Understanding Our Money Decisions With UCLA Professor Hal Hershfield
Mar 27, 2024
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UCLA Professor Hal Hershfield discusses childhood money memories, aligning capital with values, and the emotional layers of money decisions. Topics include future self influence, intentional money decisions, and navigating trade-offs in financial choices.
Aligning capital with personal values is essential for making sound financial decisions.
Intergenerational money conversations can shape attitudes towards personal finance.
Early childhood experiences with money can influence future reflections on wealth and spending habits.
Deep dives
Exploring the Link Between Decisions Today and Future Self
Hal Hirschfield, a UCLA professor, delves into the impact of present decisions on our future selves. By feeling connected to our future aspirations, we are more likely to make sound financial choices in the present. Hirschfield's expertise on the future self concept underscores the importance of considering long-term consequences when dealing with money.
Reflecting on Childhood Influences and Money Conversations
Hirschfield reflects on his childhood evolving in a financially stable environment. Despite his parents' lack of financial stress, the topic of money remained mostly unspoken. As a parent now, he navigates intergenerational money conversations, pondering the significance of such dialogues. These reflections highlight the complexity of personal finance upbringing.
Examining Early Memories and Fascination with Money
Hirschfield shares his earliest memory, engrossed by the world book encyclopedia's section on money. His fascination with currency types and the concept of value intertwined with childhood experiences of coin collection. This early intrigue with money laid the foundation for deeper reflections on wealth and its historical context.
Navigating Trade-offs, Experiential Investments, and Status Associations
Acknowledging the trade-offs between status purchases and intentional spending, Hirschfield grapples with money's representation of effort and achievement. From upgrading a car to installing a grill, he balances tangible possessions with meaningful experiences. Confronting societal norms around money and status, Hirschfield shares personal struggles and introspections on the deeper meanings of financial decisions.
Uncovering Emotions in Money Decisions and Parental Role Modeling
In a candid discussion, Hirschfield delves into the emotional complexities of money decisions, revealing underlying feelings of status, value, and achievement. The conversation extends to the parental role in modeling financial behaviors and setting priorities. Money's deeper significance as a symbol of effort, achievement, and trade-offs emerges as a central theme in Hirschfield's introspections.
Hal Hershfield is a leading expert on the psychology of making decisions, but that doesn’t mean that he always makes the right decisions about money, which should be reassuring for us all to hear. A Professor of Marketing, Behavioral Decision Making, and Psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, Hal joins Carl to discuss some of his earliest memories about money (he looked it up in the ‘M’ book of his Encyclopedia), the importance of aligning capital with what's important in our lives, and how we rationalize our decisions around money with our emotions way more than we should.
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