Intro to Scams and the Brain
What is a Scam?
Most people intuitively know what "scam" implies. For our purposes, we will define it as a large scale impersonal scheme, sent to a lot of people that are not personally known to the scammer. There is a low expected rate of return, but with the internet scams are now very cheap to run at massive scale, so there will naturally be some people that fall prey to them.
Common Scams:
What Makes Us Vulnerable?
There are a variety of factors that make us vulnerable to scams including normal human factors and the techniques themselves. Let's first take a look at the brain.
Evolution of the Brain
Reptiles and other lower organisms have brains that are more dominated by the brain stem.
The brain stem and other deep brain regions regulate energy levels and govern the fight or flight response.
- If you have ever been alarmed because you thought you saw a snake even though it was just a stick, this is the part of the brain that was activated to try to keep you safe.
- For animals like alligators, this region makes up a larger portion of the brain.
- Importantly, this part of our brain does not have a sense of emotion or attachment. It’s just pure business to help you meet your basic needs.
- As you move into mammals and higher organisms, you start to see a larger forebrain and limbic system.
- The forebrain is responsible for thinking and planning.
- The limbic system is the emotional center of the brain.
- The pre-frontal cortex is the part of the brain that makes us human.
- It’s the newest part of the brain to develop evolutionarily.
- It’s also the part of the brain that takes the longest to fully develop. Your prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed until at least your mid-20s, which is why teenagers don’t always make the best decisions.
- The prefrontal cortex lets us think and plan. It helps us to envision what will happen before taking action.
- It also helps to regulate the emotional input from the limbic system and brainstem.
- Scammers hope to turn off this part of the brain so that we act on emotion instead of being rational.
Why Do Scams Work?
It’s all about the Advertising. Scams use the same techniques as advertising with a (slightly) more sinister intent. In some ways, scams are the most effective form of advertising. They get your money without even providing a product. Scammers understand how to tap into your emotions and get you to focus on superficial things instead of thinking critically and logically.
Techniques of persuasion:
- Visceral Rewards
- Things that are highly motivating to us such as sex, love (romance scams), greed (lottery), pity (soldier or grandchild scams), and fear.
- Emphasize Urgency
- By forcing you to act quickly, scammers prevent you from devoting enough time to rational thought.
- Use a Personal Touch
- If scammers are able to learn your name and other personal information, they can pretend like they know you.
- Having information on public profiles, such as Facebook can make this easier.
- Demonstrate Authority
- These days, it is very easy for someone to make a convincing looking counterfeit certificate, or even legal document.
- Real-estate scams use official documents such as lease agreements to demonstrate authority.
- Complicated language is also sometimes used to make the scammer seem like an expert or authority figure.
