According to a new study from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, apparently stock brokers are more manipulative and reckless than psychopaths! Researchers compared the egotism and the propensity for cooperation of 28 professional stock traders with the behavior of psychopaths. Clearly to embark on such a study, the authors, Pascal Scherrer, and Thomas Noll, a prison administrator in Zürich, must have had an inkling that there would be some correlation between the behaviors of their two control groups, but the results were striking. Via Der Spiegel:

“Naturally one can’t characterize the traders as deranged,” Noll told SPIEGEL. “But for example, they behaved more egotistically and were more willing to take risks than a group of psychopaths who took the same test.”

So I suppose one actually could characterize their behavior as “deranged,” right? I mean, he just did that, didn’t he?

Particularly shocking for Noll was the fact that the bankers weren’t aiming for higher winnings than their comparison group. Instead they were more interested in achieving a competitive advantage. Instead of taking a sober and businesslike approach to reaching the highest profit, “it was most important to the traders to get more than their opponents,” Noll explained. “And they spent a lot of energy trying to damage their opponents.”

Using a metaphor to describe the behavior, Noll said the stockbrokers behaved as though their neighbor had the same car, “and they took after it with a baseball bat so they could look better themselves.”

The researchers were unable to explain this penchant for destruction, they said.

 
I think I can be of help here: Wall Street attracts rapacious, greedy psychopaths! You’re welcome!

Aren’t you glad to have psychopaths looking after your retirement pension? Let’s give them some more control over our lives, why don’t we?

Below, “We appreciate your candor…”