This is the John Fugel-Sang Podcast.

So what's worse?

Being robbed? We're being scanned. I I mean for many of us being robbed has a kind of integrity to it. You were harmed. You were wronged. But when you're scammed, when you're conned by someone, there's often a feeling that you know somehow it's partially

also your fault and this can lead to all kinds of feelings of humiliation and self-recrimination

it's much more twisted than just the simplicity of being robbed because you feel guilt, while the person

who scams you feels none.

It's dirtier than thievary.

And the fear of being somehow cheated can of course cause all matter of paranoia

affect all of our decision-making which isn't all that much healthier than just

being gullible. An outstanding new book studies the psychological dynamics of cons and tricks and

scams and how humans can live with integrity in a world of scammers and suckers.

Tess Wilkinson Ryan is a law and psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania

Cary Law School. She studies the moral psychology of legal decision-making teaching

courses in contracts, consumer law, and leadership. Her excellent gripping and really endlessly fascinating book is foolproof, how fear of playing

the suckers shapes ourselves and the social order and what we can do about it.

In the book she explores how the sucker construct,

our fear of being seen to play the fool,

can shape and distort human decision-making

from our choices about how we date, how we shop, how we deal with our

neighbors, how we treat the less fortunate, as well as politics and international relations.

Shame is a fascinating thing and it keeps us from talking about our universal human fears of being swindled and looking dumb.

It is a great pleasure to welcome Professor Tess Wilkinson Ryan to Serious XM.

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