cheryl
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Why Money Manages Us - Harvard Business Review
We spend a great deal of time thinking about money. We talk about it, worry over it, wonder if we have enough to meet our immediate needs. If we’re lucky and have a lot of money, we think about using it to buy a new car, a new house, or a dream vacation. Since the days of our earliest ancestors, money has been one of our most important tools. But different from most other tools, money — even just thinking about it — influences our behavior in negative ways. We become more likely to prioritize our feelings, desires, and goals over getting along with and helping others. Money creates a tension between individualistic and interpersonal motives.
To understand why money has such a hold on us, it’s helpful to look back at its predecessor: trade. Early humans and Neanderthals overlapped for roughly 5,000 years, and, biologically speaking, Neanderthals should have had the advantage. They were on earth first and they had larger bodies and brains. So how did our human ancestors come out ahead? They traded more than Neanderthals and across longer distances, giving them access to more and varied resources, and improving their chances of survival. Anthropologists sometimes call these early humans “homo economicus” to signify the attribute that set them apart.
We spend a great deal of time thinking about money. We talk about it, worry over it, wonder if we have enough to meet our immediate needs. If we’re lucky and have a lot of money, we think about using it to buy a new car, a new house, or a dream vacation. Since the days of our earliest ancestors, money has been one of our most important tools. But different from most other tools, money — even just thinking about it — influences our behavior in negative ways. We become more likely to prioritize our feelings, desires, and goals over getting along with and helping others. Money creates a tension between individualistic and interpersonal motives.
To understand why money has such a hold on us, it’s helpful to look back at its predecessor: trade. Early humans and Neanderthals overlapped for roughly 5,000 years, and, biologically speaking, Neanderthals should have had the advantage. They were on earth first and they had larger bodies and brains. So how did our human ancestors come out ahead? They traded more than Neanderthals and across longer distances, giving them access to more and varied resources, and improving their chances of survival. Anthropologists sometimes call these early humans “homo economicus” to signify the attribute that set them apart.