Mind Over Money
Money has only been around for a few thousand years, so we haven’t yet evolved biologically to handle our money decisions. When we encounter money, we file that information away in the brain’s bits that deal with food, drugs, and sex. It all comes unstuck because we’re using stone-aged brains to try and make complex, abstract decisions about money. We’re really just cavemen with credit cards.
Money has only been around for a few thousand years, so we haven’t yet evolved biologically to handle our money decisions. When we encounter money, we file that information away in the brain’s bits that deal with food, drugs, and sex. It all comes unstuck because we’re using stone-aged brains to try and make complex, abstract decisions about money. We’re really just cavemen with credit cards.
More Episodes
Related Titles
Related Articles
View All
Living on a Prayer: Poverty and the American Dream
Around the globe, hundreds of millions of people live in poverty. In the land of opportunity, the United States, people are not immune to poverty. What does it mean to be poor,…
Your Financial Virtue: The Development of Consumer Credit Scores in the U.S.
The world runs on debt. Consumer debt is part of daily life in the U.S. In 2023, that debt was just under $5,000,000,000,000 – that’s 5 trillion! Debt is, at a basic level, about…
Is Money Real? From Barter to Bitcoin
We’ve had a fraught relationship with money for millennia. Money both reflects and determines value, and it’s often difficult to distinguish the two. Perhaps thinking about the…
Change Your Brain, Change Your Life: The Science of Hacking Your Unconscious Mind
Our unconscious mind controls many of our actions and our thoughts. But science-backed methods of influencing our brain, such as meditation and visualization, can put us back in…
Beyond Fiction: 2 True Stories of Modern Treasure Hunters That Will Surprise You
Treasure hunting may be seen as antiquated, but modern hunters put time, money, and passion into striking it big. Brent Brisben and Dennis Parada are two such hunters, and they…
Buy Me to the Moon: The Money and Politics of Owning Outer Space
Who owns the Moon? Technically no one – but several private companies and individuals have had other ideas. As interest in the Moon’s profit potential grows, important questions…
Living ‘in a Bubble’: How One Word Came to Cover Our World
Once something you’d find in soapy water, bubble was adapted in the 18th century to represent an oversold capital market. Now it’s used to describe the flow of information in the…