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A review by brontherun
The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It . . . Every Time by Maria Konnikova
4.0
Cons work and persist because they play on the nuances of human psychology. The have become almost ubiquitous in the world of the internet, to the point where we have come to expect that the dating site guy is catfishing, the email from the law suit settlement is bogus, and the resume we are reviewing is probably as much fiction as fact.
And yet even with that awareness, the cons and the confidence men and women flourish. Konnikova investigates out why cons persist. "Because the flags, they are there. They are waving. And people aren't blind, right? Except they absolutely are. And the more they have invested, the blinder they become." The Confidence Game is predicated on our desire to believe the best for ourselves. Regardless of the facts. Regardless of the evidence. We cross moral lines we said we wouldn’t. We agree to do things for people we don’t really know in order to preserve some misguided sense of honor, charity, or comradery
As humans, our brains trick us and fool us. And there are countless people who are adroit at finding marks for a particular narrative, roping us in, and leaving us high and dry while they abscond with something that was precious to us – our money, our hearts, or even our freedom. Yes, in extreme cases sometimes the dupe ends up criminally caught and prosecuted while the confidence man has escaped the reach of the law and exited the scene early.
Konnikova looks at how our hardwired susceptibility to cons may not be maladaptive. "As information from our environment comes in, we hone in on the positive and tend to isolate and filter out the negative. That selective perception makes us more empathetic, happier, better able to care for others, more productive, and more creative. When we receive negative feedback, we can usually deal with it, because, we rationalize, it's not really our fault. We are good at what we do. It's just that, this time, things went a bit awry.” And so we continue to fall in love with people we know nothing about, trust people with money who are criminally not trustworthy, and blithely deny realities in our work and personal lives. But if you read this book, and try to turn the introspection it generates inward, you may arm yourself a little bit further against the pitfalls of the con. You’ll still probably fall, but maybe not as hard, and maybe you won’t ever even know that you fell – the sign of the really great confidence game.
And yet even with that awareness, the cons and the confidence men and women flourish. Konnikova investigates out why cons persist. "Because the flags, they are there. They are waving. And people aren't blind, right? Except they absolutely are. And the more they have invested, the blinder they become." The Confidence Game is predicated on our desire to believe the best for ourselves. Regardless of the facts. Regardless of the evidence. We cross moral lines we said we wouldn’t. We agree to do things for people we don’t really know in order to preserve some misguided sense of honor, charity, or comradery
As humans, our brains trick us and fool us. And there are countless people who are adroit at finding marks for a particular narrative, roping us in, and leaving us high and dry while they abscond with something that was precious to us – our money, our hearts, or even our freedom. Yes, in extreme cases sometimes the dupe ends up criminally caught and prosecuted while the confidence man has escaped the reach of the law and exited the scene early.
Konnikova looks at how our hardwired susceptibility to cons may not be maladaptive. "As information from our environment comes in, we hone in on the positive and tend to isolate and filter out the negative. That selective perception makes us more empathetic, happier, better able to care for others, more productive, and more creative. When we receive negative feedback, we can usually deal with it, because, we rationalize, it's not really our fault. We are good at what we do. It's just that, this time, things went a bit awry.” And so we continue to fall in love with people we know nothing about, trust people with money who are criminally not trustworthy, and blithely deny realities in our work and personal lives. But if you read this book, and try to turn the introspection it generates inward, you may arm yourself a little bit further against the pitfalls of the con. You’ll still probably fall, but maybe not as hard, and maybe you won’t ever even know that you fell – the sign of the really great confidence game.