Science

Bankers are 'more honest' and less likely to cheat than previously expected


Give bankers some credit – they aren’t all dishonest and are less likely to cheat than you’d think, new behaviour study finds

  • The study examined the behaviour of hundreds of bankers on three continents 
  • Bankers were asked to flip a coin while thinking about their profession 
  • There was no notable increase in dishonesty when bankers think of their work 
  • This seems to disprove the results of an earlier study into banker behaviour   

Bankers are more honest than people give them credit for, according to the results of a study into whether people lie about the results of a coin toss.

This contradicts the findings of an earlier study that seemed to suggest bankers were likely to lie about the result when thinking about their profession.

The new study found no notable increase in the likelihood of bankers lying about the result of the coin flip when they were thinking about work, according to researcher Zoe Rahwan from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

The findings of the earlier report may have been down to the fact that the bankers who took part worked for a bank that was involved in several high-profile legal and regulatory disputes.

This involved problematic business practices, suggesting that the the bank may have had a toxic business culture.

In total five different populations across three continents, with 768 bankers and 514 non-bankers were asked to play a coin-flip game while thinking about their work (stock image)

In total five different populations across three continents, with 768 bankers and 514 non-bankers were asked to play a coin-flip game while thinking about their work (stock image)

Almost 800 bankers took part in the new study, which found that asking bankers to think about their job did not generate greater dishonesty.

This suggests that banking culture does not necessarily have a corrosive effect on ethical behaviour, according to Ms Rahwan.

The 2014 research seemed to suggest that while bankers were generally honest if they were asked to think about their profession while tossing a coin they became more dishonest and more likely to lie about the result. 

That study, led by Alain Cohn from the University of Chicago measured the honesty of 128 employees from a large international investment bank.

Ms Rahwan and colleagues replicated the experiment in five different populations across three continents, with 768 bankers and 514 non-bankers. 

They found there was no significant increase in dishonesty when the bankers were primed to think about their work over the way they acted when not thinking about what they do for a living.

‘Professional culture may vary according to banking segments, individual institutions, jurisdictions or across countries’, said Ms Rahwen.

She said there needs to be a new approach to measure honesty in the financial services industry.

'Professional culture may vary according to banking segments, individual institutions, jurisdictions or across countries', said Dr Zoe Rahwen (stock image)

‘Professional culture may vary according to banking segments, individual institutions, jurisdictions or across countries’, said Dr Zoe Rahwen (stock image)

In response, Dr Cohn said: ‘It remains unclear to what extent the study is informative about the generalizability of our findings to other relevant contexts’. 

He highlighted differences between the two studies including over the type of banking organisations samples, which he says could explain the different conclusions.  

‘Many people in the financial sector may have been aware of our study, which may have affected the decision to participate or the responses given in the study by Rahwan’, Dr Cohn told Nature.



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