The Confidence Game

Maria Konnikova is the author of Mastermind and The Confidence Game. She is a regular contributing writer for The New Yorker, and has written for the Atlantic, the New York Times, Slate, the New Republic, the Paris Review, the Wall Street Journal, Salon, the Boston Globe, the Scientific American MIND, WIRED, and Smithsonian. Maria graduated from Harvard University and received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University. From the Hardcover edition.

"Konnikova... is an insightful analyst of the dark art of the scam."
-New York Times Book Review

"An unnerving manual for conning and getting conned."
-Washington Post

"[An] excellent study of Con Artists, stories & the human need to believe"
-Neil Gaiman, via Twitter

"Melding pop social science and potted history, the science writer transcends the genre of Gladwell by drilling down into situations where our instincts lead us horribly astray - and right into the arms of swindlers. The surreal and often codependent relationship between grifter and griftee is disturbingly common, no matter how sophisticated its victims think they are, from Bernie Madoff's worldly dupes to everyone who ever cheered Lance Armstrong."
-Vulture

"A brisk, engaging overview of the ways these skilled tricksters masterfully manipulate us to their own ends."
-Boston Globe

"Blending news accounts with first-person published narratives, public records, and original interviews, Konnikova dissects the techniques of some of the world's most successful con artists. A page-turner, this book provides plenty of insight about them and about us, their targets."
-Psychology Today

"A fascinating look at the psychology behind every hustle, from Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme to a three-card-monte game...Ms Konnikova tells of hucksters masquerading as doctors, royals or moguls, all armed with a gifted imagination, a silver tongue and an ability to size people up."
--The Economist

"Victims of cons, she argues, aren't just the foolish and the ignorant. They're often regular people who happen to be desperate or emotionally compromised by their circumstances. For leaders, who largely pride themselves on being rational, strategic thinkers, the deception Konnikova's research warns us about begins with that very emotion: pride....Leaders who get fooled are the ones who first manage to fool themselves."
--Fast Company

"A thrilling psychological detective story investigating how con artists, the supreme masterminds of malevolent reality-manipulation, prey on our propensity for believing what we wish were true and how this illuminates the inner workings of trust and deception in our everyday lives."
--Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

"With meticulous research and a facility for storytelling, Konnikova makes this intriguing topic absolutely riveting."
-Kirkus, Starred review

"Told with vigor and enthusiasm, this study of the psychology of the con artist is riveting and cleverly told."
-Publishers Weekly, Starred review

"In the Confidence Game, Konnikova plumbs the psychology and chemistry of why we all fall so readily for scams and cons-and why, thanks to the "Lake Wobegon Effect" and other forces, having fallen once, we're even more susceptible the next time. It's a startling and disconcerting read that should make you think twice every time a friend of a friend offers you the opportunity of a lifetime. But you won't think twice. You'll still succumb, because that's how we're all wired. And here's the irony-the smarter you think you are, the more readily you'll fall, which is why New Yorkers are some of the easiest marks. (Clients of Bernie Madoff, we're talking about you.) If you liked Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, you'll love this lucid and revelatory look into our oh-so-susceptible selves."
-Erik Larson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and bestselling author of Devil in the White City

"The story of the con artist may be unmatched for combining human interest with insight into human nature, and star psychology writer Maria Konnikova explains their wiles to us with her characteristic clarity, flair, and depth."
-Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and The Sense of Style.

"In this remarkable book, Maria Konnikova shows that human beings are hardwired to believe-often to our peril. And with a deft mix of stories and studies, she explores what that means f

INTRODUCTION The aristocrats of crime. -DAVID MAURER Dr. Joseph Cyr, a surgeon lieutenant of the Royal Canadian Navy, walked onto the deck of the HMCS Cayuga. It was September 1951, the second year of the Korean War, and the Cayuga was making her way north of the thirty-eighth parallel, just off the shore of North Korea. The morning had gone smoothly enough; no sickness, no injuries to report. But just as the afternoon was getting on, the lookouts spotted something that didn't quite fit with the watery landscape: a small, cramped Korean junk that was waving a flag and frantically making its way toward the ship. Within the hour, the rickety boat had pulled up alongside the Cayuga. Inside was a mess of bodies, nineteen in all, piled together in obvious filth. They looked close to death. Mangled torsos, bloody, bleeding heads, limbs that turned the wrong way or failed to turn at all. Most of them were no more than boys. They had been caught in an ambush, a Korean liaison officer soon explained to the Cayuga's crew; the messy bullet and shrapnel wounds were the result. That's why Dr. Cyr had been summoned from below deck: he was the only man with any medical qualification on board. He would have to operate-and soon. Without his intervention, all nineteen men would very likely die. Dr. Cyr began to prepare his kit. There was only one problem. Dr. Cyr didn't hold a medical degree, let alone the proper qualifications required to undertake complex surgery aboard a moving ship. In fact, he'd never even graduated high school. And his real name wasn't Cyr. It was Ferdinand Waldo Demara, or, as he would eventually become known, the Great Impostor-one of the most successful confidence artists of all time, memorialized, in part, in Robert Crichton's 1959 account The Great Impostor. His career would span decades, his disguises the full gamut of professional life. But nowhere was he more at home than in the guise of the master of human life, the doctor. Over the next forty-eight hours, Demara would somehow fake his way through the surgeries, with the help of a medical textbook, a field guide he had persuaded a fellow physician back in Ontario to create "for the troops" in the event a doctor wasn't readily available, copious antibiotics (for the patients) and alcohol (for himself), and a healthy dose of supreme confidence in his own abilities. After all, he'd been a doctor before. Not to mention a psychologist. And a professor. And a monk (many monks, in fact). And the founder of a religious college. Why couldn't he be a surgeon? As Demara performed his medical miracles on the high seas, makeshift operating table tied down to protect the patients from the roll of the waves, a zealous young press officer wandered the decks in search of a story. The home office was getting on his back. They needed good copy. He needed good copy. Little of note had been happening for weeks. He was, he joked to his shipmates, practically starving for news. When word of the Korean rescue spread among the crew, it was all he could do to hide his excitement. Dr. Cyr's story was fantastic. It was, indeed, perfect. Cyr hadn't been required to help the enemy, but his honorable nature had compelled him to do so. And with what results. Nineteen surgeries. And nineteen men departing the Cayuga in far better shape than they'd arrived. Would the good doctor agree to a profile, to commemorate the momentous events of the week? Who was Demara to resist? He had grown so sure of his invulnerability, so confident in the borrowed skin of Joseph Cyr, MD, that no amount of media attention was too much. And he had performed some pretty masterful operations, if he might say so himself. Dispatches about the great feats of Dr. Cyr soon spread throughout Canada. - - - Dr. Joseph Cyr, original version, felt his patience running out. It was October 23, and there he was, sitting quietly in Edmunston, trying his damnedest to read a book in peace. But they simply