ABSTRACT
The fear of being suckered is such a strong social and psychological phenomenon that political movements, and bodies of law, have been built around it. This review offers a framework for understanding how the psychology of feeling suckered affects legal decision-making. Feeling exploited or scammed is a core and widely shared aversion, and yet also a malleable construct, subject to framing effects and triggered (or untriggered) by subtle situational cues. The stakes for the sucker inference are high; people worried about being cheated predictably react by refusing to cooperate in prosocial activities, and by retaliating. The flight-or-fight response has deep implications for legal decision-making, undermining investment in cooperative enterprises, dispute settlement, and efficient social policy. Finally, the review considers the unique ambivalence toward suckers themselves – the competing feelings of sympathy and scorn – and how that ambivalence plays into underreporting of legal harms, misattributions of consent, and victim blaming. I conclude by suggesting that the ambivalence offers opportunities for productive legal interventions to reward trust.
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Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Suckers in Law, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, volume 21. First posted online on 15 May 2025 (changes may still occur before final publication).
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