Psychological Persuasion Techniques

Scammers use a variety of persuasion techniques to convince a person to click or reveal something. According to Ferreira and Teles (2019), common principles of persuasion include:

1. Authority – members of the society are psychologically habituated to avoid cross-questioning authority. Example: an email claiming to be coming from your lecturer or project supervisor.

2. Social Proof – people usually tend to follow what individuals around them are doing to gain social acceptance. Example: an unexpected email asking you to reset your password, and your friends are doing it as well.

3. Liking, Similarity and Deception – when individual A suggests something to individual B, individual B views the bond (professional or personal) between individual A and B as an endorsement of authenticity of what individual A is suggesting. Example: a phone call coming from an unknown number, claiming it is your well-known friend and that they recently changed their phone service provider.

4. Distraction – refers to raising people’s emotional states and removing their rational thinking ability by making them focus on what they can gain, lose, or need in a particular situation. For example, an email from a job recruiter asking you to click on a link to book a time to meet him and discuss a job you never applied for. The thought of getting a job (gain) raises your emotional state and distracts you from verifying the sender before clicking the link.