I really enjoyed this article in the UK Guradian and thought I would share it with you: Inside the minds of men who want to get rich quick.
Conning investors and dodging the regulators who are supposed to curb them, swindlers cost markets millions. Ruth Sunderland investigates why it is important to understand the psychology of fraud.
In a paper for the Australian Institute of Criminology, Grace Duffield and Peter Grabowsky point out that behavioural scientists have been unable to identify personality characteristics, such as greed, which would serve as reliable markers of a potential fraudster. The uncomfortable implication is that many people could, given the right set of circumstances, be capable of fraud.
Wendy Lyons, a chartered business psychologist and director of consultancy Human Assets, says: "Those three factors come into play. You can't pinpoint character traits that will indicate fraud; plenty of people are greedy, for instance, without ever turning to fraud. Businesses are experimenting with personality tests for integrity, but people can fake it."
Don't you think that it is interesting that the trait of integrity can be "faked"?
