Various people on the internet are harrumphing about this study from the University of St. Gallen, which tested the behaviors and psyches of professional stock traders, and compared them with a comparable group of actual psychopaths. The stockbrokers proved to consistently display more selfish and reckless behavior than the psychopaths, which is either scandalous or not that surprising, depending on which confirmation bias hat you’re wearing.
The telling part of the article, for me, was this:
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.
Well, shit, man, I can explain it right now. The success myth.
One of the primal rules of the success myth is that the world is made up of winners and losers. I’m sure everyone reading this got told that at some point growing up, and everyone who was raised male got told it a lot. Possibly while being taunted as a “loser” by the other kids. If you absorb that purely enough, if that toxic lie sinks its roots deep enough in your brain, you get these guys. They become stockbrokers because they want to win and money is how they keep score, and stockbrokers can make absolutely stupid amounts of money. But, as this study shows, it’s ultimately not about the money. It’s about winning, and more importantly, it’s about not being a loser, about making someone else a loser.
That kind of obsessive fixation on the success myth is where you get things like this laughably blustering letter from an anonymous broker to Occupy Wall Street. It betrays a lot about the self-image of the obsessive gamblers who wrecked the global economy. He acknowledges that it’s gambling and that it’s obsessive, but he thinks these are virtues. He thinks that his sad, broken little definition of “winning” is infinitely transitive and that he and his cohorts are superheroic beings who will always succeed at everything.
There’s a reason that stock exchanges tend to be massively male-dominated sausagefests with gender ratios that rival your average Franciscan monastery. It’s the same reason that there are no male supermodels and no male beauty pageants. Because the beauty myth and the success myth are gendered. All those little girls you see on Toddlers and Tiaras, getting it drilled mercilessly into them that there is nothing in the universe more important than being pretty? Their male counterparts are the ones who grow up to be stockbrokers, and we all suffer as a result.
I think the correlation between psychopaths and stock traders is interesting, but I would caution in reading too much into it. I will agree that the success myth is an integral part of the problem, but I don’t think it is limited to the financial district. In fact, I am sore pressed to identify a professional area that is not perverted from its foundational values by this mythology. My personal views correspond to those of Charles Taylor (See The Malaise of Modernity for a rough introduction). The problem is that modern society has come to the belief that the individual… Read more »
@no more mr nice guy, for your information guys from Wall Street do marry models. Not to mention the fact that New York and London are both considered fashion capitals as well as financial capitals. Tyra Banks, Uma Thurman, Elle Macpherson, just to name a few women who date Wall Street guys. Besides there actually being a link, the whole damn point is that PUA culture has no legitimate impact on beauty pageants, so it’s fucked up that when someone is presented with the beauty myth and the success myth, their natural reaction is to blame everything on those PUA… Read more »
@dungone There is no link between guys from Wall Street and the women from beauty pageants because they don’t end up together. Supermodels usually don’t marry stockbrokers, they marry other celebrities and in many cases, they have unstable marriage. That doesn’t prevent stockbrokers from finding an attractive woman, but she’s probably not working as a supermodel. You were the first one that asked for a link between beauty pageants and Wall Street and Daisy told you rightly that these women are bitches and then I told her that PUAs (they are not celebrities) try to get these women and they… Read more »
@no more mr nice guy, so let me ask you again… why does this bother you so much? Why are a bunch of desperate guys getting all this wrath? I’m looking for the connection here that you’re making to the problems caused by Wall Street and beauty pageants. Is there one? If I may be so bold, this whole thing of taking everything out on the underdog is exactly the kind of issue we face. We can’t even talk about the behavior of the upper crust without someone blaming it all on guys who can’t get laid. Because people don’t… Read more »
@dungone Do you honestly think that the titans of the financial world are hanging out in the manosphere and blogs about PUAs? Do you honestly think that the average beauty queen is chasing after that tiara because she wants some PUA to neg her? In other words, what does that have to do with anything? No these guys don’t hang out in the manosphere. They have no problems getting women and replacing her when they are tired of her. And do you think that the guys in the manosphere or PUAs actually get those beauty queens? From all I can… Read more »
@dungone, I missed where you declared your career, I must’ve been kinda sleepy. One factor I think is that the world of securities was/is (I’m not sure what the current status is?) so unregulated. The whole idea of being able to buy and sell pieces of almost anything, and selling “bets” for or against the success of all those complex financial products, is kinda mind-boggling to me. And of course people tacitly approve of those practices when times are good. We’re all playing the same game, right? All of us have to live in the same imperfect system and I… Read more »
@The_L: “And as a professional educator…I’d like to see that idiot fucking TRY to teach children. There is a reason we have to take all those courses in lesson planning and developmental psychology, after all.” Or be a landscaper, or work an assembly line, or be a janitor or a delivery person, for more than a day. I’d like to see them try to get by on minimum wage, I’d like to see them have to shut up and take it when their boss takes a bad day out on them for something that wasn’t their fault, I’d like to… Read more »
If you read blogs in the manosphere and blogs about PUAs, it’s these types of women that these guys want. And after, they bitch that women are evil. Do you honestly think that the titans of the financial world are hanging out in the manosphere and blogs about PUAs? Do you honestly think that the average beauty queen is chasing after that tiara because she wants some PUA to neg her? In other words, what does that have to do with anything? And do you think that the guys in the manosphere or PUAs actually get those beauty queens? From… Read more »
“for one thing a huge amount of profit is made in the financial sector.” I know, I said that… and I work for the financial industry. The unanswered question is, how did it happen? If you really want to see what’s going on, take a look at this chart: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/bankers-salaries-vs-everyone-elses/ It’s actually a difficult question to answer. One of the big things that led to these increases in income was the reduction in capital gains tax, which made trading securities for money a much more lucrative business. Thank Reagan. Another thing is culture. Like it or not, but when times… Read more »
In a manner of speaking, I think in the current state of affairs you would literally need to have two girls for every guy for some guys to get just one. You can’t just look at how people get selected from the top, you also have to look at the way the people at the bottom are selected against.
@dungone “He implied that unlike the beauty myth, the success myth is inherently dangerous because of the kind of men it lures into the financial field” I read it to mean he was saying the beauty myth is equivalent to the succes myth. I agree if he in fact does. “I agree with his premise that objectification of men leads them to pursue careers with the greatest monetary rewards. But he did not explain why this happens to be finance as opposed to some other profession. ” It has to do with the concentration of power in the financial sector.… Read more »
Plus, you have the insular Wall Street culture associated with a tiny geographic location and group of specific firms. I’m not sure exactly why it seems to be such a bastion of conspicuous consumption, but maybe someone who has lived nearby will have some insight? The financial district (aside from the 200+ year old historical buildings) is a very strange place. There are cops everywhere, extremely high tech security installations, and god knows what else that you can’t plainly see. It is a very insular–inbred, I might even say–world, and you can just feel it standing on the sidewalk. That… Read more »
Mr Nice Guy: If you read blogs in the manosphere and blogs about PUAs, it’s these types of women that these guys want. And after, they bitch that women are evil.
Right! EXACTLY!
I believe certain men love, um, “mean girls” (won’t use that other word, that I used on GendErratic) just as certain women love “bad boys.”
They continually natter on that women should take responsibility for loving bad boys, well if so, these guys should too. Its the same phenomenon.
Ah, I meant to add this to my comment: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/405/inside-job
It’s one story associated with the credit crisis, in which the company Magnetar hired banks to build questionable securities, then shorted its own securities.
They made bank in the 2008 crash, naturally.
@dungone :
Fascination for Wall-Street have always existed. People were fascinated by Wall-Street in 1920s – it lead to a crash in 1929. People were fascinated by Wall-Street in 1980s – it lead to a crash in 1987. I studied administration and economics in the 1980s because everybody was obsessed by money. And now people are still fascinated by Wall-Street.
@dungone, for one thing a huge amount of profit is made in the financial sector. Check it out, it’s one of the largest and most profitable sectors of the US economy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States_by_sector I think a large amount of the prestige and meaning associated with finance also has to do with the fact that it’s an office job where nobody is getting their hands dirty, as opposed to the other large sectors of the economy. We’ve developed a real obsession with “professional jobs” as defined by being a job you go to in a suit and tie. Also I am pretty… Read more »
@Daisy Deadhead:
Dungone, interesting. What I see is the Toddlers-and-Tiaras types inevitably grow up to be INTOLERABLE and hopelessly narcissistic, just like lots of cheerleaders/supermodels are. My question is why would men want to marry these intolerable women? Why is it a given that these girls are more “marketable”? Is appearance more important to men than “personality”? (gasp)
If you read blogs in the manosphere and blogs about PUAs, it’s these types of women that these guys want. And after, they bitch that women are evil.
OMG, THAT LINK NOAH!!!! AIYEEE! Thanks, I linked it on our Occupy group page on Facebook, also over at Clemson’s. THANK YOU!!!!
1) Noah and others: Do you think the rising popularity of gaming among females, will lead to a new generation of women who are as focused on “winning” as men traditionally have been? It seems possible to me. 2) Dungone, interesting. What I see is the Toddlers-and-Tiaras types inevitably grow up to be INTOLERABLE and hopelessly narcissistic, just like lots of cheerleaders/supermodels are. My question is why would men want to marry these intolerable women? Why is it a given that these girls are more “marketable”? Is appearance more important to men than “personality”? (gasp) Maybe men are the ones… Read more »
@Suturexself: And as a professional educator…I’d like to see that idiot fucking TRY to teach children. There is a reason we have to take all those courses in lesson planning and developmental psychology, after all.
@Ginkgo: I think what Noah meant by “transitive” is, “Because I am successful at MY job, I must also be successful at every job ever! I’m the best at everything!!”
Beauty pageants and the supermodel business are every bit as cut-throat as the stock market is, but who ends up in which is totally gendered. Very well-argued. I agree with his premise that objectification of men leads them to pursue careers with the greatest monetary rewards. But he did not explain why this happens to be finance as opposed to some other profession. He implied that unlike the beauty myth, the success myth is inherently dangerous because of the kind of men it lures into the financial field. But why are financial professionals rewarded above all others and has this… Read more »
“He thinks that his sad, broken little definition of “winning” is infinitely transitive…” Noakh, this is totally off-topic, so ignore it if you prefer, but this is new use of “transitive” for me and it looks really useful. Can you explain this a little further? I think you are using it in a sense that this behavior can continue forever and it will always be good. “The stockbrokers proved to consistently display more selfish and reckless behavior than the psychopaths, which is either scandalous or not that surprising, depending on which confirmation bias hat you’re wearing.” Thank you for mentioning… Read more »
“Well, shit, man, I can explain it right now. The success myth.” It’s not that simple. The bad behavior itself – cheating and undermining your opponents – is probably just as prevalent in beauty pageants. And the fact that it’s happening in the financial world is because the money is in the financial world. If we paid doctors to cure cancer as much as we pay those people on Wall Street, then we’d have a cure for cancer instead of a financial meltdown. But there is also another trend that is there across the board in many professions – the… Read more »
Charlie Sheen would’ve written a better letter.
That “Wall Street strikes back” letter is harrowing – even AFTER the collapse, when he and the other brokers have inarguably “failed”, he still sees himself as a “winner” who could take anyone elses job from them whenever he wants.