I'm not an expert on this topic, so I'd like to know as well. My own personal theory is that most people, whatever their intelligence level, feel that they are

I'm not an expert on this topic, so I'd like to know as well. My own personal theory is that most people, whatever their intelligence level, feel that they are smarter than the average person and their intelligence is part of their sense of identity. When people fall victim to a scam—when they are outwitted—that sense of identity takes a big hit and it's so hard to admit that they were not as smart as they thought they were, that they were wrong about who they thought they were. And so rather than doing the rational thing which would be to admit being deceived and not seeing through it, they double-down, they want to find a way to make the scam work for them, to prove to others, but mostly themselves, that they were not dumb, that they were the smart ones.