Con men are artists of persuasion and exploiters of trust. They hold a deep, enigmatic fascination for us. But how do they do it? Whether it's a suspicious-looking email or a multimillion-dollar global swindle, Maria Konnikova investigates the psychological principles that underlie each stage of the confidence game and the profile of both the con artist and his mark. We learn how grifters can be so persuasive, even to those of us who consider ourselves immune, and how we can train ourselves to discern the signs of a story that isn't quite what it seems. Insightful and entertaining, telling fascinating stories about some of the most seductive imposters in history, The Confidence Game takes us into the world of the con to examine not only why we believe in confidence artists but how our sense of truth can be manipulated by those around us.

Author Biography

Maria Konnikova was born in Moscow and grew up in the United States. Her first book, Mastermind, was a New York Times bestseller. Her writing has appeared online and in print in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, The New Republic, The Paris Review, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, The Boston Globe, the Observer, Mind, Wired, and Scientific American, among numerous other publications. Maria blogs regularly for The New Yorker and formerly wrote the Literally Psyched column for Scientific American and the popular psychology blog Artful Choice for Big Think. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where she studied psychology, creative writing, and government, and received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University. She lives in New York. www.mariakonnikova.com