A recent online NPR article summarizes some provocative research on the emotional and physical impact of money.
According to a report by David Kestenbaum titled Study: Your Brain Thinks Money is a Drug, researchers report their surprise in discovering that, “Counting money — just handling the bills — can make things less painful.”
The article went on to summarize the findings of a Chinese research paper, The Symbolic Power of Money, saying that, “As far as your brain’s concerned, money can act as a substitute for social acceptance, reducing social discomfort and, by extension, physical discomfort and even pain.”
“Researcher Xinyue Zhou, of the department of psychology at Sun Yat-Sen University in China, puts it in very human terms. “We think money works as a substitute for another pain buffer — love.”
One more quote that I find provocative: “Money as a substitute for social acceptance and love? Zhou laughs and admits that it’s kind of sad. “All substitutes are sad.”‘
Am wondering whether this could give us a deeper appreciation of Jesus’ warning about the danger of substituting the love of money for the love of God. He even went on to link the God/money issue to how we try to deal with emotional pain when he said, “You cannot serve God and mammon (money). Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?…Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt 6:24-34).
Many of us have learned that the addictions that control us are rooted in denial, i.e. “I’m in control of this; Can quit any time I want.” Ironically, at the same time we act like we can’t live without it.
But this article makes me think that, as necessary and good as it can be, money (and by extension credit) may be far more dangerous than some of us realize. Could the issue be in the provider vs Provider challenge?
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