A team of U.S. scientists has found the emotionally impaired are more willing to gamble for high stakes and that people with brain damage may make good financial decisions, the Times newspaper reported Monday.
In a study of investors’ behavior 41 people with normal IQs were asked to play a simple investment game. Fifteen of the group had suffered lesions on the areas of the brain that affect emotions.
The result was those with brain damage outperformed those without.
The scientists found emotions led some of the group to avoid risks even when the potential benefits far outweighed the losses, a phenomenon known as myopic loss aversion.
One of the researchers, Antione Bechara, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Iowa, said the best stock market investors might plausibly be called “functional psychopaths.”
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9400914/
In related news:
Ex-Tyco executives get up to 25 years in prison
Kozlowski, Swartz punished for stealing hundreds of millions of dollars
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9399803/
And I hope they 'enjoy' every minute of it - send on Ken Lay next.
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