The Uncanny Valley and Scams – A View of Scam Victims’ Suspension of Disbelief – 2024
The Uncanny Valley and Scams – A View of Scam Victims’ Suspension of Disbelief
How these Concepts Play a Significant Role in Scams and their Impact on Scam Victims
Primary Category: Psychology of Scams
Author:
• Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
About This Article
With scams and deception, suspension of disbelief and the Uncanny Valley both play critical roles in how scam victims are manipulated.
Suspension of disbelief allows victims to overlook subtle inconsistencies or “off” elements in a scammer’s communication—whether it’s slightly unnatural language, odd phrasing, or even strange behavior in deepfake videos—because they are emotionally invested in the relationship or narrative presented by the scammer.
The Uncanny Valley, typically associated with unease triggered by near-human but slightly flawed entities, can also apply to written and visual communications that seem almost real but provoke a subtle discomfort.
