Can Genetics Determine Your Financial Future?
Your DNA may reveal how much financial risk you're willing to take.
The financial crisis has led to a lot of finger-pointing—at bankers, government regulators, and scam artists. But if you've lost money in the market, consider this: The fault may lie partly in your genes.
New brain-chemistry data suggest a link between an individual's investing style and his or her genetic makeup. By testing saliva for certain genetic markers, scientists can tell whether you're likely to get into riskier investments or to put your money into something safer. Risk-taking has been linked to variations in the genes that regulate the brain's serotonin and dopamine—chemicals that affect mood, anxiety, and addiction.
Researchers invited 65 men and women to a lab at Northwestern University, near Chicago. The volunteers were given money and told to invest it as they wished, choosing between risky assets and safe ones. Saliva samples were taken to determine each investor's anxiety and risk-taking profile.
The results were intriguing. People with a high-risk version of the dopamine gene put their money in risky investments about 25 percent more often than those with the gene's more common version. Volunteers with the high-anxiety version of the serotonin gene were more careful about money management. They invested 28 percent less money in risky investments than people with the non-anxious version.
Other researchers who've looked at the relationship between biology and financial decision-making see the male hormone testosterone as the culprit. In a study that appeared in Evolution and Human Behavior, 98 male Harvard students were asked to play an investment game. Those with testosterone levels 33 percent higher than average invested 10 percent more of their money.
Researchers at Cambridge University found that among London traders, higher levels of early-morning testosterone equaled better-than-average daily profits.
These findings are part of a growing field called neuroeconomics, which combines neuroscience, economics, and psychology to study how people make financial decisions.
Still, genes probably account for "less than 30 percent of variation in risk-taking behavior," says Camelia Kuhnen of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, one of the authors of the genetics and money study. Most investment decisions, she points out, are driven by education level, cultural factors, knowledge of an investment's past performance, and recent news events. Adds Joan Chiao of Northwestern's Department of Psychology, the other author of the study: "People cannot use this as an excuse for their bad financial decisions."
Courtesy of PARADE
actions -> consequences -> learn -> live
stop blaming start living
OneSonPerishNot - Good post. Yes, people will walk willingly into Hitler's lair of the perfectly engineered person because we can't have anyone die, get sick or encounter anything that's difficult to handle. We already genetically engineer our children to get the boy or girl we want or eliminate the disease that runs in our family. It's only a matter of time until every dim-wit in the world will gleefully have their genes altered to create "something better". Should be interesting when the recessive gene for six fingers becomes the norm rather than the exception. Or something worse.
Vampy - Shut up - you sound like a brain washed idiot. Weather patterns dictate you will have abnormal days in every area at some point in time. So yes it sounds normal to me - snow one day and 70 degrees the next. Go to Montana - this can be the norm in June! Have you ever stood - dry - on one side of the street and watched in pour rain less then twenty feet from you? I have. We are woefully ignorant about many things and considering our tracking of weather phenomenon only covers a few hundred years **** do we think we really know. I'm not saying we've not had an adverse effect but we have no idea how much of this climate change is natural. Recycling? Yes let's recycle but also let's eliminate plastics altogether. Plastic is a bane to the world. And maybe let's try not littering at all - the world is not our garbage can.
This study blows chunks. A whopping 65 people - sounds like one of those trusted pharmaceutical studies they cite to push more pills and shots down your throat. Small pool = no diversity. But yeaaas we have the cure for you! The dynamics of this study aside this is simply another method of providing an excuse to every idiot out there that bought a house they could not afford or made a investment and lost their shirt, or, or, or. People need to own up to their mistakes not blame everyone else or "my chemical imbalance" for their shortcomings. I've made risky investments with my money but I did my homework and guess what it paid off. But I also didn't buy a house I couldn't afford, a car I couldn't afford or go into debt to dress my kid like every **** in Hollywood just because "everyone else is doing it."
This study is just what the feeble minded ordered - another excuse for stupidity.
Oh and by the way - this weak ass BS study does not apply to Wall Street. These people lost your money - not theirs. It's nice having the inside track when it comes to market manipulation.
Vampygirl,
I must tell you that I enjoyed your comments greatly, even though I can't agree with all of them. I will, however, cross my heart, use the spell-checker assiduously.
Wugo
Lets see 99% of the pop. Wow! Ah forget it were all done for!
According to these geneticists people of African descent also have a lower IQ built into their genes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CFJrdbzJd0 the only conclusion children who are taught this nonsense in school is that it is poor people's fault for them being poor and that rich people are simply higher evolved. We've already been down this road of supposed genetic superiority and inferiority and it can only lead to one place. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gn813Z9vCg
Since the caste system is the key, I would say that DNA indirectly affects financial gain/loss.
Whose boy are you? What does your dad do?
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