Tuesday, June 23, 2009

MBAs and evangelical teens both take pledges

I was waiting for someone to make this comparison between virginity pledges and the pledges some business schools are offering to help their students not grow up to become Bernie Madoff and the subprime mortgage industry.

Truth be told, we don't know whether pledges and other one-time events affect behavior in general, but the common sense view that character is built slowly and reinforced over time would seem to prevail. We don't have as much knowledge about hidden areas of life such as sex and white collar crime, but we all know that New Year's resolutions can be helpful but not decisive.

The next stage in this comparison I'm still waiting for: a good stand-up routine comparing MBAs and evangelical teens, speculating on how you could do joint events to encourage both not having premarital sex and not becoming white collar criminals.

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