The Make Money Fast Hall of Humiliation

I spotted this blog post over at Bruce Schneier's blog, which led me to this post at Psychology Today. This post sheds some important light on why cons succeed, and goes a long way toward explaining why "people who should know better" get burned:

The key to a con is not that you trust the conman, but that he shows he trusts you. Conmen ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable. Because of THOMAS [The Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System], the human brain makes us feel good when we help others--this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers. "I need your help" is a potent stimulus for action.

This also explains why social engineering attacks (of which the con game is a type) are so devastatingly effective. We want to help the industrial spy "co-worker" who is carrying way too much stuff, so we unlock the door for her with our access badge, then hold it open for her as she goes in to help herself to our employers' most secret stuff. Or, we go ahead and reset his password when he calls in and pretends to be a VIP, even if he can't quite answer all of the security questions.

The hope is, that recognizing what is happening, you can find some measure of control over your emotional responses, allowing you to spot (and avoid) the scam.

Or, the next time you get caught up in a scam, you can just blame it all on THOMAS.