Businessmen bond with their ventures the same way parents bond with their kids, Forbes reports—and that can have both positive and negative implications for those men.
In a functional MRI study of 21 businessmen and 21 fathers, all of whom were scanned while being exposed to pictures of their ventures or children, a group of Finnish researchers found the two groups saw similar brain responses to the visual stimuli.
“Our findings suggest that bonding is similar for entrepreneurs and parents and that venture stimuli influence reward systems, self-regulatory functions and mental factors that are associated with judgment,” the researchers said.
The brain’s reward system lit up in both cases, suggesting businessmen take on a caregiver role in their businesses. That also means, though, that businessmen, like parents, might find criticizing the thing they love difficult.
“Based on our findings, we argue that emotional rewards justify the efforts and sacrifices that entrepreneurs make on behalf of their ventures, just as these rewards justify the sacrifices parents make on behalf of their children,” the researchers said.
Read the full report from Forbes below.
After graduating from Indiana University-Bloomington with a bachelor’s in journalism, Anicka joined TriMed’s Chicago team in 2017 covering cardiology. Close to her heart is long-form journalism, Pilot G-2 pens, dark chocolate and her dog Harper Lee.