I believe Ben is slightly inconsistent:
In an earlier post I asked, Would you trust less a business partner who cheats on his/her spouse? Or do you completely separate personal and professional?
My answer is I would trust the person less in a business or corporate environment, but would still trust enough to maintain a relationship.
Here's a question for people like myself, people who do not strictly separate bedroom character from boardroom character:
Suppose that you were on an NBA team and you knew one of your
teammates was cheating on his wife. Would you trust him less on the
court? Trust is vitally important in basketball, just as it is
important in business.
My answer to this new scenario is no, I would not trust my point guard (who's cheating on his wife) any less on the court.
Some of his readers think that trust in a point guard is automatic but I say ha.
When it comes to trust, I suggest that compartmentalization is the best default assumption. The cynical view, which you will never find on this blog, is that the NBA example starkly illustrates that an unfaithful man is driven by opportunity, not by a differing basic inclination. Putting that aside, Hitler was supposedly nice to his dog and Nixon never cheated on his wife. This is one reason why I don't wish to condemn people when I observe what is possibly their intellectual dishonesty. Even if the person has questionable morals in public discourse, he or she still might be more likely to give his life in a foxhole or perform other noble acts.
Removed from context, it's very difficult to judge people as a whole.
Couldn’t care less about the infidelities of my business partners, sincerely. If there is one thing by which you cannot judge a person in business matters it’s precisely this one. Sex responds to pulsions that cannot be rationalized: I know people who go to church on Sunday that have been unfaithful and who truly repent. When asked about why they did it, they usually say “I couldn’t help it”. As I said, impossible to rationalize such behaviour.
It depends. I’d trust the person in a business exchange where all the pertinent elements were observable. I wouldn’t trust the person as a partner or close colleague. I once had such a partner in a new business. He was initially our CFO, but he found the use of the checkbook a little too easy to use in his own interest. We agreed that he would shift to sales (where the rest of us could observe the outcomes). He was great in sales, but he did promise too much to our clients. We did ok but the relationship was never one of great trust. We cashed out the company and we our separate ways.
Trust him implicitly if you have the pictures.
And Bill Clinton cheated on his wife.
Do you want competence, predictability or loyalty?
Compartmentalization, perhaps, willful ignorance, no. Cheating certainly doesn’t signal competence. It is likewise impossible to judge business dealings as a whole.
I have the same trust response as Mr. Casnocha. I think the difference has to do with short-term vs. long-term trust. Both people have shown that they are willing to break a long-term commitment by cheating. That’s the extra information. I won’t trust the basketball player to completely fulfill his contract anymore, but that won’t change his basketball game, he’ll still try to win each game.
Another difference is my prejudice. For some unexamined reason, I already trust basketball players less than businessmen because the two professions attract different sorts of people. I believe that just knowing someone is a professional basketball player gives you more information about them than knowing someone is a businessman.
Maybe you should ask, if you have a coworker that you play basketball with, and he cheats on his wife, how does that affect your trust in him on and off the court.
(How to say this nicely…)
Ben is how old? 21, according to his bio.
When I was younger, I used to judge people in more stark, black and white terms.
As I have aged, I realize how imperfect I am, others are, the world is. Nuanced.
Given that this is an economics blog…INCENTIVES MATTER!!
It is more important to understand the incentives in a given situation than it is to try to ascertain future behavior given an other’s past behavior in a different situation with different incentives!
argh!!!!
What a boring bunch of androcentric sexists†¦
Truly mesmerizing question is: who would you trust more/less, a cheating businessman or a cheating businesswoman?
Even Gaius Baltar did a few good things…
Morality can engender one kind of trust: “I trust you to do the right thing”. Predictability can engender another kind: “I understand your motivations and have some certainty about what you will do next, even if it is the wrong thing”.
I submit that both can make for trustworthy friends and business partners.
Experience has shown that I trust someone less who cheats on their spouse. I found that Partners who cheated on their spouses also cheated their partners. Competitors who cheat on their spouses ended up with businesses which self destructed when their partners discovered that they were being cheated. People who are willing to betray spouses will also be willing to betray business associates. BTW there is a difference between working with someone and doing business with someone.
Barry
who would you trust more/less, a cheating businessman or a cheating businesswoman?
Neither.
My experience with cheating spouses of both sexes is that they are not to be trusted with anything.
You don’t have to be theoretical about it – just think of all the people you know who cheated on their wife, and all the people who didn’t, and which group do you trust more? For me it’s no contest…
I think the context – the relevant social norms – distinguishes the two cases here. Potential business partners should not read much into infidelity per se, but may take note of one’s propensity to shrug off social norms. Yes, the cheater makes me weary of him, just as the potential employee who wears swimming trunks to a job interview.
On the other hand, promiscuity is sufficiently common among NBA players that cheating on one’s wife does not flout any social norms. Therefore, cheating has no trust implications. Given NBA standards, the celibate point guard is the untrustworthy one!
You lose your security clearance in the army if you are caught cheating on your wife
Agree with Sara E. I trust the point gaurd’s basketball skills. My trust of him on-court may be intact, but my trust off-court will definitely change.
The example is flawed on many levels!
The security clearance issue is that one may become subject to blackmail. It is not
a matter of honesty per se. Heck, spies are supposed to be able to be dishonest.
If someone knows that a potential business partner or coworker is cheating on their
spouse, then this person is already an “unsuccessful cheater” and hence already seen
as less than competent, probably soon to be caught by their spouse, if it has not
already happened, morality and trustworthiness aside.
Indeed, as Taka notes, this really does vary a lot across cultures. The US is full of
puritanism, although we have plenty of hypocrisy, with some of the biggest spouters on
the virtues of family values, blah blah, being on their third or whatever spouse. But in
some cultures, one is sometimes even judged on the quality of one’s mistress or whatever
lover outside of marriage. France is a definite example, where President Mitterand’s
polls actually rose after it was revealed that the novelist Francoise Sagan was one of
his mistresses. Having an intelligent mistress was viewed as a positive. Likewise under
the monarchy, having a smart mistress often helped a monarch have access to intelligent
advisers and counselors, a function that the intelligent Madame de Pompadour performed for
Louis XV, granting him access to the physiocratic economists (Quesnay was her physician).
Of course, Bill Clinton did the opposite of the French kings. Where they would have
moronic queens foisted on them for diplomatic reasons and then (some of them anyway)
have intelligent mistresses, he has an intelligent wife, but went after the trailer trash
bimbos big time.
BTW, in regard to this, I shall recount an old Soviet joke. So, a man is appointed to
be director of a top research institute in Moscow. He arrives at work and is shown around
by the deputy director. They are going around from room to room and then come upon a room
with a bunch of women in their 20s gossiping about makeup, boyfriends, and night clubs. The
new director asks, “what is going on here?” The deputy director says, “Sssssh. I shall tell
you later.” Then, after some more rooms they come to one filled with matronly women in their
fifties or so who are talking about grandchildren and spas and doctors. Again, the director
makes the same inquiry, only to receive the same reply. Finally, after some more rooms, they
come to one full of beautiful women in their 30s discussing philosophy and the latest literature
and theater, to be followed by the same inquiry and reply.
So, back at the office the director asks for an explanation for all this. So, the deputy says,
“In the first room were the daughters of high Party officials.” “OK,” says the new director.
“In the second room were the wives ofo high Party officials.” “OK,” says the new director,
“and you do not need to explain to me about the third room.”
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