Handling Money Brings Pain Relief 103
Psychologists at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management have found that handling money can alleviate both physical and emotional pain. In one experiment, test subjects were found to feel less pain when their hands were dipped into scalding water after counting money. Lead author Kathleen Vohs said, "When people are reminded of money in a subtle manner by counting out hard currency, they experience painful situations as being not very painful. You could think about being able to charge yourself up before you encounter pain. When I used to run marathons, I would've maybe wanted to be reminded of money first."
Re:Cocaine (Score:4, Interesting)
Glad to see this as first post- it's *EXACTLY* the alternative explanation I thought- especially if the money in question is US currency in any paper format. I've heard cocaine residue can be found on up to 90% of US paper money that has been in circulation for more than a year.
South Park Did It! (Score:3, Interesting)
It's like the "Simpsons Did It!", except with South Park [southparkstudios.com].
tl;dr - According to South Park, the cure for AIDS is money.
I tried this experiment (Score:4, Interesting)
I couldn't think of an explanation, so I decided to try it on my wife.
Before I had her call the gas company to see where we're at (we're still catching up from a cold winter) I handed her a stack of twenties she didn't know I had (pimpin' ain't easy) and had her count them out.
She was confused but obliged. After she was done I took the money from her hands and asked her to call. She asked what was up with the money. I explained the experiment and she said "OH I thought you were giving me the money, it's not going to help now!"
That brings up a good point and the article is light on details so I have to ask: is it possible any of the participates were lead to believe they would be receiving all or a portion of the money they were counting out? Were they told upfront "You will not receive any of this money as part of this experiment"? And even if they were told, did anyone still think it was a possibility? I'm damn sure if you handed me 80 $100 bills and told me "We're doing an experiment, please count out this money" and said nothing else I would have a smile on my face until I was told to leave the research lab empty-handed.