So important was trust that even when clues were arriving thick and fast that they were being deceived, individuals could stay in denial for a surprising time. A confidence trickster might be vulnerable to intensive probing and so would rely on those who were inclined to accept his story: the woman yearning for love or the greedy looking for a get-rich-quick proposition. Research showed that people were “poor deception-detectors and yet are overconfident of their ability to detect deception.”30 “Cognitive laziness” led to shortcuts that resulted in misapprehending people and situations,
...more
