Staking
self-worth on the pursuit of money has negative
psychological consequences
University at Buffalo
Although people living
in consumer-based cultures such as the U.S. often believe that they will be
happier if they acquire more money, the findings of a newly published paper by
a University at Buffalo research team suggest that there may be downsides to this
pursuit.
The pursuit of money
in and of itself is not bad, but there are risks to consider when it is fueled
by a desire to boost self-esteem.
When people tie their self-worth to the
pursuit of financial success, they are more vulnerable to negative psychological
consequences, according to Lora Park, an associate professor of psychology at
UB and the study's lead author.
Specifically, basing
self-esteem on financial success predicted making more financially-based social
comparisons with others, feeling less autonomy and control over one's life, and
experiencing more financial hassles, stress and anxiety.
These findings were evident even after accounting for other variables, such as financial status, materialistic values and importance of financial goals.
"People don't
often think of the possible down sides of wrapping their identity and
self-worth around financial pursuits, because our society values wealth as a
model of how one should be in the world," says Park. "It's important
to realize these costs because people are gravitating toward this domain as a
source of self-esteem without realizing that it has these unintended
consequences."
Park's paper, with UB
graduate student Deborah Ward and UB assistant professor of psychology Kristin
Naragon-Gainey, appears in the latest issue of the journal Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Working with samples
of 349 college students and a nationally representative group of 389
participants, the researchers first developed a scale to measure Financial
Contingency of Self-Worth (CSW), or the degree to which people base their
self-esteem on financial success, and then conducted a series of experiments to
examine the effects of threatening people's sense of financial security.
"When we asked
people to write about a financial stressor, they experienced a drop in their
feelings of autonomy," says Park. "They also showed more
disengagement from their financial problems -- they gave up searching for
solutions. We didn't find this in people who didn't tie their self-esteem to
financial success or among those who were asked to write about an academic
stressor."
In those essays, the
researchers also coded the type of language participants used to describe their
financial problems.
"We found that
people who highly based their self-worth on financial success used more
negative emotion-related words, like sadness and anger," says Park.
"This demonstrates that just thinking about a financial problem generates
a lot of stress and negative emotions for these individuals."
But Park says this
effect is eliminated if you get people to self-affirm by giving them an
opportunity to think about their personal strengths.
"This suggests
that self-esteem concerns emerge when people are thinking about financial
problems, but if you can repair their self-esteem by having them think about
their strengths, then there is no reduction in feelings of autonomy."
A final study found
that people who based their self-esteem on financial success -- and were led to
believe that they would experience financial instability in their future --
became more cautious when it came to extravagant spending decisions.
This could be
interpreted as a desire of these individuals to protect their self-esteem
following this financial threat, suggests Park.
This research also has
implications beyond finances and self-esteem and has many possible future
directions, such as the effects of financially contingent self-worth on close
relationships, group dynamics and organizational settings.