Keep that amygdala under control
QUICK!!! LOOK TO YOUR LEFT!!!! Now look to your right.
Did you do either? Why or why not? Probably because you had no reason to believe you needed to do it. Perhaps if someone right next you shouted: “Look to your right” you might do it because you have come to associate a loud voice with a need for a quick response. In many cases, we shout at people because it is important we get them to listen to us or they will get hurt. If you are dealing with someone reluctant to listen to you, (disobedient children, rebellious adults, or others) you may feel that increased volume will help them to appreciate the importance of what you are saying.
Sometimes we yell because we are afraid or surprised, as in “What was that!!” if we hear a loud noise. Loud speech is usually the product of some emotion, generally fear or anger. Emotion can move us to action. We may have a justifiable fear of getting injured by a vehicle when walking so we take precautions, by looking both ways before crossing a street. We don’t want to go to jail, so we pay taxes. Someone has an intense desire to live the high life, so they buy lottery tickets or invest in a ‘can’t miss’ deal.
The fact that people are driven by emotion (which originates in the amygdala of the brain) to do things that in some cases they would not ordinarily do is part and parcel of the scammer’s toolbox. In the May 2020 issue of The AARP Magazine (yes I subscribe, I passed 50 a long time ago), Doug Shadel talks about the emotions that scammers play on, and lists several scenarios that play out in scams. I thought the key point he made was this:
Swindlers are winning the day because they know exactly how to turn off your intellect and put you in an emotional, irrational state of mind (and keep you there).
Don’t Let Emotion Override Your Intellect!
His list of motivators includes phantom riches (sweepstakes win), fear (IRS audit), intimidation (possible threats), scarcity (get one of the few in existence), credible source (FBI agent), and reciprocity (I do something for you – free shipping, you do something for me).
Shadel also covers how, to get technical, the scammer gets the amygdala of the victim to override their neocortex. Put more simply, emotion overrides the intellect. This helps to explain why even ‘smart’ people fall for scams.
The article also mentioned a Ulysses pact. That refers to Ulysses telling his men to plug their ears but tie him to the mast so they could sail by the sirens and he could hear them but not plunge into the sea to his death. Now it refers to a written agreement binding parties to some course of action in the future. It presumes that the decision is a reasoned and not an emotional one. In the case of emails promising riches, opportunities, or other financial situations, the suggestion is to wait 24 to 48 hours before doing anything. That gives your neocortex time to pin your amygdala down and do some analysis.
Home Threats Differ From Those At Work
Due to the vehicle where this was printed (AARP magazine) I am going to assume that his audience is presumed to be seniors and others not in the workforce. I say this because he did not cover two tactics that are used in the business world. One is camouflage.
The scammer masquerades as someone you know, do business with, or have some reason to respond to. He may do this with skillfully crafted phishing emails or may compromise the email client of someone you know or do business with, and send you emails that appear genuine but contain malware or malicious links. You are not emotional when you get scammed but your guard has been let down, to your detriment.
Another tactic is to rely on the fact the business people typically get hundreds of emails daily. While the majority of scam emails can be detected if you are willing to spend a few minutes analyzing them, we may not feel that we have that time. We have deadlines we need to meet and email is a necessary part of doing that, so we need to process the emails and move on. While not complex, email analysis takes time.
Hovering over links to see if they go where they claim to go takes a few extra seconds and some thought that we may feel we can’t afford right now. Unless you get emails in plain text, a link can say one thing and show you another. Just hover over this link www.cnn.com and see how you can be lied to. Just a little inattention and you can find yourself on a malicious look-alike site.
Unfortunately, these days no attachment type can be safely opened regardless of source. Open a bad attachment and nothing bad may happen immediately, but it might contain a bad link. Worse, it might contain ransomware. Asking “Why am I getting this attachment?”, “Should this person be sending me an attachment?”, “Did this client ever send a document via Google docs before?” takes time and some context analysis but it can pay dividends.
Emotion can come into play at work. We just had a client give us grief. The team is not making headway on the project. It looks like this will be another 10 hour day. Things that upset us can also cloud our judgment. We have all said something, when tired or upset, that we later regretted. We can take actions we regret as well. If we don’t pay attention, the amygdala will give the neocortex something to regret later. Like so many other things in life, email is better handled when we are calm and not under pressure. There are too many scams in the world and too many scammers out to make a buck for us to get emotional.
