Debt To Your Heart’s Content And Blame Your Genes For That!
Debt Management | November 9, 2009 at 1:16 amEver since Jan Emmanuel De Nave of London School of Economics and James Fowler of the University of California have identified the MAOA gene as the culprit behind your debiting activity, a serious debate is going on in the financial circles about how much the debt gene is responsible for this debiting behavior and if its spells the end of crediting for people who are found to have this gene actively working towards that end?
The low efficiency alleles of the MAOA (mono amine oxidase) gene are said to be responsible for this behavior. When a person is under stress they create imbalances in serotonin ( a brain neurochemical) metabolism which results in increased impulsivity, lowered cognitive control and addictive behavior. As one can see, all these factors can make a person vulnerable to act wrong under financial stress and take huge loans.
Well, like many other persons in the financial circles, a lot of queries arise in me regarding this study. I feel the debt gene is not the sole culprit. Any person aware of the human psychological sciences knows that one’s behavior is interplay of both nature and nurture. So, if you inherit the gene, it will not get activated to make you take huge debts if the 
precipitating conditions are absent. Put a person with the low efficiency allele MAOA gene in an environment that is conducive to such behavior, you’ll see the person taking loans frantically. But this is how many of us react under financial duress don‘t we? So does that mean all of us are working under faulty serotonin metabolic functioning?
Another aspect that this study throws light upon is how do we explain the debiting behavior of a financially erratic college student or a habitual borrower of money? I’ve seen quite a number of people who don’t seem to be under any apparent financial stress which can induce serotonin malfunctioning leading to increased reward sensitivity or lowered cognitive control. But they take money from their friends and never return it. How do we account for such behavior? Is that also because of the low efficiency allele of MAOA gene ? I think this has got more to do with the values they imbibe from their upbringing. But then again, is upbringing an outcome of your genetic makeup?
Does this study imply that in the future our genetic swabs will be tested before we get approval for credit card ownership and services? Also will people testing positive for this low efficiency MAOA be spared the stick by the crediting companies and the legal authorities for piling up their debt because er…its not they but their genes which are to actually blame ?
Save to delicious
Stumble it
