????某些情況下，當回報很高風險很低時，大腦會告訴我們欺騙是可行的。我們想辦法自我麻痹，為和我們的價值觀不符的行為找到借口。

????商界領袖，特別是銀行業人士在最近因為錯誤選擇而丑聞不斷，為此《財富》雜志（Fortune）研究了這些作弊者的心態。發現在為盈利鋌而走險的現象背后有著強大的心理動力。但下一步卻極其困難，那就是我們如何才能控制那些大腦中的獎賞通路，鼓勵符合道德的行為，

????密歇根大學（University of Michigan）羅斯商學院的管理學教授戴維?梅耶爾指出：“很不幸的是，我們了解許多這類自欺欺人的行為。但我們對如何干預卻知之甚少。”不過，還是有辦法避免和對抗欺騙的誘惑。

????與其去想如何應對欺騙帶來的巨大壓力和道德譴責，不如從根本上杜絕這種活動。雖然做起來并不容易，領導者還是能夠以身作則，向員工和股東傳遞良好的商業價值觀。中田納西州立大學（Middle Tennessee State University）的心理學教授馬克?弗雷姆專門研究職場心理學，他認為：“如果廣泛宣傳自己的道德主張，就會雇用到道德水準更高的員工。有點像電影《夢幻之地》（field of dreams）：你造好場地，他們自會到來。”

????公司通常認為自己的價值觀已經廣為人知，而實際上普通員工并不清楚。即使正受到此類指控，沒有一家銀行的使命宣言會說他們會為了快速盈利而抄近路。然而這些公開的道德準則和公司內部的激勵體系卻背道而馳，壓力來自于對股東的短期責任、基于快速盈利能力的升職，還有金融危機前夕和危機期間殘酷無情的工作環境。

????要讓人們遵循良好的商業道德，首先就需要明確闡述正確的價值觀，并且給予適當的激勵。在加州大學伯克利分校（University of California, Berkeley）研究領導與溝通的教授巴里?斯托指出：“道德和盈利之間仍然存在灰色區域。”例如，交易員的行為有時看來就像在用別人的錢來賭博。“我覺得，至少在很長一段時間內，我們難以除去市場壓力，” 斯托教授說。考慮到這一點，“人們需要知道底線在哪里，”那個底線不應該局限于禁止非法行為。“公司需要表明，是的，這樣做你也許不會被逮捕，但是你越線了。”

????嚴格的內部政策可以實現某種程度的損害控制。領導者應該努力制裁不道德的行為，避免它惡化到引起監管者關注的地步。“公司內部需要有這樣的共識，不是說‘如果監管者抓到我們，你就玩完了，’” 斯托說。“而應該是‘如果你越線了，一旦我們發現，即使是合法的越線，你也會馬上丟掉飯碗，而且我們還會考慮是否向有關當局告發你。’”這并不是一個讓人開心的獎賞通路，更像是灌輸對個人處罰的恐懼，而不是對盈利的獎賞。

????領導者實施這些政策的動力其實來自于他們自身對后果的恐懼。近期銀行高管的辭職，包括巴克萊（Barclays）的首席執行官鮑勃?戴蒙德和匯豐銀行（HSBC）的合規總監戴維?巴格利，都給其他金融大佬敲響了警鐘，必須有人為系統性的問題負責。斯托認為，這就會促使高管遵循其公開的道德準則。

????弗雷姆指出，在壓力巨大而關系密切的工作環境中，個人很容易卷入一個有著共同行為模式的人組成的緊密圈子。某個選擇在小集團內部看起來沒問題，外部世界卻不這么看。弗雷姆說：“高管們需要開始考慮的不是他們在做什么，而是別人對其行為的判斷。他們并不總是了解公眾輿論的看法。”

????退一步看，如果在經受大公司的道德坩堝考驗之前，人們就得到更好的培訓，我們的公司環境也許會更有道德感。道德培養需要修正了，要從商學院就開始：商學院學生對道德的看法和他人有些微不同。2006年發表于《商業倫理期刊》（Journal of Business Ethics）的一篇文章調查了268名來自不同領域的學生對欺騙的看法。雖然商科學生并沒有比其他人表現出更多的欺騙行為，但他們對欺騙的定義要寬松得多。

????人類的道德難以改變的說法是個謬論，梅耶爾說：“我想主要的來源是這個觀點，即一個人的早期經歷決定了他是何等樣人：父母是否盡職，朋友品質如何？而現實中，這些確實是重要的因素，但我們過分弱化了環境對我們的影響以及我們對環境的影響。”

????通過關注環境對個人選擇的影響，人們開始把道德看成是可以培養的技能，并且隨著學生畢業、入職，乃至成為管理層，還能繼續發展這項技能。

????In certain situations – when the rewards are high and the risks are low -- our brains tell us that it's okay to cheat. We figure out a way to rationalize behavior that may not otherwise align with our values.

????Given that business leaders, especially at banks, have lately been in the news for their poor choices, Fortune took a look at what goes on in the mind of a cheater. There are powerful psychological forces behind rule-breaking for financial gain. But the next step -- harnessing those powerful reward pathways in the brain to encourage ethical behavior -- is incredibly difficult.

????"Unfortunately, we know a lot of these rationalization behaviors that people engage in. We're not quite as good yet about figuring interventions," says David Mayer, a management professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. Still, there are some ways to avoid or fight the temptation to cheat.

????The best way to handle a high-pressure, unethical situation is to never get involved in one at all. That's easier said than done, but leaders can work on the front-end to communicate solid business values to employees and shareholders. "If you advertise that you are trying to be ethical, you're going to wind up hiring more ethical people. It's kind of that field of dreams thing: if you build it, they will come," says Mark Frame, a psychology professor at Middle Tennessee State University who specializes in workplace psychology.

????Companies often think they have communicated their values when, in fact, they remain unclear to the rank and file. None of the banks in court now have mission statements that say they want to cut corners for quick cash. Yet the short-term responsibility to shareholders, promotions based on money earned fast, and the cutthroat work environment in the run up to and during the financial crisis set up a competing reward system that stood in contrast to the businesses' stated moral code.

????The first step to getting people on board with good business ethics is to state the right thing, clearly, then reward it.

????"There are still gray areas of business between ethics and profit," says Barry Staw, a professor of leadership and communication at the University of California, Berkeley. Traders, for example, engage in activities that can look plenty like gambling with other people's money. "I'm not sure that we will successfully, at least for a long time, be able to get rid of the market pressure," says Staw. Given that, "people need to know where the boundary is," and it should go beyond prohibiting illegal behavior. "Companies need to say, okay, you might not get arrested for this, but it is over the line."

????Strict internal policies could do some damage control. Leaders ought to work on sanctioning unethical behavior before it gets to a level that regulators would flag. "There would have to be a message within companies, not just that 'if we're caught by regulators, you're going to fry,'" says Staw. "It's that 'if you are going over the line legally, as soon as we find out about it, you will immediately lose your job and we will decide whether or not to report you to various authorities.'"

????This isn't a very fun reward pathway; it's more about instilling fear of personal punishment than rewarding people for making money.

????For leaders to establish those policies, they're going to have to fear the consequences themselves. To that end, some of the recent high-profile resignations at banks -- CEO Bob Diamond at Barclays (BCS) and head of compliance David Bagley at HSBC -- could serve as examples to other finance executives that someone at the top will take the fall for systemic problems. That could force those top execs to adhere to their stated ethical code, Staw suggests.

????In a high-pressure and close-knit work environment, it's easy to get tangled in a tight circle of people behaving a certain way, says Frame. Certain choices may seem right within the group, but the outside world will view them differently. "Executives really need to start thinking about, not what it is they are doing, but how is it that they are being judged. They don't always understand how it is going to come out in the court of public opinion," says Frame.

????Taking a step back, we might have a more ethical corporate environment if we trained people better before they get in a moral crucible at a big company. Ethics training might be due for a revise, starting at the business school level -- especially since business school students might view ethics a little differently than others. In a 2006 paper published in the Journal of Business Ethics, researchers surveyed 268 students in various fields about cheating. While business students didn't report cheating more often than others, they had significantly more relaxed standards about what it meant to cheat.

????The idea that our ethics are hard-wired is a fallacy, Mayer says. "I think a lot of it comes from this idea that who you are is determined early on -- did you have good parenting, did you have good friends? In reality, that's a piece of the puzzle, for sure, but we de-emphasize our environment and the environment that we create."

????By paying attention to how the environment affects our choices, people can begin to treat their ethics as a skill to develop and continue developing, even as students graduate, enter the workforce, and become executives.