Go with the Overflow

Money can be funny and studies reveal the subtle isolating effect that even the image of it can have on human behavior.

In Daniel Kahneman's monumental book "Thinking Fast and Slow," he highlights the disconcerting results from different priming experiments. For example, when subjects could see monopoly money in the background or stacks of cash on a computer screen-saver, they took twice as long to ask for help with a problem and picked up significantly fewer pencils when the experimenter pretended to clumsily drop them - in contrast to those subjects not exposed to the trigger.

More troubling, people were asked to set up two chairs for them and another as part of a "get-acquainted" conversation while the researcher left the room to retrieve the guest. Money-primed subjects placed the chairs an average of 15 inches farther apart than the control group.

In most cases, money on the mind can promote self-reliance and individualism but trigger selfish behavior and disconnection from others.

There is nothing bad about money. It is very useful. People sometimes say "money is the root of all evil." That is not actually the complete verse. "The love of money.." or craving for this one type of energy - purchasing power - is the problem. And now we have some scientific insight as to why that attachment can be socially harmful.

In the spiritual philosophy of abundance, too much attraction to money can actually be limiting by narrowing one's idea of how resources may be accessed and generating an overall attitude of lack that leads to operating from a sense of scarcity in life.

(Music “Light in Summer Air I” by Ethereal Ephemera and episode artwork by Dove Dahlia)