you’re already invested in it, and this investment could be time, money, effort, or a personal relationship. It’s irrational because it’s better to cut your losses once there’s evidence that you’ve made a mistake, but instead, you’ll more likely stick with it in the hope that you’ll turn out to be right after all.

How to Resist Doubling Down in a Con Game

Despite the power of these biases in getting a mark to double down, there are some techniques you can use to resist them. Both the self-serving bias and your drive to reduce cognitive dissonance hinge on a desire to maintain consistency in your beliefs and actions over time—a desire some researchers refer to as the “commitment bias.” To resist this bias, they recommend acknowledging that consistency shouldn’t be a goal in and of itself.

Experts also suggest resisting the commitment bias by focusing on the good that can come from making a change rather than worrying about what other people might think if you change your mind about something. For example, when you notice things aren’t adding up with a new person you met, recognize that your first impression might have been wrong, and assess the potential benefits of severing ties with someone who might be conning you.

Some people recommend similar strategies to combat the sunk cost fallacy. In The Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli says to focus less on what you’ve already invested in the past and focus more on whether something is serving you in the present and will continue to serve you in the future.

Another key strategy to resist the sunk cost fallacy may be overcoming your ego. In Ego Is the Enemy, Ryan Holiday says that when faced with evidence that you messed up (and a potential blow to your ego by changing course), you should ask yourself—and honestly consider—whether you’ll make things worse by continuing on the same path. If the answer’s yes, Holiday says it’s better to cut your losses and move on.

Step 5: Escape and Ensure Silence

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’ve swindled you out of. However, a key part of ending the con is making sure you won’t make an official complaint or tell others about what they’ve done. 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’t 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.

(Shortform note: Some research suggests that in addition to allowing con artists to continue their tricks without facing consequences, internalizing shame is destructive to your emotional well-being. In Daring Greatly, Brené Brown asserts that shame makes you conflate your identity with the behavior you believe was bad. For example, experiencing shame over being conned might make you feel like an incompetent person. On the other hand, feeling guilt allows you to acknowledge that you made a mistake without thinking badly of yourself overall. Based on Konnikova’s assertion that people are afraid to tarnish their self-image, shifting from shame to guilt might also enable you to speak out against con artists.)

Denial and Unshakeable Beliefs

In other cases, the con artist might be so convincing that the mark denies or doesn’t realize they were conned at all. Konnikova writes that this scenario of outright denial happened to dozens of people during one of the first recorded Ponzi schemes in the 1880s. In a Ponzi scheme, the con artist essentially takes money from you, claims it’s an investment that will make you more money, and then uses money from subsequent “investors” to pay your dividends (investment earnings), all while pocketing most of the money for personal use. Ultimately, it relies on more and more people giving money, and the scheme falls apart if everyone decides they want their investment plus their dividends back.

(Shortform note: Although Ponzi schemes are illegal because they’re a type of fraud, they’re still a common con game that many people fall prey to. In 2019 alone, authorities identified 60 Ponzi schemes in the US amounting to $3.25 billion in fraudulent investment—a significant increase compared to previous years. To avoid Ponzi schemes, experts recommend being wary of anyone who promises a very high return on your investment with a low risk of losing money. Another red flag is when your investment return remains high even when the market falters overall.)

A man named William Franklin Miller acquired vast amounts of wealth with a Ponzi scheme in New York in 1889, and even after the newspapers wrote about it and he was on the run from law enforcement, many of his victims adamantly claimed that the operation was legitimate. He had been so convincing that people even continued to send him more investment money via mail.

Comparison of Miller and Bernie Madoff

One of the most famous Ponzi schemes in history is that of Bernie Madoff, who received billions of dollars in purported investments from his victims. Madoff’s sons turned him in to the authorities when they learned about the scheme after the financial market crashed in 2008. However, unlike Miller, whose victims remained fervent supporters even after he was exposed, Madoff became widely reviled by his victims.

One reason for the difference in attitudes might be because Miller pleaded not guilty after he was caught (and even ran the same scheme under a different name when he was released from prison), whereas Madoff pleaded guilty and admitted what he’d done in court. The scale of Madoff’s scheme may have also contributed to the animosity he received—his crimes and the resulting financial devastation caused people to lose their life savings and homes and drove some people to commit suicide.

In addition, Konnikova claims that religious or spiritual contexts are situations where people are more likely to be in denial or unaware of being conned. She explains that when people offer made-up spiritual guidance in exchange for something they want from you, it often leads to abusive situations, like cult leaders who take advantage of their followers. Konnikova says that people are inherently vulnerable to this type of con artist because people have a fundamental desire to believe in a higher power, to believe a story about how the world works, and to receive guidance about how to live from a seemingly authoritative person who appears to have their best interests at heart.

(Shortform note: Spiritual cults can be difficult to get out of not only because they take advantage of people’s vulnerability, but because cult leaders often force people to cut off ties with anyone who doesn’t support the cult—including the victim’s friends and family—or give up their money and possessions. In Poor Charlie’s Almanack, Charlie Munger explains that this exacerbates the sunk cost fallacy mentioned earlier in the guide: If someone has already shunned their previous community or given money, they feel too invested to give up the cult even when things go wrong.)