The huge danger of destructive emotions (2).

Decisions based on emotion—or clouded by emotion—are bound to be faulty.

In late July, The Wall Street Journal published conclusions from a study by a team of researchers from Carnegie-Mellon University, the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the University of Iowa.

“By linking brain signs to investment behavior, researchers concluded that people with an impaired ability to experience emotions could actually make better financial decisions than other people under certain circumstances.”

Says Antoine Bechara, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Iowa: “It’s possible that people who are high risk takers or good investors may have what you call a functional psychopathy. They don’t react emotionally to things. Good investors can learn to control their emotions in certain ways to become like these people.”