Preventing WhatsApp Scams Using Through Psychological Conditioning
CONTEXT
Why do people fall for scams?
Scammers prey on your need for money and the opportunity to attain it easily.
They start with taking small investments and then lure you towards bigger investments.
Personal situations such as unemployment etc. are factors that affect how people fall for scams.
Even a persons emotional state plays a role in people falling for scams.
Repeat Victims
There are people who fall for scams more than once as well. Personality traits such as impulsiveness, compliance and low self-esteem play a factor.
The Reality
Kumar, who just graduated as an engineer and was looking for jobs, received a message on WhatsApp – a work-from-home job where all he had to do was like YouTube videos.
“I know that celebrities and influencers often use agencies to boost their engagement on social media, so I thought this was a part of one such operation,” Kumar said.
Kumar invested 1,000 rupees and earned 1,300 rupees when he completed a task. For the next task, they asked him to invest 3,500 rupees, for which he earned 4,400 rupees.
In two days, he “invested” 278,000 rupees, most of it borrowed. But the scammers refused to pay and blocked him
psychology APPROACH
What is classical and operant conditioning?
Classical conditioning is learning by association and operant conditioning is learning from consequences. Here the consequence is positive and negative reinforcement.
Positive reinforcement is adding something pleasant or rewarding to increase the likelihood of a behavior happening again. Negative reinforcement is removing something unpleasant to increase the likelihood of a behavior happening again.
Designing The Intervention
The idea here is to simulate a scam within WhatsApp itself in order to see how the user responds to the scenario. Depending on how the user responds, they will receive either positive or negative reinforcement after each behavior.
The aim is to educate the user on how to identify scammers in the context of the app itself.
References
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