A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF BANKERS

A psychological study in Switzerland has tried to find out, once and for all, if bankers in general tend to be scoundrels, liars and manipulators.

The study of more than 200 international bankers has tested his honesty and found something really significant.

For starters, the research team found that bankers were cheating on tests, which curiously did not happen when the same test to other professional groups was performed.

Behavioral economists Alain Cohn, Ernst Fehr and Michel André Maréchal presented their findings in a report entitled "Culture Business and dishonesty in the banking sector"

Following a series of scandals in the finance industry, the team set out to test the honesty of the bankers with a simple consisting of tossing a coin test.

According to Alain Cohn:

"They were asked to launch a coin 10 times and that they register the results of the coin toss"

"His behavior in the toss of a coin is a measure of their dishonest behavior"

To test this behavior, the researchers offered the bankers a financial incentive to lie about the results.

"The goal is that they could cheat to increase their income," Cohn said.

"For example, in the first coin toss, they knew that if she left side earned $ 20 and that could create them the incentive to cheat on the results, shielding allegedly chance"

However, researchers knew that opportunity to earn easy money, could also lead to any participant in the experiment was not banker also take the opportunity to cheat and make money.

So to refine its methodology, divided its first cohort of bankers into two groups, one control and one experimental.

Cohn said the first group, the control, was submitted to the test of the coin after each participant will have made a series of questions about your private life and hobbies, with light questions about their consumption of tea or their favorite leisure activities.

However, the second group of participants bankers, they underwent a series of questions specifically related to their careers as bankers.

"In the experimental group focus their minds on issues related to his occupation as bank employees. For example, they were asked what banks worked or how many years of professional experience had "

When the two groups were then asked to undertake the test coin toss, the results were revealing.

Bankers who had been conditioned to think of his work as a banker before testing, were more likely to cheat and dishonesty that even those whose minds were occupied with thoughts about their homes and families.

Therefore, the results suggest that bankers are not inherently dishonest.

"They were very honest in the control test," Cohn said.

"It was when you had in mind their professional role as bankers began to cheat"

This technique previously used by researchers other segment of society who suffer from low reputation, according to study co-author Michel André Maréchal.

"This will actually started when conducted an experiment on cheating with inmates in a maximum security prison"

"It was found that inmates cheated more when they were reminded that they were criminals. So we used a similar approach in this study to examine the corporate culture in the banking sector "

NO WRITTEN RULES OF THE FINANCIAL SECTOR PROMOTING THE DISHONESTY

When the researchers made the same tests on other professionals, such as professionals in manufacturing, telecommunications and pharmaceutical sectors, found no variation between the control group and the experimental group.

"This means that there is something specific in the banking sector that promotes dishonesty. This is unwritten rules of behavior in the financial sector that encourage or tolerate dishonest behavior, "says Cohn.

Note Robot:

Hopefully these findings do not serve as an excuse to justify the systematic and shameless theft by these financial elites.

It is very easy to argue that "robo banker and why am I not help, basically I am very honored, the fault is not mine, but my profession"

Extreme poverty also leads to "unlawful and dishonest" no poor behavior and stealing to eat or survive justice never forgive him for that.

However, this psychological experiment as curious and significant is giving us a very clear message:

Never trust a banker, however good person appearing in his private life ...

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source:abc