Paul Zak scanned the UCLA computer lab where 18 young men were tapping away at keyboards.
Some of the students had been administered a dose of testosterone the evening before. Now, Zak was monitoring their behavior as they played an experimental game designed to measure trust. He was curious about how these hormonally fueled "alpha" males would behave. Would they be more selfish or generous? Helpful or aggressive?
The Claremont Graduate University researcher was exploring new avenues not in psychology or behavioral studies but in economics. Along with like-minded scholars, he is trying to prove that good behavior, rather than self-interest, "is really what makes the economy work."
In exploring the morality of economic behavior, they aim to put a more positive spin on Western-style capitalism. They want to demonstrate, in a post-Enron world, that markets are driven not by greed but by positive behavior.
To test their theories, researchers from economics and other disciplines are conducting a variety of studies, including experiments that look at how monkeys work together to get their favorite foods and the effect of business school teachings on values in the boardroom.
With their findings, they hope to persuade political and business leaders to rethink the way they manage corporations and the marketplace. One goal is to reduce government regulation, which they believe has led people to rely too heavily on legal penalties and has discouraged them from adhering to their own sense of right and wrong.
"Free enterprise has been badly described and badly sold," said Monika Gruter Cheney, executive director of the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research. The think tank in Portola Valley, Calif., is sponsoring a project dubbed Free Enterprise: Values in Action, which supports research by Zak and others.
A book containing the institute's findings is due out this spring from Princeton University Press.
Its main financial backer is John Templeton, a British billionaire who founded one of the world's most profitable investment funds. He is a devout Christian whose foundation funds research on the science of spirituality, including the power of forgiveness, love and trust. The organization, based in West Conshohocken, Pa., has drawn criticism for its early support of intelligent design, which posits that human beings are too complex to have evolved through natural selection.
