"The simple truth is that most people aren’t out to get you. We are so bad at spotting deception because it’s better for us to be more trusting. Trust, and not adeptness at spotting deception, is the more evolutionarily beneficial path. People are trusting by nature. We have to be. As infants, we need to trust that the big person holding us will take care of our needs and desires until we’re old enough to do it ourselves. And we never quite let go of that expectation." - Maria Konnikova
Why are people so quick to fall for the deceptions of con artists? And why are con artists so effective in what they do? These are the two main questions that the Russian-American journalist Maria Konnikova explores in her bestselling book The Confidence Game: Why We Fall For It Every Time. Using psychology as her main tool, Konnikova paints a compelling picture of the minds, motives, and methods of con artists as well as the people who fall for the same tactics over and over again.
The Confidence Game was published in January 2016 by Viking, an imprint of the Penguin Publishing Group. You can read an excerpt from the book here [as it appeared on a recent issue of the Skeptic magazine]. You can also find more excerpts from the book on Amazon here. Konnikova is also the author of Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes (2013). The author's writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers including The New Yorker (she writes a regular column here), The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The Boston Globe, Wired, Slate, and The Wall Street Journal. Learn more about the writer at her official website here.
