A good artist doesn’t just take your money. He will make you defend him to get it.
When Elizabeth Holmes was exposed, many who believed in Theranos did not turn on her. They blamed the press, regulatory bodies or skeptics who did not wait. Holmes was convicted of fraud and sent to prison, but he still says that the technology could have worked if the world had believed a little longer. The most effective cheaters don’t just cheat on their grades. They turn them into believers.
There is a way to measure mining and it has nothing to do with the amount of theft. This is how faith endures in contact with reality. Weak interests disappear when the evidence arrives. The strongest keep their believers long after the judgment, sometimes for life. The interesting question is how long this survival lasts and why it should concern any of us.
Sensitive character profile
Start at the weak end. When Bernie Madoff confessed to the largest Ponzi scheme in history, which was worth about $65 billion on paper, the belief disappeared right then and there. Ponzi is pure binary: There is or isn’t money, and there wasn’t. There is nothing left to believe. But notice who his characters are. Banks, charities and experienced financiers who boasted due diligence. Not enthusiasts. Fraud researcher Tamar Frankel found that many brands share the same combination. They disbelief established institutions and readily believe an alternative source that defines what they already believe to be the truth. There is less about it reconnaissance rather than which authority a person believed.
People who are more confident in their critical thinking are often the easiest to accept. The concept confirms their suspicions and then gives them a private truth. Social psychologist Roland Imhoff calls this the need for uniqueness, the hunger to retain knowledge that sets a person apart. The line writes itself. You are too smart for a formal story. Only you and I can see what is really going on. That flattery is the garment of revelation.
A collection of rhetoric
A skilled Griftor does not improvise. Robert Cialdini’s research on affect includes a catalog of movements. Credit status: Cover yourself with credentials and reason. Manufacturing Consensus: When people you respect enough vouch for you, skepticism feels like heresy. Then protect the story at all costs. Lance Armstrong made a halo out of his cancer survivor story, the foundation and the sea of yellow wristbands, and for years that halo made the doping allegations sound like an attack on the hero. He denied everything and sued those who told the truth. Even after his confession in 2013, many fans remained loyal. Cognitive linguist George Lakoff has shown how framing triggers the moral reflex before the mind is activated. Each of these moves buys more time before belief matches reality.
Why does faith harden?
The more you believe, the longer the faith lasts. Part of this fallacy is sunk costs: abandoning a bad investment because so much money has already been invested. The other part is personality. When Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of stealing billions from FTX customers, his defense attorneys sent letters praising him. altruismas if a person has answered the accusation. When Trevor Milton was convicted of faking a video of a Nikola truck, knocking down a dead prototype to make it look like it was driving, many retail investors defended him, even as he insisted he had done nothing wrong. Adam Neumann burned tens of billions at WeWork, then got the biggest check his backers ever wrote for his next idea. Political psychologist Liliana Mason describes how when identity is mixed with belief, facts cease to be shared reality and become tribal property. Giving up a belief begins with the feeling of giving up a part of yourself. That’s what keeps it alive.
A manufactured savior
The most powerful version turns belief into addiction. My research on poisoning leadership found a pattern that resonates psychologist Wilfred Bion. Worrying people form dependent groups around a troubled leader, convinced that he will save them from the threat he has largely created. In self help the world runs on it. Keith Raniere sold NXIVM as personal development and leadership your trainer and built such a devoted following that after his conviction for racketeering and sex trafficking and received a 120-year prison sentence, some members still stood outside the courthouse defending him. Here, faith defies all evidence because the evidence now feels like an attack on the savior. This is the longest concept because letting go means referring to your past.
Why is it so hard to come back?
Some soils are more fertile than others. Arlie Hochschild’s research shows how stories of lost status prepare people to accept whoever they blame. Jonathan Haidt’s theory of moral foundations explains why the same conference is structured differently for different audiences, some motivated by loyalty and competence and others by care and justice. When one enters it, the resistance is reversed. Brendan Nyhan found that attacking a cherished belief tends to reinforce it, while first affirming one’s values and then presenting the argument is better. Robert Putnam’s work on social capital shows why the isolated are more exposed: They have real connections, and more of their reality is captured by an algorithm.
Our sign
Daniel Kahneman spent career shows that the bias behind all this is built into the mind of every human being. The Theranos board has included former cabinet secretaries and decorated generals. A sign is not a separate type of person.
Here is the question. Each of us believed in something that at the moment when the facts happened: a stock, a leader, a company or a person we should be right. The strength of a concept is measured by how well the belief survives contact with reality. So ask the obvious: Where is one of my beliefs after the evidence has stopped supporting it? A person who is convinced that they can never be fooled is usually someone who has already stopped checking.
