Confident profit, without deception. Psychology of deception and manipulation Moderate deception 4 letters crossword clue

We all lie almost every day. Some lie more, some lie less. This phenomenon is absolutely normal. But you should understand that there are harmless lies, and there is deception on a serious scale.

For example, you are in a bad mood and your friend asked how you are doing. You lied, which was great, because you didn’t want to go into details - such a lie is unlikely to harm anyone. If, for example, a person promised to provide some service for you, but after your payment he disappeared - this is a serious deception that amounts to fraud.

For obvious reasons, in some life situations we want to recognize lies: sometimes just out of curiosity, and sometimes because it is critically necessary. After reading this article, you will learn simple techniques that will help you find out if your interlocutor is lying to you. Interesting? Then we begin!

Psychology of deception: how to recognize a lie

Imagine a picture: you are standing and communicating with someone. How to understand that a person is lying? In fact, it is quite difficult, but there are certain signs of lying that make it easy to spot a liar.

Let’s say right away that the psychology of deception is very complex and multifaceted. For example, your interlocutor may pause in the conversation simply because he is simply nervous, and not lying. Or, let's say, he doesn't look you in the eye because he's shy or he really likes you. Therefore, these signs of lying cannot be considered 100% accurate.

How to recognize a lie by the eyes of your interlocutor

Eyes are the mirror of the soul. The sages never cease to tell us that we can learn anything from them. “The eyes don’t lie,” but know that an experienced deceiver will be able to hide his lies, no matter how closely you look at him.

Fortunately, there are very few real masters of scams, and if the average person lies to you, then look him in the eye - they will tell you a lot.

How to tell by the eyes that a person is lying:

• studies have shown that a sincere person looks his interlocutor in the eyes during 70% of the entire conversation, while a liar tries to avoid eye contact and looks only 30% of the time; If we talk about experienced liars, then they look into the eyes almost constantly, which is unnatural and should immediately alert you;
• the liar is under stress, so you can see sparkle and dilation of the pupils in his eyes;
• Women look mostly up when they lie, and men look down.

Psychology of lies and deception: watching the gestures of a liar

How to recognize deception by gestures? First, analyze the interlocutor’s posture: if he has crossed arms or legs, it means that he is trying to close himself off from you. If he constantly fidgets, it is quite possible that the person is uncomfortable talking to you on a specific topic.

Lies are often accompanied by absurd contacts: if the interlocutor constantly touches his nose, ears, rubs his palms, he is highly likely to be lying. Analyze how sincere people behave, and then in the future you will immediately notice if someone is lying to you.

You can only detect deception with a lie detector

How to recognize deception with high accuracy? Put a person in front of a lie detector and test him on it - there are simply no other more effective methods. Let's say more: experienced liars can bypass a lie detector in no time; the psychology of lies and deception is too complex (this happened in the movie “Hannibal Rising”). Therefore, the question “How to understand that they are lying to you” cannot be given a definite answer.

Until a person learns to read other people's thoughts, he will not be able to say for sure whether the interlocutor is lying to him.

Therefore, accept that deception has existed, is taking place and will exist at all times until man becomes extinct! We hope that the article was useful to you, and the techniques described in it will help you in everyday communication.

deception

An invention intended to instill in another an exaggerated idea of ​​oneself, to show off, to intimidate

Wishful thinking

An invention intended to disorient others

Fiction, deception, intended to intimidate

A false move that intimidates the opponent, creating the impression that there is an advantage when in fact there is none.

Italian film starring Adriano Celentano

One-man card theater

Deception designed to create a false impression, an act that misleads

Reception when playing cards

A way to mislead partners in a card game

A bet in poker on cards from a hand that the player considers weak (card term)

Comedy with Celentano

A good face in a bad situation

Acting at the card table

This word from the vocabulary of English poker players meant a way of intimidating an opponent “a good face in a bad game”

Theatrical behavior at the card table

English "deception"

Intimidating card player behavior

Misleading action

Poker technique

It's like a card trick

Catalyst work

Card pretend

Gambler's deception

TV Liars Club

Deception according to the British

Movies starring Celentano

Film with Celentano

Psychological trick when playing poker

Cheating with a straight face

Poker cheat

Cinema deception Celentano

Gambler's performance

Skillful Cheating in Poker

Instilling an exaggerated image of oneself

Card trick

Confident look with bad cards

Poker technique

Poker Player's Trick

. player's "boast"

Psychological trick in poker

Cheating when playing cards

A gambler's trick

Gambler's Noodles

Taking a scare in poker

Deception designed to create a false impression, misleading actions

A way to mislead partners in a card game

Misleading action

Deception is a phenomenon inherent mainly in human communication.

Human lies have existed as long as man himself.

It is sad to realize this, but lies and deception permeate all aspects of human existence, and each of us in our lives has had to deceive others more than once, wittingly or unwittingly.

And, even if in childhood we are convinced that it is not good to deceive, the older we get, the more life convinces us that you will not get far without deception.

Especially if we hold important positions or earn a lot of money.

Thus, deception for many people becomes a profession based on a simple formula:

“Money + deception = big money.”

Therefore, deception has a habit of meeting quite often on the path of every person.

This means we must try to comprehend this natural process and understand its psychology and learn the technology of deception.

We will look in more detail about non-verbal language of communication in other articles. I think knowing a non-verbal language is more important than knowing a foreign language.

Now I’ll give you a couple of examples to illustrate.

If a child tells a lie to his parents, he will immediately cover his mouth with one or both hands.

A teenager, deceiving, begins to cover his mouth, but he has already learned to deceive and therefore only slightly begins to cover his mouth with a finger or trace the outline of his lips.

When an adult lies, his brain sends an impulse to cover his mouth, but at the last moment the hand moves away from the mouth and the person, for example, touches his nose.

Eye movement patterns also give away lies. It is not for nothing that experienced investigators place a suspect in the light and carefully monitor eye movements.

Yes, both men and women perceive their own lies differently.

For men, lies or deception, as a rule, are situational, pursuing a specific goal.

And accordingly, realizing why they are deceiving, they are critical of their honesty.

Women can deceive, quite sincerely considering themselves honest people.

They have a smooth transition from half-truths to deception.

And they believe that this lies in a harmless desire to present themselves from the best side in the eyes of their interlocutor.

To convince men, you need to give arguments, build some logic in your presentation, and prove something.

But in order to convince a woman, you need to monitor not only the meaning, but also the form of presentation of the material, the intonation with which it will be said.

We will talk about this quite a lot and in detail in other materials.

In this same article we talk about manipulation, so what does manipulation mean to you?

When a self-respecting person hears about the manipulation of consciousness. He thinks that he cannot be fooled.

But deception is so ubiquitous that it can be left without serious attention.

Then the question arises:

“Is it possible to study it, because it is so many-sided and diverse?”

Let's narrow the topic and consider the illusions that arise from the imperfection of the senses, because this is also a deception, no matter how interesting it may be.

In the media, modern journalistic and scientific literature, we have recently often come across the term “zombie”.

Let's consider several concepts of use in everyday life corresponding to methods of manipulation.

Scam - a fraudulent enterprise, fraud, dubious transaction.

Bluff is an invention, deception aimed at intimidating, instilling an exaggerated idea of ​​oneself.

Scam - cheating, fraud.

Trickery, intrigue, deceit, cunning.

Manipulation can be carried out through a third party, who does not suspect anything that he is being used. The deception can be extended over time.

In a word, this is a rather complex procedure, often similar to art - a procedure of influence and deception.

Read what we write to teach you not to fall for scammers and avoid being deceived.

Psychological assistance on-line

Candidate of Psychological Sciences

Levchenko Yuri Nikolaevich

MY CONTACTS

Skype: yristreamlet

+7 903 7984417

[email protected]

I will answer you from these contacts.

DECEPTION, deceit, many. no, husband 1. Action under Ch. deceive. “...Bourgeois parties dominate to an enormous extent thanks to their deception of the masses of the population, thanks to the oppression of capital...” Lenin (1919). “It’s either self-deception or cowardice.” L. Tolstoy. Complete... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived. Carlo Caraffa You can fool some all the time, you can fool everyone some of the time, but you cannot fool everyone all the time. Abraham Lincoln You can fool too many people for too long... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

Wiktionary has an entry for “deception” Deception Action by meaning. verb: to deceive (to give false information). Something that deliberately introduces someone. misleading, deceives; lie. The state of being deceived; delusion. Erroneous, imaginary representation;... ... Wikipedia

DECEPTION, ah, husband. 1. see deceive. 2. Same as lying. You won't get far with deception (last). Go to o. (decide to lie). 3. A false idea about something, a delusion. Enter in about. O. vision (visual error). O. feelings (mistake in your attitude... ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

Deception- Deception ♦ Mensonge A lie uttered with the intent to mislead (but not as an allegory or irony) and with full knowledge that what is uttered is false. Every deception presupposes knowledge of the truth or at least contains the idea of ​​truth. Thereby… … Sponville's Philosophical Dictionary

In psychology, deception of feelings. Philosophical encyclopedic dictionary. 2010… Philosophical Encyclopedia

deception- DECEPTION is a false, incorrect message that can mislead; disinformation that has achieved its goal. O. is the opposite of truth, which means not only true, but also correct, genuine, fair, appropriate... ... Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

deception- shameless (Tan); tempting (Rathgauz); caressing (Pozharova); crafty (Tarutin); radiant (Balmont); beautiful (Fet); ghostly (Nadson); sweet (Yur.P.); charming (Yur.P.) Epithets of literary Russian speech. M: Supplier to His Majesty's court... Dictionary of epithets

deception- DECEPTION, colloquial. deceiver, colloquial reduction inflated and unraveled. reduction inflated, unraveled reduction blew and cooled down reduction blew to deceive/deceive, colloquial. inflate / inflate, unwind circle/circle, colloquial go around/bypass, colloquial... ... Dictionary-thesaurus of synonyms of Russian speech

Deception- (Latin fraus, fraudis; English deception/fraud) in civil law, deliberate misrepresentation by one party of a transaction to the other party in order to complete the transaction. O. can refer both to elements of the transaction itself and to the circumstances... Encyclopedia of Law

Books

• Deception, Roth Philip. "Deception" is the most provocative (after "Portnoy's Disease") work by Philip Roth, the most famous American writer today. In the novel, a married American, middle-aged Jew named...

The book by the American writer and psychologist of Russian origin Maria Konnikova “The Psychology of Mistrust. How not to fall for scammers” tells the stories of several swindlers, and along the way explains why and how these dodgy people managed to swindle the last of their money from strangers, pretend to be a doctor for decades without having a medical education, and successfully sell fake works of art. Vigilance is not the best weapon against scammers, because they know how to disguise themselves very well. Try to understand them and get into their shoes, then the manipulations will become more noticeable. The Secret publishes excerpts from this book.

Why do people become scammers

Scam is the oldest existing game. And at the same time, it is perfectly adapted for our time. One could even say that the rapid development of technology has ushered in a new golden age of fraud. Scams thrive in times of instability and rapid change, when something new arises and the old way of looking at the world is no longer enough. That is why scammers proliferated wildly during the era of the gold rush and during the years of development of the Far West. That is why fraud takes on special proportions in times of wars, revolutions and political unrest. The era of change is a great ally of fraud, because change breeds uncertainty. The swindler loves to exploit the anxiety and worry of people, before whose eyes the familiar world is collapsing or changing beyond recognition. We prudently hold on to the past, but at the same time we are ready to face new unexpected trends. Who knows, maybe this new way of doing business is the future?

In the 19th century, in the wake of the industrial revolution, many scams were born that continue to exist today. Today we are experiencing a technological revolution, which provides many more opportunities for fraud. With the advent of the Internet, everything in our lives has rapidly changed, down to the simplest actions - meeting new people and maintaining important contacts.

The same schemes that played out in the Wild West are now being played out through your email. The same demands that you received through the telegraph wires are now pouring into your mobile phone. SMS from a family member. Desperate call from the hospital. A Facebook message from a relative who was stranded in a foreign country. When Frank Abagnale, the hero of Catch Me If You Can, who as a teenager managed to fool many large and reputable organizations, from airlines to hospitals, was asked whether such adventures were possible in the modern world of endlessly complex technologies, he laughed in response. Today everything is much simpler, he said. “What I did fifty years ago, as a boy, is now four thousand times easier to do thanks to technology. Technology breeds crime. That’s how it was and that’s how it always will be.”

What are you sure about? The scammer will find something that you unshakably believe in, and on this basis he will build his deception, imperceptibly changing the world around you. But you will be so sure of the truth of the starting point that you will not even notice what has happened.

Since 2008, consumer fraud in the United States has increased by 60%. In 2012 alone, the Internet Fraud Complaint Center recorded about 300,000 complaints. The total amount of money lost is $525 million. Most of the fraud cases, which victimized more than 5 million adults, followed the same pattern and were associated with fake weight loss products.

Many more cases of fraud simply go unreported—by some estimates, less than half of them are made public. According to a recent study by the American Association of Retired Persons, only 37% of victims over the age of 55 admit to being victims of scams. Among those under 55 years of age, this figure is half as much. No one wants to admit out loud that they have been fooled. Most swindlers do not even appear in court - they are simply not reported to the authorities.

No matter by what means the frauds are committed, they are based on the same basic principles - principles based on the manipulation of faith. Scams go unreported - essentially undetected - because none of us are willing to admit that our core beliefs might be wrong. It doesn’t matter what we are dealing with - a financial pyramid or falsification of data, informational stuffing or deliberately false information, artistic forgery or a dubious diagnosis, an unreliable statement of the past or generous promises for the future. On a fundamental psychological level, it all comes down to trust—or rather, the abuse of it.

The Case of Fred Demara

Dr. Joseph Cyr, a medical lieutenant, walked onto the deck of the Canadian destroyer Cayuga. It was September 1951, the second year of the Korean War. The ship was heading north of the thirty-eighth parallel off the coast of North Korea. The morning passed quite calmly: no sick or wounded. But during the day, lookouts noticed an unusual object on the boundless surface of the water: a small Korean junk: someone was waving a flag on it. The pitiful little boat desperately strove for the destroyer.

An hour later the junk approached the Cayuga. Nineteen half-dead soldiers lay in the boat in terrible mud. Chopped bodies, broken heads, unnaturally twisted or frozen limbs. Most of the wounded were just boys. As a Korean liaison officer told the Cayuga crew, they were ambushed; the survivors received numerous bullet and shrapnel wounds. Doctor Cyr was called on deck - he was the only medical professional on board. He had to begin surgery immediately. If he doesn't intervene, all nineteen people will most likely die. Dr. Cyr began preparing his instruments.

There was one problem, however: Dr. Cyr did not have a medical degree or the training necessary to perform complex surgical procedures aboard a ship on the high seas. In fact, he didn't even finish high school. And his real name was not Sire. His name was Ferdinand Waldo Demara, and he, later nicknamed the Great Pretender, was one of the most successful swindlers in history. His story was immortalized in the book “The Great Impostor” (1959) by Robert Crichton. Demara's career lasted for decades, from the professional images that he managed to change during this time, one could compose a whole gallery, but he felt most confident in the guise of a doctor - the ruler of human lives.

Over the next forty-eight hours, Desmarais somehow managed to operate on all the wounded - with the help of a field medical manual, which, at his request, was written by an Ontario doctor friend (“for the army”, in case there was no medic nearby), huge doses of antibiotics for patients and alcohol for himself, as well as a healthy dose of absolute confidence in his abilities. After all, he was once a doctor. And also a psychologist. And also a professor. And a monk (even several different monks, to be precise). And the founder of a religious college. Why couldn't he be a surgeon?

While Demara performed miracles of healing on the high seas on a makeshift operating table, tied to the floor by the legs to prevent the patients from being affected by the rocking, a young, enthusiastic press officer wandered the decks of the ship in search of interesting material. His superiors harassed him. They needed a good story. He needed a good story himself. Weeks passed without anything noteworthy happening on the ship, and, as he joked with his shipmates, he became starved for news. When rumors about the rescued Koreans spread among the team, he had difficulty hiding his joyful excitement. Dr. Cyr's story was fantastic. Simply perfect. The sire was not obliged to assist the enemy, but his noble nature did not allow him to do otherwise. And with what result! Nineteen operations. Nineteen people arrived on the Cayuga half dead and left in much better condition. Would the good doctor agree to a short biographical sketch in memory of the significant events of this week?

Could Demara refuse? He was so confident in his own invulnerability, he felt so at ease in the borrowed guise of Joseph Cyr, a certified physician, that the attention of the press did not seem unnecessary to him. And let me note, he really skillfully performed several surgical operations. News of Dr. Cyr's great exploits soon reached the farthest corners of Canada.

Dr. Joseph Cyr (the original) was running out of patience. On October 23, he sat quietly in his Edmundston home and tried to calmly read a book. But they didn’t want to leave him alone. The phone was ringing off the hook: as soon as he hung up, a new call would ring. “Are you the same doctor from Korea? - the callers asked with the best intentions. - Maybe this is your son? Or another relative? No, no, he told everyone who would listen. Not a relative. There are many people in the world named Sir, and among them there are probably several Josephs. And it's not him.

A few hours later, another call rang out at Cyr’s house, this time from a close friend: he read aloud to him the details of the “miracle-working doctor.” There may be many Joseph Sires in the world, but this particular one could boast exactly the same biography as his. This was no longer a mere coincidence. The sire asked a friend for a photo.

Surely this is some kind of mistake. He knew the man in the photograph very well. “Wait, this is my friend, Brother John Payne from the Fellowship of Christian Education!” - he exclaimed with obvious amazement in his voice. Brother Payne was a neophyte when they met. He adopted this name, abandoning his former social life, in which, as Dr. Cyr recalled, he was also a doctor. It seems the man's real name was Dr. Cecil B. Hamann. But if he decided to return to medical practice, why would he take the name Sir? After all, he probably has his own medical diploma and work experience. Demara's deception began to crumble before our eyes.

So, the fraudster was exposed. But even his subsequent dismissal from the navy did not mark the end of his career. The deeply embarrassed naval authorities - the responsibility for the defense of the country lay on his shoulders, and it turns out that they could not even ensure the safety of their own personnel - did not bring any charges. Demara was quietly fired and asked to leave the country. He willingly complied with this requirement, but, despite his newly acquired dubious fame, he continued to successfully try on a variety of professional masks, from a prison guard to a teacher at a school for mentally retarded children, from a modest English teacher to a civil engineer of public buildings who almost won a contract to build a major bridge in Mexico. He died more than three decades later, and by that time the name of Dr. Cyr had become lost among dozens of other pseudonyms with which the history of Demara was generously strewn. Among them was even the name of his own biographer, Robert Crichton, a pseudonym he took shortly after the book's publication, long before the end of his career as an impostor.

Time and time again Demara - or Fred for those who knew him without masks - found himself in a place where much depended on him. Whether in the classroom, in prison, or on the deck of the Cayuga, he held people's thoughts, health, and lives in his hands. Again and again he was exposed, but he invariably returned and continued to fool those around him with the same success.

Why was he lucky so often? Maybe he chose his victims among the most gentle and trusting people? I doubt that this is how one can characterize representatives of the Texas prison system, one of the harshest in the entire United States. Maybe he had an attractive, prepossessing appearance? Also unlikely - height 1 m 80 cm and 113 kg weight, the square jaw of an American football player and the sly, mocking expression of small eyes; Crichton's four-year-old daughter Sarah, seeing him for the first time, backed away and cried in fear. Or should the reason be sought in something else, deeper and more fundamental - in ourselves and in the way we see the world?

Dark Triad

In the essay “Cheating as an Exact Science,” Edgar Allan Poe lists the following distinguishing characteristics of a swindler: accuracy, interest, persistence, ingenuity, audacity, indifference, originality, shamelessness and a grin. Modern psychology actively agrees with him on one point: indifference. People for the most part are accustomed to living in packs. We can trust and rely on each other, walk the streets with a wallet full of money, not thinking that every passerby can rob us, and calmly go to bed without fear of being killed in our sleep. Over time, our emotions have evolved to accommodate this status quo. We feel warm and comfortable when we help others. We feel shame and guilt when we lie, cheat, or otherwise harm others. Of course, we all deviate from the rules from time to time, but for the most part we are taught to behave with complete integrity, and integrity is the direct opposite of indifference. We usually think about the comfort of those around us and know that they care about us to a certain extent. Without this, society would collapse quite quickly.

However, there is one exception. Some people, on the contrary, shamelessly benefit from the integrity of others, and in this they are helped by indifference. This is what makes a fraudster a fraudster. Such people do not care about anyone, they remain completely indifferent to the pain they cause when they manage to get their way. This is quite logical. If the people around you for the most part adhere to the rules of decency, you can lie, cheat and steal whatever you like as much as you like, and you will even succeed a lot in this. But this tactic only works when few people use it. Calculated indifference can only be considered an adaptive strategy when it is used by an absolute minority. Or, as Adrian Raine, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania and a researcher of antisocial behavior, puts it: “Persistently immoral behavior can be viewed as an alternative evolutionary strategy that, with a small percentage of distribution in society, can be quite successful. Without the emotional experience that deters immoral behavior, and resorting to deception and manipulation, a person can move through life quite successfully.”

There is another definition of calculated, even innate, indifference - psychopathy, or the basic lack of ability to empathize with the feelings of other human beings. This is indifference raised to a biological absolute.

Robert Hare's Enhanced Psychopathy Questionnaire, a widely used tool for assessing antisocial psychopathic behavior, looks for qualities such as responsibility, remorse, pathological deceit, manipulativeness, resourcefulness, sexual promiscuity and general impulsivity, superficial charm, pretentiousness, etc. similar. Score enough points and you will be called a psychopath, or a “suffering soul”, since you yourself leave many of the same “suffering” in your wake.

One of the most characteristic hallmarks of a psychopath is the inability to experience emotions like other people. To a true psychopath, your suffering means nothing. He knows no sympathy. Doesn't repent. Doesn't feel guilty. In conditions that seem shocking to most people - for example, when viewing disturbing and unpleasant images - their pulse remains steady, sweating does not increase, and the heart beats calmly. One study of clinical psychopathy found that psychopaths were unable to use the parts of the brain that control emotions in healthy people. Participants were asked to make morally difficult choices - for example, strangling a loudly crying baby to save the entire village, while the child's cry could doom all the inhabitants, including himself. For the vast majority of people, such a choice will be morally devastating. In search of an answer, the emotional centers of the brain come into conflict with the pragmatic ones. Psychopaths do not have such a struggle: they demonstrate indifference to the most extreme degree.

Psychopaths, according to Hare, make up approximately 1% of the male population; among women they are almost never found (almost, but not quite). This means that out of every hundred men you meet, one can be diagnosed with clinical psychopathy. But will he be a born swindler?

On the one hand, the data seems to point to a direct similarity between the con artist and the psychopath, who go hand in hand in their development. Seductive evidence: the behavior of people who have already experienced a psychopathic brain disorder in adulthood becomes, of course, psychopathic - and at the same time surprisingly similar to the behavior of scammers. In the course of studying brain pathologies, it was revealed that people who experienced early damage to the ventromedial region of the prefrontal cortex of the brain - an area organically associated with psychopathy - develop behavior and personality traits that clearly resemble both psychopathy and fraud. Two patients with this diagnosis, for example, had a tendency to lie, manipulate, and break rules. Others spoke about them like this: “There is no empathy, guilt, remorse, fear... They are not at all embarrassed by their own unseemly behavior.” From this we can conclude that psychopathy is a kind of biological predisposition that entails the special behavior that we expect from a fraudster.

However, that's not all. Psychopathy belongs to the so-called dark triad of personality traits, along with narcissism and Machiavellianism, which are also in many ways similar to the qualities we associate with cheaters.

Narcissism refers to a sense of self-importance and exclusivity, narcissism, an overinflated sense of self-worth, and a tendency to manipulate.

Machiavellianism speaks even more eloquently for itself - a characteristic almost directly determined by the ability to deceive as ruthlessly and effectively as the ideal sovereign from the work of Machiavelli or the most famous swindlers of the world.

In the psychological literature, Machiavellian is a specific set of traits that allow a person to manipulate others in order to achieve his own goals. In essence, this is a clear, textbook definition of a fraudster. In 1969, Richard Calhoun, a marketing professor at the University of North Carolina, described a Machiavellian as a person who "uses aggression, manipulation, breach of trust, and deceit to further personal and organizational interests." In fact, so-called high-macs—people who score high on the Machiavellianism scale (developed in 1970 by psychologists Richard Christie and Florence Geis, who wanted to capture the manipulative tendencies of social leaders)—tend to be among the most successful manipulators in society. Their antipodes are low-macs. In a series of studies in which a high-mac and a low-mac were placed in the same situation, the high-mac usually came out ahead in every scenario. Low Mac couldn't always cope with his emotions. Hi-Mac, however, did not allow himself to be so easily confused.

Thus, it can be assumed that the Machiavellian mindset, along with psychopathy, determines a person’s predisposition to fraudulent behavior and gives him the opportunity to successfully enjoy the fruits of his deception. Delroy Paulus, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who specializes in dark triad personality traits, goes further and argues that "Machiavellian" is a more accurate description of a con artist than "psychopath." “It is clear that unscrupulous stockbrokers are not psychopaths,” he writes. “They are corporate Machiavellians who take deliberate, strategic steps to exploit others.”

How to prevent fraud in a company

For most people, to move from law-abiding to fraud, three conditions must coincide: motivation (that is, your internal predisposition, based on elements of psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism), convenient opportunity and plausible rationale. So, when it comes to corporate scams, only a few decide to commit fraud in the absence of suitable conditions. According to one study, about a third of offenders are not only willing to go beyond the law (predisposition), they actively seek to find themselves in an aggressive business environment (opportunity) and feel they have to prove themselves in some way (rationale). In this situation, the established norms of corporate culture collide with personal readiness to act bypassing the rules and the ability to justify such behavior as a pressing need.

The fraudster appears when predisposition meets opportunity. According to some sources, this is one of the reasons why insider trading - cases where businessmen turn into scammers - has flourished widely at Steven Cohen's notorious hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors almost since its founding. “You convince yourself that you’re not doing anything wrong because everyone around you is trying to gain an advantage,” a source close to the foundation told me one day over lunch. “And it’s unlikely that you’ll get caught doing this, otherwise someone would have been caught a long time ago.” At SAC, he continued, there was never a time when the people at the head of the company said in simple words that even a third grader could understand: “Don’t break the law. Don't cheat or steal - that's not what we do here." Take the indictment against the hedge fund itself. “There were rumors that one alleged employee was involved in selling inside information at a previous job. He was fired from there after a complaint from an internal control specialist. Amazingly, he was back to his old ways just a couple of weeks after he found himself in a new place.”

Research materials could predict such an outcome. One experiment found that the ethical structure of an organization largely determines whether people with fraudulent skills (particularly Machiavellian traits) will listen to their inclinations. Those who worked in organizations with clear corporate ethics and a fairly rigid structure that did not allow them to be guided by their own whims in making decisions were significantly less likely to resort to essentially fraudulent methods than those who worked in organizations with a flexible structure and a less pronounced ethical vector.

The behavioral norms of a company, culture, or environment—ideas about acceptable or unacceptable behavior—must be communicated clearly and unambiguously. When this doesn't happen, it becomes all too easy for people teetering on the edge of fraud to take the next step. “It sounds cliché and cliché,” says Preet Bharara, a government attorney in the Southern District of New York who has built a reputation as an anti-fraud crusader, “but it's true. The tone that is set at the top is really very important.” There are extreme cases where people create opportunities for themselves: they will pave their way through life with deception no matter what conditions you put them in - but for a significant percentage of the population prone to fraud, the environment is very important. The same trader who committed some kind of scam in a fund, where it is customary to turn a blind eye to this, can prove himself to be a deeply decent person in another place. We care what people think of us, and if we believe that the majority will disapprove of our actions, we will be less tempted to deviate from the norm.

The private company USIS performed background checks and resume checks on potential employees, mostly for intelligence agencies, and carried out almost two-thirds of the total number of orders in this area. Its decline began with the revelation of poor quality inspections. It soon became clear that in fact there were much more of them, but at first it still seemed that more than one and a half thousand falsified reports were the work of one professionally unscrupulous employee. Well, a rotten apple can appear on a healthy tree. However, in January 2014, it became clear that this was not just a rotten apple. A Justice Department investigation found that the scandal that came to light was just the tip of the iceberg: the company falsified more than half a million background checks between 2008 and 2014. The problem was in the tree itself, on which the rotten apples grew.

For a fraudster to justify his action is a kind of culmination of predisposition and opportunity. If you, by nature of nature, initially have a tendency to cheat and feel an opportunity, you will find a way to justify your action. About half of the people who commit fraud, whether on the market or within an organization, cite unbearable competitive conditions. They want to even the odds and convince themselves that this little deception is one of the few opportunities available to them.

About everyday lies

In 2009, a group of scientists from the University of Turin, led by Professor Francesca Barbero, discovered a species of caterpillars that, once settled in an anthill, consistently received more food and care than the ants themselves. To do this, the caterpillar pretended to be a queen ant: it learned the difference between the sounds made by the queen and simple worker ants, and learned to make similar ones. Even when the ant colony did not have enough food, the deceiver still remained in a privileged position: after all, she was considered the future queen. Scientists have since discovered that at least 12 other butterfly species use the same techniques. Pretend to be a queen - and let them carry you into the anthill and you will no longer have to move a leg or a wing.

According to psychologist Robert Feldman, we lie on average three times during one routine ten-minute conversation with a stranger or casual acquaintance. Few people manage to completely avoid lying, and some people manage to lie up to twelve times in a given period of time. For example, I can start a conversation by remarking that I am glad to see the other person, although in reality I am not happy with him at all. I can go on to say that I grew up in Boston - strictly speaking, this is a lie, because in fact I grew up in a small town forty miles from Boston. I might say that the other person's job seems very interesting even though I don't really think so, or compliment his (boring) tie or (horrible) shirt. What if a person says that he likes some restaurant in the city center, about which I have far from the best impression? Most likely I will smile back, nod and say - yes, great place. Believe me, we often lie without even thinking about it.

We start lying from a very early age. In a series of studies on child psychology and development, psychologists left three-year-old children alone in a room with a new toy, but asked them not to turn around and look at what the toy was. Only a few of the children managed to overcome the temptation and not turn around (four out of thirty-three, to be exact), and more than half then lied about not doing anything. A repeated study involving slightly older children (five-year-olds) went even worse: they turned around and then lied, without exception.

When we become adults, old habits never go away. According to the Insurance Research Council, a quarter of citizens consider it acceptable to inflate the amount of damage when applying for an insurance payment if they feel that this will compensate for the premiums paid. This may seem normal, but it is actually a scam, even though it is considered an “innocent scam.”

Every November, Santon Bridge, a small rural town in Cumbria, England, hosts a competition to determine the world's smartest liar. People from all over the UK gather in a tavern in the city center and try to outdo each other by coming up with the most plausible tales, which they are given exactly five minutes to tell. The most convincing liar is crowned for a year. But there is one strict exception to this completely democratic event: lawyers, politicians, sales agents, real estate agents and journalists are not allowed to participate in the competition. They are too skilled at embellishing the truth to play on equal terms with ordinary people.

Test

Would you become a con artist - even an "innocent one" - if given the chance? This is easy to check. Raise your hand and use your index finger to draw the letter Q on your forehead.

Ready? Which way is your Q facing - with its tail to the right or to the left? This test, described in detail by Richard Wiseman, a psychologist and famous skeptic, allows you to measure your degree of self-control. If the tail of the letter you draw points to the left, so that others can read the letter, then you have highly developed self-control. You are very concerned about your appearance and how others perceive you. To achieve a desired effect or make a favorable impression, you are likely to be willing to manipulate reality - at least a little.