Why Scams Work: The Psychology Behind Urgency, Fear, and Trust - Part 3: Fear
How criminals use normal human decision-making to influence our choices—and what we can do about it.
A 7-part series about why urgency, fear, authority, trust, scarcity, and emotional connection can derail good decision-making—and why understanding the psychology of scams matters.
Part 3: Fear - "Something bad is about to happen."
Urgency becomes even more powerful when it is paired with emotion.
Scammers may create fear around losing money, losing access to an account, facing legal consequences, disappointing someone, or discovering that a family member is supposedly in danger.
Research by Jennifer Lerner and Dacher Keltner demonstrated that specific emotions can alter perceptions of risk and control. Fear, in particular, was associated with greater perceptions of uncertainty and risk. PubMed
The cybercriminal may only need to make the emotional problem feel urgent enough that solving the problem becomes more important than questioning how the problem was presented. That's why “don't panic” isn't particularly useful fraud education.
A better skill is learning to recognize the feeling itself as information:
If a message suddenly makes me afraid, that is a reason to verify before I act.
In this 7-part series, I examine each one of these persuasion principles in the context of cybersecurity awareness. Tomorrow, I will take a look at trust.
Selected scholarly research
Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(1), 146–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.1.146
Comments