Sep 17 2009
Money Therapy
Feeling down? Step not into my office, but into a bank vault. Thumb through a bunch of cash. That might improve your mood.
New research published in the journal Psychological science has found -
“Handling money (compared with handling paper) reduced distress over social exclusion and diminished the physical pain of immersion in hot water. Being reminded of having spent money, however, intensified both social distress and physical pain,” the authors said.
Symbols are powerful human tools. They help us perform work and they work on us.
Harriet de Wit, leader of the research team, noted,
[A]cquired symbolic value of money, perhaps because of associations with power or control, can influence responses to both emotional and physical pain.
Very interesting.
