Charles Johnson’s compendium of the “[lives] of the [h]ighwaymen” includes a text about a clever seventeenth-century confidence trickster named Mary Carleton (Johnson 221). The biography of Mary Carleton reveals her ability to exploit human emotions and tendencies for personal gain and highlights her proficiency at creating new façades and employing different tactics in order to successfully manipulate others in a wide range of scenarios, unlike other fraudsters. Mary resorted to continuously changing personas in an attempt to avoid a reputation that could expose her criminal behavior and put an end to her swindling. In most of her disguises, Carleton portrayed herself as a powerful and important figure, often through a false backstory or elegant attire with the goal of
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In some of Mary Carleton’s crimes, she utilizes her targets’ compassion in order to develop pseudo rapport, which she later uses to swindle her victims. One of her most common tactics was to create an elaborate persona that caused her victims to feel sympathy toward her and to exploit these feelings of compassion in order to sway her targets, who were under the illusion that they were helping her, to provide her with services or goods. For example, when Mary Carleton convinced a group of strangers that she was an exiled German princess (Johnson 221-222), the strangers were so moved by her “melancholy tale” that they all felt “[compassion] for her unfortunate situation” (Johnson 222). The group’s willingness to immediately believe the criminal’s story is a demonstration of people’s natural inclination to accept outsiders and trust others, which stems from the human desire to consistently have “productive social exchange[s]” (Stolle 397). Using this
In some of Mary Carleton’s crimes, she utilizes her targets’ compassion in order to develop pseudo rapport, which she later uses to swindle her victims. One of her most common tactics was to create an elaborate persona that caused her victims to feel sympathy toward her and to exploit these feelings of compassion in order to sway her targets, who were under the illusion that they were helping her, to provide her with services or goods. For example, when Mary Carleton convinced a group of strangers that she was an exiled German princess (Johnson 221-222), the strangers were so moved by her “melancholy tale” that they all felt “[compassion] for her unfortunate situation” (Johnson 222). The group’s willingness to immediately believe the criminal’s story is a demonstration of people’s natural inclination to accept outsiders and trust others, which stems from the human desire to consistently have “productive social exchange[s]” (Stolle 397). Using this