The Psychology of Money

this video is sponsored by keeps for special offer go to keeps.com pursuit of Wonder or click the link in the description a coin a piece of paper a digit on a screen a symbol of value power Freedom money is one of Humanity's most impressive inventions it is also one of its most elusory and counterintuitive whether we care about money or not whether we want to care about money or not we are all affected by it on both the collective and individual scale nearly all of humanity is propelled by money's intangible current what is money plainly

money is defined by three primary functions a medium of exchange a store of value and a unit of account as a medium of exchange money can be exchanged for goods and services as a store of value it holds its value over time so it can be exchanged for goods and services in the future and as a unit of account it provides a common measure of value to compare and discern reasonable consistent pricing of across goods and services before money there was bartering the direct trade of goods and services for other goods and services this had

many problems mainly bartering was highly susceptible to a frequent asymmetry in trade needs what is known as the double coincidence of wants is the condition in which two parties in the same place both have items or services that the other party wants at the same time the fundamental problem with this is that this condition rarely occurred for example if one party was looking to trade cattle and another party was looking to trade baskets the party looking to trade cattle would also need to want baskets and the party with baskets would need to want cattle for

a trade to occur between the two since this sort of perfect alignment would rarely be the case other intermediate trades would often become necessary for example let's say the party with Surplus cattle actually wanted fabric in order to get fabric they might have needed to trade cattle for baskets and then baskets for fabric with someone else who wanted baskets naturally this would result in crude exchanges inefficiencies and imbalances across a socioeconomic landscape money of course solves this problem at bottom money retains its function and value because we all agree that it's valuable and we all

participate in its functions the philosophy of money the way each of us handles money provides interesting and important insights into who we are more importantly money can be used to discover and optimize these insights the way an individual treats money is affected by their values if everything is in alignment how one handles money should illuminate and enhance one's values of course this is not always the case and if it isn't for us arguably the goal is to work toward creating this alignment finding the equilibrium of one's wants better understanding oneself controlling one's impulses and actualizing

one's unique image of Life Beyond money's primary functions its secondary functions can include and should should include when possible a means of clarity Focus discipline and control this of course comes with many challenges firstly we are all born into different circumstances we are each born in certain places in the world with certain genetics to certain parents with certain values and resources and certain times in history collectively these circumstances unfold into who we are they both limit and allow us to do things and they ultimately form Our World Views this includes our relationship with access to

understanding of and behavior around money therefore this puts everyone in different positions both in terms of financial resources and goals based entirely on chance this is important to note no matter who you are though you can't have everything money is interesting and potentially problematic in this respect because like everything it is finite but it seems as though you can always have more of it because of this phenomenon it can become easy to live in a way spurred by money that is directly at odds with the nature of our existence a brief fleeting existence that will

end and does not allow us to bring anything with us when it does if we are really lucky while we are here we can maybe have a couple big things things like contentment material abundance strong family relationships enduring friendships status worldly travel impressive career achievements Fame and Legacy the lucky ones Among Us can maybe have a couple of these things maybe a few but in order for any of us to have any chance at having anything we want we need to choose and prioritize it is often said that time is money but if that's true

then money is also time how we strive to pursue and spend money then is or at least should be closely correlated if not identical to how we strive to handle and spend our time choices around money therefore around acquiring saving investing and spending money are philosophical choices by evaluating and determining what we want with and from money we determine in part what we want with and from Life money and happiness arguably most of us are after some form of happiness in life happiness is such a malleable watered down term at this point it's hard to

say exactly what it means universally but here we can use it as an umbrella term to refer to reasonably frequent positive emotions in life Andor a positive sense and satisfaction about one's life even if we don't believe in happiness as an ideal or enduring state it is undeniable that it is possible to have higher qualities of Life well-being and a sense of satisfaction and so for the sake of Simplicity we'll consider any of these things under the same term happiness because this is such a fundamental desire for most people it makes sense that for most

of us the pursuit of money is interlined on some level with the pursuit of happiness how do we use money assuming the more common objective in life being positive experience there are fairly consistent ideas found across both contemporary research and philosophical literature that we can look to in order to help us better make determinations about how we ought to strive toward use and consider money firstly we need money in certain spheres it can be common to think that money is negative or corruptive or antithetical to happiness although this may be true in certain conditions and

there are some elements of truth to it in general largely having money is important and does contribute to happiness it has been widely believed that around $75,000 a year is the Threshold at which happiness specifically day-to-day happiness is improved by money and then its effects mostly level off and happiness plateaus this was found in research conducted in 2010 by Daniel Conan and Angus Deon this study however is relatively old often misunderstood and now believed to be partially untrue the truth rather appears to be a fair bit more complicated a more recent study conducted in 2021

by senior fellow Matthew Killingsworth at the University of Pennsylvania found that happiness in fact continues to consistently rise with income past $75,000 a year after then teaming up with Conan along with the professor of psychology Barbara mellers together they resolved this discrepancy in research and discovered that the annual income level threshold relevant to happiness is around $100,000 as of 2023 after this point however happiness continues to increase with more money from most people it's just that for generally unhappy people this is not the case and happiness stops improving for them around the $100,000 a year

figure regardless of the amount of money or which Camp someone is in generally happy or generally unhappy it is not solely having money that improves one's happiness it is how one views pursues and uses money and this part can be fairly counterintuitive traveling back to 300 bcee the ancient Greek philosopher epicurus provided many useful foundational insights on this topic happiness and money epicurus was a hedonist so he believed that one's own pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically valuable what is pleasurable for epicurus is morally good this is not a straightforward dichotomy however and

epicurus understood the Spectrum and variability of Pleasures when he wrote pleasure is our first and Kindred good it is the starting point of every choice and of every aversion and to it we come back in as much as we make feeling the rule by which the judge of every good thing and since pleasure is our first and Native good for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever but ofttimes pass over many Pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them and often times we consider pain Superior to Pleasures when submission to the pains for

a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure while therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good not all pleasure is choiceworthy just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned when it comes to achieving pleasure through our desires epicurus Define three categories of Desire natural and necessary desires natural but non-necessary desires and Vain and empty desires necessary desires are things like food water and shelter non-necessary desires include things like luxurious foods and luxurious housing we need food and shelter but we do

not need them to be in luxurious form lastly vain desires are things like material abundance power Fame and so on on for epicurus necessary desires are relatively easy to satisfy because they are generally accessible and they are limited in how much is required in order to satisfy them for example one can only eat so much food in a moment day and lifetime moreover these desires provide the greatest degree of pleasure because they are fundamental to our basic nature and create the greatest distance between us and pain non-necessary desires rather are more difficult to obtain while

providing a smaller margin of improvement and SA satisfaction and comfort they are in epicurus's mind still worthy of enjoying whenever possible but they are not to be dependent on lastly vain desires are difficult if not impossible to satisfy because they have no limit of satisfaction one can continually strive toward and acquire nearly infinite degrees of material abundance power Fame wealth and so on fundamentally epicurus argued that the best form of pleasure or happiness which he referred to as static pleasure is achieved when there is a lack of pain and pain exists and persists out of

unmet desire and so since vain desires can never be satisfied they create pain epicurus wrote he who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and Tranquility of mind seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life for the end of all our actions is to be free from Pain and fear and when once we have attained all this The Tempest of the soul is laid seeing see that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that

is lacking nor to look for anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled when we are pained because of the absence of pleasure then and then only do we feel the need of pleasure traveling back to the present epicurus's wisdom holds up relatively well against the test of time the concept in modern psychology known as the honic treadmill or honic adaptation is consistent in part with some of epicurus's ideas the honic treadmill suggests that after some time has passed following significant life events positive or negative one's experience

of day-to-day happiness tends to revert to a baseline consistent with what was experienced before the event this means that no matter how much one obtains in Realms like material possessions one will never obtain an overall improved day-to-day experience of Happiness after reaching the relative Baseline and so if it is not Material abundance not fame not status not even luxury Beyond basic necessities what is it that money is good for for firstly money can be good for all of these things the chief value of money arguably is to be able to do and concentrate on what

you want and what you want to do and so if what you value is luxurious food social status material abundance and so on then that is what money is good for for you and for some it might merely be the process of acquiring money itself that provides value some people want to endlessly play the game trying to get as high as they can for no reason other than then that's what they want and that's fine but the outcome and prize in these cases are likely not happiness or satisfaction a study published by the British Journal

of Social Psychology in 2022 examined the impact that money has on happiness and delineated the impact between intrinsic and extrinsic goals extrinsic goals are typically the desire for things that other people or Society expect intrinsic goals are things one personally feels a motivation toward researchers in the study found that when money was used to fulfill intrinsic goals participants reported that it improved their well-being whereas when it was used for extrinsic goals money had far less impact what is intrinsically valuable studies show that intrinsically valuable things most commonly include novel experiences strong relationships personal growth and

development and providing for others the professor of psychology at Cornell University Thomas gilovich said people often think spending money on an experience is not as wise an investment as spending it on a material possession they think the experience will come and go in a Flash and they'll be left with little compared to owning an item but in reality we remember experiences long afterward while we soon become used to our possessions at the same time we also enjoy the anticipation of having an experience more than the anticipation of owning a possession more broadly the fundamental objects

that allow us to engage in our intrinsic values which money can afford US are time and freedom author Morgan howel wrote use money to gain control over your time because not having control of your time is such a powerful and Universal drag on happiness the ability to do what you want when you want with who you want for as long as you want to pays the highest dividend that exists in finance money used to better control one's time and gain greater Freedom can improve one's overall happiness because it can reduce the negative side of one's

life's equation the frequency and depth to which one dips beneath their Baseline experience of Happiness by reducing things like worry discomfort and being forced to do things that one does not want to and since more time and freedom could be directed toward one's intrinsic values it can also provide a greater outlook on and satisfaction with one's life money is thus less about what one can gain materially and more about what one can preserve personally one's time interests relationships and peace of mind in the end we can't take anything with us our money our our stuff

our achievements our time our existence is confined within the temporal boundaries of the fleeting physical assemblage of our atoms destined to disassemble and drop us back into nothingness and so on the individual scale what purpose does money have does anything have if not to strive toward achieving some personal definition of Happiness of meaning of well-being while we are still here of course this is all much easier said than done one's relationship with money is distorted by countless factors how does one measure the present against the future when considering one's philosophy how does one know what

they value how does one know how much of their world view is truly their own versus how much is influenced by societal expectations that have now become so intertwined it's impossible to tell them apart and how does one acquire enough money to maximize one's happiness while not falling victim to the endless pursuit of money which opposes happiness so it goes with all aspects of the human project inbuilt with terrible paradoxes in catch 22s but to be lucky enough to even consider what to try to do with money is itself a blessing that must be appreciated

as with anything all we can do is try our best and we must because otherwise if we are not careful and thoughtful about how we spend our time and thus handle and pursue money we risk being another tragic story told from another [Music] Deathbed there's no shortage of impressive human Innovations where there are needs and wants Humanity has thrown its Ingenuity and forged Solutions and improvements one extraordinary realm in which this occurs is the Improvement and sustainment of the body this video sponsor keeps is an online subscription service that provides treatments and products that do

just that for an aspect of the body that is uniquely tied to our identity our hair through an online consultation with a licensed medical provider keeps provides customized treatments and products that help prevent hair loss and promote hair growth all from the comfort of your home and typically at half the cost of traditional Pharmacy prices treatments include both of the FDA approved options as well as a two-in-one gel that combines both treatments keeps also offers hair thickening shampoo conditioner and styling Pomade according to clinical studies treatments offered by keeps are 90% effective at treating hair

loss and can increase hair growth by up to 35% most keeps customers notice results within 6 months of starting their treatment for most of us our appearance is a highly valued aspect of our identity and for most of us our hair is a very important aspect of our appearance and if greater control over and Longevity with your hair is something that makes you happy it is something that money can buy whether you're looking to stimulate hair growth be proactive and prevent hair loss or just take better care of your hair in general keeps is the

perfect solution for a special offer to get started go to keeps.com SLP pursuit of Wonder or click the link in the description that's keeps.com SLP pursuit of wonder and of course as always thank you so much for watching in general and see you next [Music] [Music] video