The Psychology and Neuroscience of GREED

The challenge of our times

Greed as a trait is a survival mechanism. It goes right back to the most ancient parts of our brains and its fear of loss, and with it, the most fundamental of existential crises, death. So those who indulge themselves with greed - and it is an indulgence - are in fact responding to the most primal of urges, to acquire safeguards against death and loss.

With the more they acquire, meaning the more there is to lose, with a heightened desire to safeguard their wealth.

Whatever that wealth is.

The reward system within the brain, I think is wrongly named, as we have a definition of reward that leads us to understand it as being the result of something good that we have done.

This is not true to how the reward system in the brain works.

The reward system in the brain is based on our being able to meet a need. We get signals that we may ‘need’ something, and depending on our social and individual conditioning we meet that need, which then leads to us feeling ‘rewarded’.

Even if what we have done leads to medium or long term negative outcomes.

Look at the diagram, this is how reward works in the brain. It is all a biochemical limbic reaction.

Limbic System Structures

• Amygdala: the almond-shaped mass of nuclei involved in emotional responses, hormonal secretions, and memory. The amygdala is responsible for fear conditioning or the associative learning process by which we learn to fear something.

• Cingulate Gyrus: a fold in the brain involved with sensory input concerning emotions and the regulation of aggressive behavior.

• Fornix: an arching, band of white matter axons (nerve fibers) that connect the hippocampus to the hypothalamus.

• Hippocampus: a tiny nub that acts as a memory indexer – sending memories out to the appropriate part of the cerebral hemisphere for long-term storage and retrieving them when necessary. These memories tend to be infused with emotion.

• Hypothalamus: about the size of a pearl, this structure directs a multitude of important functions. It wakes you up in the morning and gets the cortisol/adrenaline flowing. The hypothalamus is also an important emotional center, controlling the molecules that make you feel exhilarated, angry, or unhappy.

• Olfactory Cortex: receives sensory information from the olfactory bulb and is involved in the identification of odors.

• Thalamus: a large, dual lobed mass of gray matter cells that relay sensory signals to and from the spinal cord and the cerebrum.

Why have I told you all this within a piece about greed? Well to show how the reward system, in particular when accumulating wealth, is all about emotion and not about intellect, insight or altruism.

In particular research on the psychology of money shows this the bigger the potential reward (the more money), the greater the brain activity in the reward areas. These findings provide a better understanding of how reward systems work in the brain and that the brain areas can stimulate a reward response without experiencing a reward yet.

So if reward is money and more of it, then what are the prevailing emotions behind the drive to seek more money?

Fear and greed.

Fear and greed are addictive, compulsive and damaging to both individual experiencing them as well as those who are within their social environment.

Why then, does our society place such a value on being wealthy, having it all and materialsim in general?

If people accumulate things of little monetary value, or exhibit compulsive behaviours other than the acquisition of money then they are thought to have a mental health condition, to be ill, needing to be treated, needing to be considered as having a disability or at least an atypical brain.

Those with wealth, though, have normalised greed as being a good attribute, hand in hand with their paid messengers within mainstream media.

Greed follows the same neurobiological and psychological pathways in the central nervous system as addicition and compulsion.

Think about that.

Greed is the price that is paid for the pursuant of self-interest and self-absorbed individuals.

Which is completely ironic as these people are often the first to shout out about the ‘greater good’, which seems to be the rest of the public, who are not high net worth individiuals.

The so called ‘greater good’ is carried by those who do not have it all at the behest of those at the top of the money tree. Those who do not have it all are increasingly in the 21st century carrying the can for those who do.

Why is this acceptable?

It is totally acceptable to populations who have been told mulitple times that it is acceptable.

It takes just 7 times of being told something for it to be acceptable and true within the brain of an adult. 14 times for a child.

The messaging within the main news stories (and they are just that stories) is heavily biased towards this being not of any one root problem but an accumulation of many things, drawn together by a main thread of an ‘enemy’.

The global population has been living in fear and trauma for many years. This has touched every single person within all countries now. The only people immune to this will be the people who know what the truth actually is.

The issue with living with fear, anxiety and trauma is that it is exhausting. People are shattered. They are living in their own version of their own coping strategy. It is isolating.

And meanwhile.

Greed is still there. Those with desperate to keep and accumulate more. Gaining more and more hubris with it.

It would be an interesting experiment to treat those with wealth greed as we do those with other addictions.

How would abstainance look to the money greedy?

What would happen if we cleared their counting houses of all the currency and symbols of wealth?

What would we give them as a substitute for money, like we do with heroin addicts?

What would their status be in society if we viewed greed in the same guise we do other addicted, compulsive people?

It is extremely interesting to me that we are still not at the point where we-who are increasingly having what little we have taken off us by those who have everything - are taking mass action.

My opinion is that the idealisation of money, the enchantment of the masses about how money is positioned in society and generaly apathy, malaise, illness and exhaustion all have their part to play within this.

There can be no doubt that greed is not good.

Greed is destructive to all who experience it.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus once said, “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” For greedy people, there is a biochemical imbalance in their reward system.

Greed is the cause of bigger troubles such as corruption, hostility, even war.

Do we want to be living within a society where greed has become so bloated, so needy, so compulsive, so devisive?

The antidote to greed is quite simple.

Re-wiring the brain to being able to recognise that enough is enough.

Both literally and figuratively.

The messaging has to change. There needs to be more emphasis on enough being enough.

Enough of the virtue signalling mainstream media articles. I know I will see more self-serving, deprivation accepting, patronising pieces of writing telling us all how we can save more money in other areas so we can still pay our energy or food overlords, as much as I know I will see articles showing how the rung below me are not managing so I should have ‘gratitude’ and not moan too much about my status quo.

It is all designed to keep us stuck in inertia.

And meanwhile, the greed is accelerating, society is breaking apart and we are less human than we were, even just last week.

So I ask you to just start to take notice of the messaging.

Stop feeding the greed of the rich, yes, have some short term deprivation of the drugs of the masses (TV streaming, ‘energy drinks’ tiktok and its other brain draining bed fellows et al) just stop. It won’t kill you, and it may effect change if we all do it.

Stop idealising money and the acquisition of it. Every single rich person has made their money exploiting someone somewhere, its not just the domain of the slave owners. Do you know the manufacturing chain of your material possessions? No? I thought not. Research it. You may be surprised at how many humans have been exploited to get you your latest iphone.

Stop believing everything you are told. Have a curiosity. Even about what you read that I write. I have a desire to create a better (and kinder) world. That is my bias. Question everything. That is how we get rid of the limbic reaction and bring in prefrontal cortext insight and wisdom.

Finally, do not accept greed as being the only way forward. There are other ways, we can live with enough, if we want to enough. Stop just accepting less than so a few can have more than.

We all deserve to have enough.

Enough is enough.

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”