Mind Over Money
The Psychology of Cash and How to Use It Better
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
On a summer evening in 1994, the two members of the band KLF burned £1 million in £50 notes in a barn on the Isle of Jura. They filmed themselves tossing the bills into the fire, and made the story public. The reaction amazed them: this act of nihilism caused a public outpouring of rage. They received death threats. And yet, if the band members had squandered their wealth away on designer clothes and sports cars, would anyone have cared?
We constantly make assumptions about money. We confuse it with morality. We know we need it, and we tend to want more of it, but what we do not always appreciate are the ways it affects our minds, and emotions, and can even skew our perceptions.
Mind Over Money is about what money does to us. In delightfully accessible language, Hammond explores the power of money and shows how psychology and neuroscience are providing us with some extraordinary tools for making better decisions about the way we use money.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
BBC radio host Hammond (Time Warped) writes, "Psychology shows that although sometimes we appear to make irrational choices about our money, in the longer term those decisions can turn out to be quite sensible." That may be true, but the argument isn't much helped by Hammond's concise summaries of numerous by her count, 263 psychological experiments researchers have conducted to learn how money changes our thoughts, feelings, and actions. What's missing is a clear rationale for including consumer-focused insights into such subjects as pricing, attitudes toward poverty, and saving side by side with advice for charity fund-raisers and an analysis of compensation schemes for London financiers. Instead of actionable advice, Hammond offers 32 tips such as "Don't choose the same lottery numbers every week or you will never be able to stop playing" and "When you go to a restaurant with a group of friends, don't agree to sharing the bill equally until everyone has ordered." Britishisms such as "loo rolls" and examples that use British pounds and euros rather than U.S. dollars may put off some American readers of this U.K. import.
