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The Psychology of Money
Money is the primary source of currency throughout the world. This currency provides people with food, clothes, household items, and (if the income of an individual is average or above) luxuries to promote living everyday life. Without money and contribution to the economy, many people spend their lives homeless, stressed about maintaining a healthy living style, and worried about supporting their families. There is a point in life when many people question, "Can money truly buy happiness?"

Brief Economic Importance of Money
Money is responsible for a lot of fluctuations in the everyday economy. Being that money is a currency, it is often symbolically represented as paper, gold, or any other tangible substance which contains symbolic power pertaining to an economy or market. Money is the cause of economic depressions, such as the infamous Great Depression, recessions, surpluses, deficits, as well as the market value of goods (including export and import rates). These values all fluctuate based on a country's supply of money, economic status, and unemployment rates. The flow of money throughout an economy is dependent upon the "amount of employment (or unemployment), the interest rates that prevail in the marketplace, the rate of flow of gross national product, the spending on new capital goods (investment), the general level of commodity prices (inflation or deflation), the state of a nation's international balance of payments, and the distribution of national income among wages, salaries, interest, rents, and profits".

Cultural Promotion of Money and Social Value
From a very young age, children are required to begin to understand their consumer role in society by learning mechanisms of control with the money they obtain. Programs are in place to promote this knowledge including as follows: educational programs in early school life (learning to properly count money), understanding of living situations in direct correspondence to family income, and overall value of what a specific amount of currency can be exchanged for in market valued goods. Money is a currency which is expectedly neutral, meaning that money within a certain value can be exchanged for something of equal value. As children grow old enough to obtain responsibility, some household provide an allowance for their kids, which promotes saving, logical spending, and allows something which would generally be considered a neutral currency to become a transfer between familial relationships (without expectancy for a product which is equal in value). As the consumer begins to age, separating from their parental companies into their own household environment, they begin to relate money with more complex concepts--the economy, bills, fluctuation of market prices, investments, and occupational money gain. The assumption within these families is that the more money that is saved, the lower debt accumulation, inherently providing a more financially stable relationship an individual may have with the economy as a consumer.

Negative Moral Association with Money
Moral Values promote identity and largely formulate opinions in societal views such as politics, and economics. These moral guidelines constitute perceptions of society, and indirectly correlate to money in society because of the association between goods and the salary of a family or individual. For example, research shows that families which shop at stores for second-hand used goods view themselves as less desirable and shameful, diminishing confidence and promoting labels of being a part of a "lower-class" when compared with individuals who are able to afford the newest clothes, or the newest items in general. On the reverse end of the spectrum, money promotes self-centered activity and greed. Neurological studies have found that even the mentioning of money in reference to problem solving tactics promoted both self-reliance and self-centered activity, while people predisposed to problem solving situations with suggestions of more neutral concept did not represent the same motivation. The same study reflects the idea that being fixated on money suggests materialistic values: such values are oftentimes found in people who are less happy than the average human. People take pleasure in gaining money because it allows them to gain desirable items: however, obsessing over symbolic and artificially valued items based on societal standards applies pressure on individuals because money is not simply a luxury, but a necessity. For example, education, stable housing, healthcare, food, and water all are heavily suggested necessities which label a person fit for societal contribution--if someone is incapable of obtaining enough money to upkeep these societal needs for themselves or their families are degraded for being insufficient members of society.

Financial Behaviors
As a consumer begins their life in the economy, and becomes integrated with financials, there is a lot of stigma which correlates to the spending habits of certain individuals. This stigma is represented as unhealthy spending habits, or spending habits which may put the consumer at a detriment for either going into debt, or using money unwisely, according to societal norms. Impulse buying habits (the opposite of self-control and saving habits) is a world-wide phenomenon which assists in representing the self-control of an individual, and the level of responsibility one takes with finances. Studies show that people with greater self-control are better at saving than those with a weaker sense of self-control; however, with impulse buyers, the money is spent in a less practical way, buying items which are often unnecessary or items that will not be used often for future gain. Both impulse buying, and the compelling nature of saving have been coupled with feelings of pleasure or displeasure, but either circumstance proves to have adverse motivation. The most obvious sense of motivation in saving is to promote a future which is debt-free, and, therefore, less stressful for the consumer. To further this, consumers who save may feel an inherent sense of guilt when spending their money on seemingly superfluous items. On the opposite spectrum, impulse buyers tend to feel pleasure when spending money on goods, even if the product acquired is unnecessary or will not be put to good use. These financial behaviors associate positive and negative emotions to spending habits directly: in fact, many consumers will reflect on their financial behaviors by associating their spending habits with primarily pleasurable experiences as opposed to the negative consequences that may occur because of impulse buying. It can further be noted that financial behaviors and spending habits are passed from parents to children: parents with a strong tendency to impulse buy have children with similar tendencies, parents who provide a lot of insight and emphasis into the benefits of saving (while exemplifying these behaviors) tend to have children with more self-control. Studies have further expressed that people who prefer shopping at thrifting locations tend to have impulse buying, and the satisfaction and pleasure from such is because they seek out the cheapest items they can possibly find, and the items they buy are often held on to, as a reminder of their purchases which led to success. All of these financial behaviors and elements reside in the consumer spending habits, and the mental spending habits being passed on to children becomes a large part of how money is culturally integrated in adolescence, too.

Does Higher Income Promote Happiness?
Minorities oftentimes do not receive high quality healthcare, and sometimes receive no care at all because of their financial situations. The mental health of minorities (for this example, in America) is lower than that of other classes seemingly correlating with financial stress. Because these people are unable to obtain any quality treatment for mental illness, oftentimes the family becomes obliged to take care of their mentally ill relative. This obligation does not only place the mental health in an untrained individual, but it also puts the family further at risk of mental health concerns. When a family cares for a mentally ill relative they are more subject to depression. A study of familial caregivers in India suggests a direct correlation between the severity of the mental illness of the patient and the gravity of burden which is put onto the family because of a lack of healthcare access and supplies to trained or professional counsellors or caregivers. Straying away from minority population, there is a concept which furthers the idea of the effects of personal gain called the hedonic treadmill, which suggests that even individuals who gain higher economic status continue to expect raising wages, or consistently raise expectations of future financial success, which results in no true gain or loss of happiness. This suggests that a raise in income is not equivalent to a gain in happiness, nor a loss in happiness, but instead results in a monotonous cycle of raising expectations which may or may not be met in the future. Furthermore, people who experience relative gain in income tend to show signs of slightly raised happiness if the said gain in income rises above other coworkers (meaning higher happiness is achieved at the expense of others lack of gain). This notion of happiness being furthered by a raise in income goes back to the moral negativity that money has accumulated throughout the growth of economies around the world. Because studies show that this gain in happiness is simply at the expense of others, it is clear that the self-driving, and self-centered conception of money is largely true. No one needs al of the money in the world; however, if one is better off than others it promotes a feeling of achievement and success, a feeling of rising above one's peers.