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by Nick Benjaminsz
A NEGLECTED TOPIC
One of the most neglected topics in the whole discipline of psychology
which prides itself in the definition of the science
of human behaviour, is the psychology of money. Open any psychology textbook
and it is very unlikely that the word money will appear in the appendix. … Most
people would expect a psychology textbook dealing with occupational or
organizational behaviour to refer to the power of money as a work motivator
or discuss the symbolism; but few do.
Why have psychologists tended to neglect the topic
of money? … There may be various reasons for this. Money remains
a taboo topic. Whereas sex and death have been removed from both the social
and the research taboo list in many Western countries, money is still a
topic that appears to be impolite to discuss and debate. To some extent
psychologists have seen monetary behaviour as either rational (as do economists)
or beyond their “province of concern”. It may even be that
the topic was thought of as trivial compared with more other pressing concerns,
like understanding brain anatomy and the causes of schizophrenia. Economics
has had a great deal to say about money but very little about the behaviour
of individuals. Both economists and psychologists have noticed but shied
away from the obvious irrationality of everyday monetary behaviour.
Lindgren (1991) has pointed out that psychologists
have not studied money-related behaviour as such because they assume that
anything involving money lies within the domain of economics. Yet economists
have also avoided the subject, and are not interested in money as such,
but rather in the way it affects prices, the demand for credit, interest
rates and the like. Economists, like sociologists, also study large aggregates
of data at the macro level, in their attempts to determine how nations,
communities and designated categories of people use, spend and save their
money. … Indeed, it has been the psychological, rather
than the logical, factors that induce people to use money the
way they do that has, not unnaturally, fascinated psychologists. …
This book is an attempt to draw together and make sense
of a very diverse, scattered and patchy literature covering many disciplines.
It attempts to provide a comprehensive social- and experimental psychological
perspective on money and all its associated meaning and behaviours. A theme
running through the book is not how cool, logical and rational people are
about acquiring, storing and spending money but the precise opposite.
Furnham, Adrian & Argyle, Michael. The Psychology of Money, Routledge London 1998, pp. 2-4.
