Mar 4, 2011 15:03 GMT  ·  By
Those who don't value material things as much as their peers have greater feelings of interpersonal security
   Those who don't value material things as much as their peers have greater feelings of interpersonal security

Psychologists and sociologists have demonstrated that people who place a lower value on possessions and all things material are more likely to exhibit greater feelings of interpersonal security than peers who value objects more.

The investigation looked in detail at the connection between the monetary value people attributed to having items and the chance they had of feeling loved and accepted by others in society.

Experts conducted two experiments to tease out these connections, on about 185 volunteers, which were recruited from an online discussion forum. The work was carried out by experts at the University of New Hampshire and the Yale University.

UNH assistant professor of psychology Edward Lemay, PhD, was the leader of the research effort. He and his group also surveyed 68 college students at the two universities. All participants were presented with a series of items, and asked to rate their value.

It immediately became obvious that people who were more secure about themselves and how people saw them placed a lower value on material objects. Conversely, those who were insecure tended to estimate the value of even the most common objects at five times what it was actually worth.

“People value possessions, in part, because they afford a sense of protection, insurance, and comfort,” Lemay explains, adding that the study could conceivably be used to help those suffering from hoarding disorders.

“But what we found was that if people already have a feeling of being loved and accepted by others, which also can provide a sense of protection, insurance, and comfort, those possessions decrease in value,” the expert goes on to say.

“These findings seem particularly relevant to understanding why people may hang onto goods that are no longer useful,” the investigators write in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

The study also highlighted why some people may be overprotective – and may also over-value – things that provide them with an increased sense of security, PsychCentral reports.

“Inherited items may be especially valued because the associated death threatens a person’s sense of personal security,” Lemay explains.

This type of behavior, he concludes, is often unconscious, and this is why people fail to verbalize it, or even recognize that they have a problem, until it's pointed out to them.