Behaving badly more likely for blokes

MEN are more likely than women to be tempted to behave badly when presented with moral dilemmas involving money or their job, research suggests.

A survey asked people if they thought various scenarios were acceptable, such as bumping up an insurance claim, not reporting a blunder made by a bank in their favour, and allowing a work colleague to take the blame for mistakes that were not their fault.

Men were likelier than women to find these situations acceptable, the research from professional body the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI) found.

Nearly a third (29%) of men surveyed said it was acceptable not to tell a bank if they had made an error in your favour, compared with just under one in five (19%) women.

Meanwhile, 17% of men thought it was acceptable to inflate the value of an insurance claim, versus 11% of women.

One in 10 (10%) men found it acceptable to allow a colleague to take the blame for mistakes they did not make, compared with one in 20 (5%) women.

Nearly half (47%) of men surveyed said that if they discovered confidential information belonging to a competitor, it would be acceptable to use that information for their own employer’s gain, compared with one third (33%) of women who felt this way.

The research was conducted among more than 2,000 people.