The Psychology of Money

Analysis Article

Yani Tyagi

14 min read

Luxury & the Institutionalisation of Status Signalling

Why do people buy luxury goods? This article argues their primary function is to signal wealth, status, and social identity rather than deliver practical value — drawing on economics, sociology, psychology, and neuroscience to show that luxury purchases are driven by social comparison, the desire for recognition, and emotional insecurity, and that the satisfaction they produce is structurally temporary.

Analytical Feature

Kushal Nahata

12 min read

The Price We Think We See: A Deeper Look into Price Perception & the Psychology behind it

Every price is a story your brain tells itself, not just a number on a tag. Our perception of value is shaped by psychological biases such as the left-digit effect, anchoring, the decoy effect, and the price-quality heuristic, causing us to judge prices emotionally rather than rationally. Today, algorithms have amplified these biases by personalizing prices around urgency, convenience, and perception, making pricing more psychological than ever before.

Behavioural Economics

Leticia Sathler Kelen

10 min read

Why We Buy Things We Don't Need

You did not need another pair of shoes. You knew that. You bought them anyway. This article explores the behavioural economics behind unnecessary purchases, from the neuroscience of anticipation to the emotional regulation, social signalling and digital design that turn browsing into buying.

Behavioural Economics

Cheng-Hsi Lu

11 min read

It’s Not How Much You Spend but How

You get the acceptance letter, the raise, the good news you’ve been waiting for. For a day, everything feels different. Then it doesn’t. What happened? This article explores why happiness plateaus even as income rises, from the way material goods invite comparison, to how time-poverty undermines well-being, and why generosity outperforms self-spending.