Moral equilibrium

Doing good deeds is generally recognized as positive. However, these gestures sometimes can be part of a psychological process to license and compensate for aberrant behaviors. A fraud examiner who’s aware of the potential psychological ramifications of these deeds might be able to proactively interdict fraud schemes and mitigate losses of these schemes.

Whether it’s by giving your time, money or other resource, how would you rate your generosity on a scale of 1 to 10 if 1 represents little or no generosity, and 10 represents being generous almost all the time?

Now that you have your number, can you recall an act of kindness you performed in the past week? Can you also recall a time in the past week when you had the chance to do something generous for a family member, friend or even a stranger but chose not to? Considering these new memories, would you maintain your same generosity rating, or would you now change your figure? Is it possible that deciding to show or withhold generosity could have an impact on whether you or someone else would commit fraud?