Book Review: The Confidence Game: The Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It Every Time

By Maria Konnikova

During the height of the Korean War, a wreck full of gravely injured North Korean soldiers desperately hailed a passing Canadian navy vessel, the HMCS Cayuga. They had been wounded in an ambush, and the crew were in dire need of medical attention. The Cayuga had only one sawbones onboard, the intrepid Dr. Joseph Cyr, who rose to the occasion. Over the next forty-eight hours Cyr performed nineteen surgeries and helped save just as many lives. Aided by a medical field guide he had persuaded a fellow doctor back in Ontario to create “for the troops”, Cyr soon became a celebrity in the press. There was, however, one small niggle. Joseph Cyr was actually Ferdinand Waldo Demara from Massachusetts, a notorious impostor who didn´t know the first thing about medicine. Aided by his field guide he nonetheless managed to carry out the surgeries with some degree of success. So successful was he, in fact, that when he offered his biographer to deliver his wife´s child many years later, he almost managed to persuade him. The North Koreans had survived, after all, so what could possibly go wrong? Throughout his life Demara also masqueraded as a Texas prison warden, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, a civil engineer, a doctor of psychology, and much else besides. He was the consummate con artist, a man with supreme confidence who could fool anyone and got away with it, time and time again.

Robbers hold you at gunpoint and force you to turn over your valuables, burglars break into your home in order to steal your television and bank robbers smash open armored vaults to plunder the treasure trove within. Con artists, however, never resort to violence. In the pecking order of the underworld, they are the aristocrats of crime. They make you trust them, believe them, love them even. Then you willingly hand over your life´s saving as well as every single material possession that isn´t nailed down. When their act is blown you will either stand by them and defend them against all accusations, or you will be too ashamed to speak up, your reputation in tatters and your life ruined. That´s when they toss you aside and move on to the next mark. Maria Konnikova´s The Confidence Game tells you all you need to know about how these people operate and why one of the world´s oldest professions is unlikely to disappear   

If you think you are too smart, well educated, savvy and metropolitan to fall for a confidence trickster, think again. The Ivy league stockbroker from New York who gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars to a fortune teller certainly never suspected she was being ripped off. Neither did the French aristocratic family who were persuaded by a charismatic impostor that they were the victims of a masonic plot, and over the curse of ten years made them part with millions of dollars as well as the family estate.

 How is it, then, that these people keep succeeding time and time again? For a harmonious society, Konnikova explains, it is essential that we trust one another. Con artists prey on that trust and tries to use it for their own nefarious ends. The first part of any successful con is knowing who will be the most susceptible mark, and no one is better at reading their fellow human beings than a confidence trickster.

Deceit and trickery thrives in times of uncertainty and upheaval. Wars, revolutions and famines attracts con artists like moths to a flame, and the same is true for people who are emotionally unstable, be it because of a breakup or a death in the family. Even someone who is educated and has both feet firmly planted on the ground can, under the right circumstances, fall for cons that they would otherwise laugh at. The true con artist knows this, and knows how to pick out susceptible individuals from the crowd.

After the con artist has picked out his mark, it is time to introduce himself (Most con artists are men, Konnikova writes), and make a good first impression. The grafter is acutely aware of both the discreet signals that the victim is unwittingly sending out, and how he himself is perceived. An error at this stage is not an option. Otherwise, the mark will never be convinced that you are in fact a wealthy German industrialist offering a once in a lifetime investment opportunity. Once the mark has been identified and contact has been made, the con artist must spin a convincing tale and lure his unsuspecting mark into doing what he wants them to do and believing what he wants them to believe. The most diligent con artists can spend a considerable amount of time building trust and convincing his mark.

Eventually, a breakdown will occur, when the mark is presented with evidence that the magical 

investment opportunity might not be all that it´s cranked up to be.  You might think that anyone who isn´t a complete imbecile would cut their losses and back away at this point, but that isn´t how human psychology works. Positive illusions serve as a defense mechanism when we are faced with threatening circumstances. If all that we have been led to believe is suddenly being questioned, human beings tend to double down and reaffirm their certainty that everything will turn out for the best. This sets the con up for its final phase, that Konnikova dubs “the send and the touch”. This is when the con finally comes to fruition, the send is when the mark is recommitted to the con artist’s tall tale, and the touch is the part when the mark gets robbed blind and (quite possibly) sees his or her life ruined.

While reading The Confidence Game, you frequently have to fight the urge to yell at the hapless victims to not give their life´s savings away to someone who´s an obvious charlatan, yet the flaws in human psychology that makes it all possible are explained in all their embarrassing depth. A lot of research went into writing the book, and Konnikova conducted dozens of interviews all over the world with con artists, victims and psychology professors. She skillfully weaves together tales of real life cons with an explanation of the science behind it that´s understandable to a layman. Like a magician´s tricks being laid bare, Konnikova lets the reader gain an insight into their fascinating world and hopefully helps us prevent being conned in the future. For that purpose alone, The Confidence Game is well worth reading.