ABSTRACT
This chapter explores key tenets of evolutionary science, the love story that exists between money and the human mind, the way that each individual's brain chemistry makes him more statistically likely to commit securities fraud and insider trading. It discusses the way that the financial markets can turn traders and investors into gamblers and addicts. The chapter explains how, ultimately, the dominance of emotional responses in decision-making was designed, in a homo sapiens' original, natural environment, to be purely rational. It focuses on the fundamental systemic weakness of the financial markets: that they indulge traders and investors emotional impulses, sometimes excessively, whilst pushing back relentlessly – and sometimes overwhelmingly – against their weaker, rational brains. The powerful and excitatory effects of anticipation can also be effectively amplified by external variables such as media headlines, 'fake news' or Twitter announcements. Excitation-transfer theory explains how the body's excitatory response is amplified via exposure to others' emotions and powerful outside stimuli.
