Wanted: Psychopath Financial Experts

Psychopath

“Wanted: Psychopaths to make a killing in the markets.”

A team of US 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.

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.

One researcher, Antione Bechara, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Iowa, said the best stock market investors might plausibly be called “functional psychopaths”.

The study, published in June in the journal Psychological Science was conducted by a team of researchers from Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Iowa. - Reuters