We are about to tell you something you already know. Investment bankers are in it for the money.

Nothing – not the events of September 11, or all the talk about work/family balance, or the emphasis on better health and less stress – can rattle those for whom the chance to earn millions, relatively quickly, outweighs all other priorities.

This was the hardly startling conclusion of a recent survey by management professor Peter Cappelli and executive search firm Spencer Stuart that studied a group of professionals whose industry has been rocked over the past year by both a terrorist attack and a recession.

“We weren’t really surprised by the results,” says Cappelli, director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources .…