Estimated size of coins as an indicator of the psychological value of money
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14659/PJOEP.2014.06.03Keywords:
money, perceived sizes of coins, money attitudes, wealth, primingAbstract
Research on the psychology of money, from the mid-twentieth century as well as recent studies, showed that the perception of physical characteristics of money, especially the size, is affected not only by cognitive processes, but largely by emotional processes. For that reason, this paper aims to demonstrate that the estimated size of coins indicates the subjective (affective) value or meaning of money. This paper presents a series of three studies evaluating three factors that ascribe high subjective value to money, based on the estimated size of Polish coins. The results showed that children from less affluent families, people with a strong affective attitude towards money, and people primed by money tend to perceive coins to be larger than do other participants. In addition, it seems that the overestimation or underestimation of the size of the coins in a particular study can be to some extent an artifact resulting from the measurement method.References
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