It looks like greed isn’t the Prime Mover of the human race, but rather a psychological overcompensation for a lack of “healthy selfishness.” ScienceDaily reports:
People who feel more secure in receiving love and acceptance from others place less monetary value on their possessions, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.
The research was conducted by Edward Lemay, assistant professor of psychology at UNH, and colleagues at Yale University. The research is published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Lemay and his colleagues found that people who had heightened feelings of interpersonal security — a sense of being loved and accepted by others — placed a lower monetary value on their possession than people who did not.
In their experiments, the researchers measured how much people valued specific items, such as a blanket and a pen. In some instances, people who did not feel secure placed a value on an item that was five times greater than the value placed on the same item by more secure people.
Does that include Wall Street banksters and corporate CEOs? Granted, money isn’t actual stuff, but it might explain how they behave if their parents didn’t really love them.
Read more here.
