Today I had to delete a number of posts on the guest forum which were clearly against our ethical code - either adult content, selling arms, or sexual drugs.

It is amazing how quickly the culprits found the open area - we purposely left the guest room unmoderated and put in a poll to see what sort of things guests and members liked on the site. Before we knew it we were having to delete posts like mad. I have set it to moderate now, which I do not like having to do because it feels a bit 'big brother' but we cannot risk upsetting our members and other guests - and although some other people may actually find that sort of content interesting, it is not for us!

Now, is there some psychology here. Yes indeed there are people as we know who concentrate on areas of 'business' that we find unsavoury and are clearly on the look-out for opportunities to advertise their products or services - and completely ignore the rules (either forum rules or in many cases the law).

I have mentioned the dark side of leadership on the forum, well there is a dark side to some people (and there are psychometric tests to assess this, which I am now very tempted to learn more about - previously I have tended to concentrate on the positive aspects of business!) There are people who would be classed as 'anti-social extroverts' or those who have been socialised perhaps into a completely different set of ethics.

I will have a read and see if I can get some insight.

Just fuming a bit too much at the moment to really contemplate this academically!


Stephanie

See More at my Blog on BizBlogs ...

It's such a shame when people abuse the trust and the system that's been put in place for everyone's benefit. I imagine that just about anyone who uses a site like Bizface must know that there are ethical guidelines without even seeing them. And yet they choose to ignore the guidance, much to the annoyance of all the other well-meaning users.

Thank you for policing the forum.

I'm fascinated by the concept of "anti-social extroverts" and would certainly like to hear more about them. What's their make-up and what drives them?

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Simon
Tel: 01403 738967
www.rpplus.co.uk

www.innerpath.co.uk for amazing career guidance.

Yes it is interesting. A lot of people think that introverts are likely to be anti-social, but in fact it is the other way round!

By anti-social I mean 'maladaptive, inflexible, likely to cause extreme subjective distress to others'. What drives them is a good question, there have been studies of a number of things from parental upbringing to biological functioning. The evidence seems to be a bit unclear although there is support for Eysenck's argument that extroverts (and particularly here studies on psychopaths or anti-social extroverts) do have a low level of activity in the ANS (autonomic nervous system) and therefore need to do more things (!) to excite them.

I realise the social environment is also extremely important. For some people this type of content is viewed as 'normal', and those around them share their 'interests' (sorry for all the quote marks!)

Just in case anyone is unsure about the differences between introverts and extroverts - I will post something up in the psychology section. I think I already have something there about the big five personality traits anyway, but will check. To summarise, many years of personality testing has generated five main factors that can be used to assess personality. These are known as 'The Big Five' because it has become so clear (which does not happen often in Psychology!) that these are vital.

These are usually assessed on scales:
Neuroticism (emotional stability, from low adjustment with psychological distress to highly stable and relaxed)
Extroversion (from highly sociable, assertive to reserved and independent)
Openness to Experience (from very active imagination and intellectual curiosity to conventional and conservative).
Agreeableness (from highly altruistic and sympathetic to egocentric and competitive)
Conscientiousness (from high self control and determination to suceed to less exacting and potentially hedonistic).

Although there is no right or wrong personality people at high extremes of some of these scales can be, shall we say, a little difficult to deal with!

kind regards
Stephanie

__________________
Dr Stephanie Morgan
Crosslight Management
www.crosslight.co.uk