Our money, our minds, and our morality have been interwoven since the very first transaction of value was consummated.
Interestingly enough, when it comes to a discussion of the history of commerce and finance, historians tend to strip out the psychology and morality, rarely straying far from the cold hard facts.
More often than not, psychology is only considered when exploring aspects of marketing, trend analysis, and product development —but usually to explain some sort of Jedi mind trick or how someone diabolically exploited some sociological herd-movement quirk of humanity.
Rarely do we see much in the way of analysis of our psychological relationship to money, probably because it is such a frustratingly complex subject. Moreover, we may have made amazing advancements in our studies of the inner workings of this wondrous machine we call the mind, but what we do not know about its mechanics far outweighs what we do know.
Ultimately, in our economics classes, in our business schools, in our financial forums, and in the business media, it is much easier to explore the mechanics of money, regurgitate facts, and debate trends related to specific market cycles than it is to unwind the intricacies of the psychological drivers within Street personnel.
There is some cursory homage paid to such lemming-like phenomenon in the run-up on a stock or mass anxiety motivating a panic during a downturn, but rarely does the conversation delve deeply into the relationship between the mind and money. The reality is that the remarkable cyclicality of market trends, spanning hundreds, if not thousands of bubbles and bursts, across all “intergalactic global borders,” simply would not exist without the psychological underpinnings and idiosyncrasies of human behavior.
You see, when it comes to understanding the historical significance of money to humanity, it really that much easier to simply focus on the Who, What, Where, When, and How, and not invest the time to truly capture the Why.
Examining the history of money through the lens of the psychologist, though, will enable you begin to develop a new awareness of why we do, what we do, when it comes to money.