(Editor\u2019s Note: This is the second part of a two-part blog posting by Drs. Sridhar Ramamoorti and Daven Morrison. The first part is in a blog posting preceding this one, written by Dr. Ramamoorti. This posting is by Dr. Morrison)<\/p>\n
(By)\u00a0 Daven Morrison, MD<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0The rawness of emotion means the ripening of the field for fraud.<\/p>\n From self-poisoning with anti-malaria drugs, to the belief that Jesus\u2019 blood is an antiviral, to the deadly anti-viral protocols of drinking disinfectant, the false assertions about how to avoid Covid-19 have gone from humorous to odd but harmless, to diabolical and even life-threatening. And it doesn\u2019t take a psychiatrist like me to recognize how it\u2019s done. When emotions are raw, there is an ebbing of rationality and this unwelcome combination makes us vulnerable. We start believing every conspiracy theory that has been concocted because we are not thinking effectively any more.<\/p>\n \u201cNever before.\u201d \u201cCatastrophic.\u201d \u201cHorrific.\u201d These descriptions of the pandemic provoke strong feelings just by standing alone as alarming phrases. As we follow the disease\u2019s path, the story gets worse. People with severe cases progress from feeling fine to terrible, soaking sweats, to limitations on breathing in a matter of hours. The virus is so easily transmittable that patients must isolate and caregivers must shield themselves to avoid contagion. The treaters retreat behind goggles, masks, and other scary-looking PPE garments, further compounding the patients\u2019 sense of abandonment and fear. \u201cMy death is near,\u201d they think. Caregivers are exhausted and frightened and hidden behind the PPE, conditions hardly conducive to being comforting to their patients. All of this reinforces the contagion of fear. It is a vicious cycle where fear begets more fear.<\/p>\n We who follow the role of affects (i.e., basic emotions) in fraud know how predators use them to bypass the healthy skepticism that Dr. Ramamooti mentions in Part 1 of this series of two posts. In the affinity scams of trusting, gullible people, these predators (think Madoff) leverage the relaxing and trusting emotion of enjoyment (an affect when one feels serene or peaceful) to get prospective \u201cclients (victims)\u201d to let down their guards. In the case of Mr. Madoff, the trusting emotion feeds a cannibalistic pyramid scheme.<\/p>\n In this case, we psychiatrists have common ground and improbable pact of accord with those who follow the numbers. From our work in medicine, we know the geometric escalation of epinephrine and of cancer. In the first case, the alert system rouses quickly enough to ward off a threat. In the second case, cell growth outstrips the body\u2019s ability to oxygenate and nourish. The cancer is too hungry and thirsty and cannot be contained; it overwhelms the body\u2019s natural defenses. Translating this micropattern to global scale, we are seeing a virus that is hungrier than the health systems of New York City, Italy, Spain, and who knows how many more places will be afflicted and overrun.<\/p>\n This is simply a matter of supply and demand, fed by fear and distress for most people. Given this reality, we might think that the positive emotions such as enjoyment are nowhere to be found, but that would not be true. There is realistic optimism around us. People are still hopeful. Dr. Ramamoorti\u2019s and Barry Epstein’s paper on Dark Triads<\/a>\u00a0notes the presence of wolves among us lurking in finance departments and in business operations. They hide behind their spread sheets and social engineering to harvest the trust of others and our financial processes. Then they strike, using the trust they have earned, to steal funds fraudulently. And this is in normal times.<\/p>\n Sam Antar wrote in endorsing our book (A.B.C.\u2019s of Behavioral Forensics, Wiley, 2013<\/a>) this acknowledgment: As a fraudster, I succeeded for almost two decades because I understood how to exploit the psychological and emotional weaknesses of my victims<\/em>. The incidence of pure psychopaths, mostly men, has been estimated to be roughly 1-2% of our society. Between 2-3 million psychopaths are among us with heads up and minds clear, planning to exploit this pandemic crisis (it is a slight relief that the majority of them are in prison; but then the fabulously successful ones may well be in the C-suite of the largest corporations). Add trillions of dollars of economic stimulus, a terrified and distressed populace, a huge industry (health care) sounding all possible alarms about needed supplies, and we have fertile soil being seeded for fraud.<\/p>\n So, what can we do to prevent fraud?<\/p>\n One of the most obvious prevention steps is to educate yourself and your team on the normal role of fraud. The time is right to grow your muscles in understanding and dealing with the three common negative emotions: fear, anger, and distress. In these early pandemic days in the United States, fear is a very important emotion to manage. We know a lot after taking a closer look in peacetime at warriors and what we have come to understand as PTSD. We have seen it with AIDS. To learn more about the lessons learned, read and the role of fear read Dr. Morrison\u2019s LinkedIn article,\u00a0\u00a0\u201cCovid, Costco, Cleanliness and Kindness. “<\/a>One of the most important lessons for fear also applies to anger and distress.<\/p>\n As President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated, \u201cWe have nothing to fear but fear itself.\u201d It is time for us to learn to recognize the feelings of fear, but to manage it away from overwhelming our ability to effectively problem-solve the source of that fear. As we observe in our book, A.B.C.’s of Behavioral Forensics<\/em>, affects are data. Fear is data, even when it grows logarithmically. And when fear is viewed as data, it becomes a tool, more than a threat.<\/p>\n When we understand fear, we can control it, otherwise it will control us. <\/p>\n BEHAVIORAL FORENSICS GROUPTM<\/sup> LLC\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a0Behavioral Forensics GroupTM<\/sup> LLC<\/em>\u00a0is a team of professionals with vast experience in detecting fraud, understanding why it occurs, and in recommending steps to mitigate fraud incidence within the corporate workplace, particularly within higher-level (and therefore more costly to the enterprise) executives.\u00a0\u00a0The fields of investigation, organizational psychiatry, accounting and behavioral forensics, and law enforcement are represented within the\u00a0Behavioral Forensics GroupTM<\/sup> LLC<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Acting in synergy to help organizations prevent, find, and\/or reduce fraud, B4GTM<\/sup> is a premier, pioneering practice in this field.<\/p>\n We are blogging at:\u00a0http:\/\/www.bringingfreudtofraud.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Editor\u2019s Note: This is the second part of a two-part blog posting by Drs. Sridhar Ramamoorti and Daven Morrison. The first part is in a blog posting preceding this one, written by Dr. Ramamoorti. This posting is by Dr. Morrison) (By)\u00a0 Daven Morrison, MD\u00a0\u00a0The rawness of emotion means the ripening of the field for fraud. … Continue reading FEAR, FRAUD, AND TRUTH DECAY: Part 2<\/span>
\nBut there is a dark side to this situation too: Some of these hopeful people are planning fraud.<\/p>\n
\nBruce Dorris, head of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners<\/em>, has commented that the effects of COVID-19 look like \u201ca perfect storm for fraud\u201d.\u00a0 On April 18, 2020, The Economist<\/em> has an article warning that \u201cthe economic crisis will expose a decade\u2019s worth of corporate fraud.\u201d\u00a0https:\/\/amp.economist.com\/business\/2020\/04\/18\/the-economic-crisis-will-expose-a-decades-worth-of-corporate-fraud<\/a><\/p>\n