Turns out, some people don't just love money—to many, money can represent love. In fact, the recent large-scale survey "Sex Differences in Money Pathology in the General Population" published in the forthcoming September issue of Social Indicators Research shows that while women are twice as likely to associate cash flow with feelings of love and generosity, men are likely to associate money with freedom and power.
Researchers surveyed 100,000 U.K. men and women, asking questions such as whether they go shopping when they feel upset or anxious, and how in-control they feel when they're carrying cash. The researchers then classified their responses into four emotional categories: Money represents security, power, love, or freedom.
Of course, while women overwhelmingly associated cash flow with feelings of love and generosity and men with freedom and power, those emotions weren't mutually exclusive. Some women did equate money with autonomy, too, while other men thought moolah could represent love.
Why? "There has recently been an interest in the evolutionary psychology of consumption where socio-biological explanations are offered for numerous sex differences in shopping, spending and responding to advertising," said the researchers about why they launched their study. "On the other hand it has been argued that sex differences in money beliefs and behaviors are essentially a product of structural institutions and socialization and can therefore be relearned."
If you had to associate money with any emotion, what would it be? Does money make you feel more loving or generous, or more in power and independent?