Neurological Correlates

When you have money, life is good. When you want money, life could be better. Here’s the abstract from Vohs et al (HT Neuroscientifically Challenged who has a great analysis of the whole paper):

ABSTRACT—Money plays a significant role in people’s lives, and yet little experimental attention has been given to the psychological underpinnings of money. We systematically varied whether and to what extent the concept of money was activated in participants’ minds using methods that minimized participants’ conscious awareness of the money cues. On the one hand, participants reminded of money were less helpful than were participants not reminded of money, and they also preferred solitary activities and less physical intimacy. On the other hand, reminders of money prompted participants to work harder on challenging tasks and led to desires to take on more work as compared to participants not reminded of money. In short, even subtle reminders of money elicit big changes human behavior.

So when you want money, you have goal oriented behavior and tend to focus on that to the exclusion of altruistic behavior. And, exposure to money “cues” makes you want money — like, say, living in the suburbs in a house with a mortgage you can’t afford driving an SUV which costs $100 to fill the tank.

I was going to go on and on about corporate life, but best to just listen to Pink Floyd (click for Youtube clip):
Money, get away
Get a good job with more pay and your O.K.
Money it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I’ll buy me a football team
Money get back
I’m all right Jack keep your hands off my stack.
Money it’s a hit
Don’t give me that do goody good bullshit
I’m in the hi-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet
Money it’s a crime
Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie
Money so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a rise it’s no surprise that they’re
giving none away

Vohs, K.D., Mead, N.L., Goode, M.R. (2008). Merely Activating the Concept of Money Changes Personal and Interpersonal Behavior . Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(3), (in press)