1 Mar 2016

Feature Interview - Maria Konnikova

From Afternoons, 3:10 pm on 1 March 2016
Maria Konnikova

Maria Konnikova Photo: Thomas Hawk / CC BY-NC 2.0

It's easy to feel superior to people who send money to Nigerian princes to share in millions of dollars or to invest their fortune with Bernie Madoff. The truth is, almost anyone can get conned if the con artist is clever enough.

Human beings are intrinsically trusting, according to psychologist and author Maria Konnikova. Her new book The Confidence Game: Why We Fall For it... Every Time explores the techniques and temperament of the con artist.

Maria Konnikova talks with Jesse Mulligan about the difference between con artists and psychopaths, which of these Donald Trump might be and also resilience – the subject of her recent New Yorker article: