The psychological essence of money

Abstract

"Money" is a specific concept, the economic significance of which is closely linked to its psychological significance. Money has a many-sided notional value, it is not only a means of exchange, but also a powerful cultural symbol. Money has different symbolic meanings in human consciousness. According to the research hypothesis, social notions related to money are ambivalent in modern Georgian society. To test this hypothesis, the association of money with positive and negative moral categories, the symbolic meaning of money, and attitudes toward money were studied. Empirical research was conducted with a specially designed questionnaire on a representative sample in Tbilisi, a total of 1034 people were interviewed.

The results showed that the evaluation of money is contradictory: money is simultaneously associated with injustice and justice, dishonesty and honesty, tolerance and intolerance, "steadiness-unsteadiness", although negative evaluation prevails, which means that money is associated with more evil than kindness. For men, money is more a symbol of control over human, situation and resources, while for women it’s the symbol of - prosperity. According to the attitude towards money, three subgroups were distinguished: strongly positive (33%), more positive (48%) and unmodified attitude (19%). A positive correlation was found between attitudes toward money and positive moral categories and values, but no correlation was observed with negative categories.