Money on the Mind: Social and Psychological Ramifications

I came across an interesting article on MSN Money last night titled Does money make you mean? which described a study conducted on a group of subjects who had been preconditioned to have money on their minds when various experiments were conducted. The study found that those with money on their minds tended to be more indifferent and less helpful toward others, preferring to do things on their own and waiting longer to ask for help when help was needed.

The Study

The “money primed” group was preconditioned by doing puzzles with money-related words, reading essays containing references to money, being shown posters of money and given play money and tokens to handle. This group was then combined with the control group (not preconditioned to think about money) in several staged situations. In one test, the group was assigned to complete a puzzle and told that help was available if asked for. Money-minded subjects waited longer to ask for help than the control subjects did. In another situation, a passer-by “accidentally” spilled a box of pencils on the floor and the test subjects were asked to help; those who had been “money primed” picked up fewer pencils. When asked to donate to a university student fund, “money primed” subjects gave less.

The researchers concluded that the money-minded subjects weren’t consciously being rude or selfish, but were simply indifferent, as if they didn’t know how to help out or couldn’t see themselves as having a role in someone else’s life.

This Sounds A Lot Like Me

When I read this, my first thought was that this sounded a lot like Madoline and me. Ever since moving to California and needing to live frugally, we have become very independent and tried to be as self-sufficient as possible. When something in our house breaks, we always try to fix it ourselves. When we find that we can’t do it on our own, we usually procrastinate a while before finally calling someone in to fix it. This is, of course, due to the fact that we are money-conscious and try to save whenever we possibly can. While we do not dislike being around other people, we also don’t actively seek to get involved socially.

At this time in our lives, most or all of our behavior is influenced by money. We do not have close family or friends whom we could go to for help if we needed it (because we have moved so much, we have lost touch with childhood friends and most of our classmates now live all over the world and have their own families). Because we don’t feel as if we can rely on people, money is the only thing that can guarantee our health and security.

Money Can Buy Happiness

My second thought after reading about this study was that this is natural survivalist behavior. In this day and age, one simply cannot survive without money. True, money can’t buy “Happiness” bottled and ready to go. But, money buys food, pays the mortgage and doctor’s bills. Money makes sure that our pets, who are our family, are well fed and taken care of. Money is what will keep us healthy and comfortable throughout our lives. And health and comfort play a big part in one’s happiness.

So, at this time, I’m afraid we are just as the research finds - indifferent and unhelpful (with the exception of this blog, hopefully) - not out of hate for others, but out of necessity to ensure our own future survival. As many others do, we dream of one day being financially free. We hope to one day be able to give to causes we believe in and even start charitable organizations of our own. But in order to be able to help others, we have to be able to help ourselves first.

Recommended reading: Does money make you mean?

As most of you must know, the California wildfires have been getting worse with each passing year. According to Peter Sanders of the Wall Street Journal, fire season has barely begun, but in the past 3 weeks, the fires have consumed 631,000 acres of and $112 million in State funds. In the past 12 months, the State of California has spent an estimated $950 million in firefighting costs, a 41% increase from the previous year.

With a current budget deficit of $17.2 billion, the urgent issue of who should pick up the firefighting bill has arisen. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed an insurance surcharge on all California home and property owners to help raise funds for firefighting.

But for those of us who have not chosen to build and live in the areas where these frequent seasonal fires occur, we can’t help but feel a little resentful of this proposal. The existence of homes in those areas drive firefighting costs up due to the necessity for differing procedures and additional resources. Not only does it cost more to have to use fire engines, airplanes and helicopters to defend these structures, but they take resources away from other remote fires that would otherwise be more quickly and easily contained.

According to Timothy Duane, professor of environmental planning and policy at UC Berkeley:

“When you are forced to move resources in defense of structures, it means you’re often taking resources away from other areas of the fire, or entirely separate fires, which means those fires are harder to contain with less resources. You have to deal with life, and property and natural resources, in that order, and when you’re dealing with the first two, it increases the extent of the fire and the time period before you can put the fire out.”

Yes, we do feel sorry for those who have lost their homes or whose homes are in danger, but they willingly purchased and/or built homes in areas that they knew were susceptible to seasonal fires. When we purchased our California home, we did so after researching the various environmental factors and comparing risks of natural disasters with other areas. With this sort of information readily available, as well as the fact that the wildfires are widely covered in the news each year, it’s hard to claim ignorance to the risk when they purchased or built their homes.

I know I should be more charitable and sympathetic, but frankly, with the daily inflation of food and gas prices, the heat wave increasing our electric bill, and decline in business putting a strain on our already modest lifestyle, I am not in the mood to pay a surcharge on my home insurance in order to make up for the poor home purchase decisions of others.

(more…)