Wednesday, September 17, 2014

So does this mean you can trust an artist or writer more than you can a mathematician or accountant?

Of course not.

But this is interesting.

THE DAILY STAT: Harvard Business Review

September 17, 2014

People Are More Selfish and Dishonest After Doing Math


Research participants who had spent 15 minutes solving math problems were 4 times more likely to lie for personal gain in an ethics game than those who had answered randomly selected verbal questions from a standardized test, says a team led by Long Wang of the City University of Hong Kong. The act of calculating appears to crowd out people’s social and moral concerns, resulting in behavior that is more self-interested and even immoral. Stimuli such as family photos that prompt thoughts about social values appear to diminish these negative effects, the researchers say.
SOURCE: The social and ethical consequences of a calculative mind-set

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