Mind on your money/ Money on your mind
The New Scientist details how money messes with your mind.
Our relationship with money has many facets. Some people seem addicted to accumulating it, while others can’t help maxing out their credit cards and find it impossible to save for a rainy day. As we come to understand more about money’s effect on us, it is emerging that some people’s brains can react to it as they would to a drug, while to others it is like a friend. Some studies even suggest that the desire for money gets cross-wired with our appetite for food. And, of course, because having a pile of money means that you can buy more things, it is virtually synonymous with status – so much so that losing it can lead to depression and even suicide. In these cash-strapped times, perhaps an insight into the psychology of money can improve the way we deal with it.
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In a study to be published soon in the journal Psychological Science, Vohs and psychologists Xinyue Zhou of Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, and Roy Baumeister of Florida State University, Tallahassee, found that people who felt rejected by others, or were subjected to physical pain, were subsequently less likely to give a monetary gift in a game situation. The researchers then went on to show that just handling paper money could reduce the distress associated with social exclusion, and also diminish the physical pain caused by touching very hot water.
“Money seems to have symbolic power as a social resource,” says Vohs. “It enables people to manipulate the social system to give them what they want, regardless of whether they are liked.” Put bluntly, it looks as if money is acting as a surrogate friend. Could that explain why some people focus on extrinsic aspirations at the expense of real social relationships?
I saw a documentary recently on the CBC about the proliferation of VLTs (Video Lottery Terminals) around the country in bars and pubs and restaurants, and how several people had lied and stolen from friends and family, finally committing suicide due to the ruin brought on from gambling addiction to these machines. John Dunsworth, a Nova Scotia-based crusader against them (best known for playing Mr. Lahey on Trailer Park Boys), does a really good job in the doc of showing the mindset of an addicted player. I’m always fascinated when people get addicted to virtual things, which often times seem to boil down to a game that involves risk and intermittent reward — where does this tendency come from?
I think many of peoples problems stem from attempting to do things their own way, instead of attempting to seek God, which is an intrinsic desire that is in each and every human being. I often times wonder, how a person can look at a painting and say “Oh, there’s a painting, I wonder who the painter is?” and yet, they look at all of creation and say “There’s no creator!!!” They can look at a car, and know that there was an engineer, but yet they look at life, a human being, which is infinitely more complex than a car, and say “Yep, happened by chance, no God, I don’t see God anywhere. If God’s real, why doesn’t He show himself?” Well, it’s because it must be accepted by faith. “But without faith it is impossible to please him, for those that come to him must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”
Like the new layout!
Thanks, Tony. It’s one of the newer free WordPress themes.