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?

Some people—especially those related to us—will surely ask us why we chose to adopt this little orphan when we already had two dogs to care for and our income has suffered noticeably in the current economy. We had actually discussed frequently over the past three years the possibility of adopting a small dog as a model for our pet costuming business.


Border Collies have long been our preferred pets and while Ludwig and Wolfgang are great models, using such large dogs to test new patterns and designs wasted a lot of time and materials, especially if we had to correct the patterns and sew them more than once. But we were worried that adding a third dog would disrupt the equilibrium of our family, that there might be personality conflicts and jealousy. That’s not to mention the additional burden on our time and finances such a change would bring.

A few months ago, we put a link on our blog for Dogs in Danger, a website featuring shelter dogs who are due to be euthanized if they do not find a home very soon. We had hoped placing the link would result in some adoptions of needy dogs. Well . . . . good news! It worked! Although we didn’t end up with one of the dogs on this website (the suitable ones being too far away), looking at all the pictures and descriptions of poor homeless dogs made us finally decide to adopt. After all, an adoption would benefit all parties. It would provide a home and family for the dog while making our business more efficient and hopefully more lucrative.

Another reason for adopting at this time is that foreclosures are causing many owners to give up their pets. By taking a dog out of a shelter, we could make room for another, reducing the euthanasia statistics by one. When the digit 1 represents a life, it’s not such a small number after all.

We began searching online for dogs at local shelters who might be a clothes model, pet, and little sibling for Luwie and Wolfie. There were so many cute ones that we were actually tempted to take two . . . or even three. But finances being a consideration, we had to be practical and choose only one.

There was a dog at the Lancaster Animal Shelter who instantly caught our eye. She was listed as a chihuahua, though we think she is half Italian greyhound or whippet. The poor little dog had actually been recently adopted and returned with the complaint that she was too big for a chihuahua and was very nervous and unhappy to be back at the shelter. Not only was she physically perfect for the job, having a neutral color and clean outline, but she was (and is) incredibly sweet and submissive, and went limp like a ragdoll when picked up.

With a payment of just $38.00, this little girl became our Sophia (pronounced “so-FYE-uh” in the 18th century way), Sophie for short. And we are glad to announce that everything worked out happily. We are fond of Sophia, who is our first toy dog, and she seems quite satisfied with us. Wolfgang is delighted to have a new friend and Ludwig is beginning to get curious about her after raising his eyebrows (he really does) and saying “What’s this?” for 24 hours.

Sophia has started a new life as a little princess with a big wardrobe and has reached the happy ending of the doggy fairy tale which is a “forever home.” Of course, we couldn’t wait to dress her up and already made her two new outfits. Isn’t she lovely?

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