When talking to economists, one can often hear the differences in financial behaviours between people being explained by their material situation: people spend more money, buy more expensive products, and have bigger savings when they make more money. This seemingly simple relation is true when looking at it from a macro perspective and the observed statistical dependencies, but it is no longer true when approaching it from an individual perspective of a single person. It then often turns out that among any two people with similar earnings and a similar life situation, one person will have no qualms or issues with spending money, while the other will find it painful to spend even the smallest amount of money. Something that can explain these differences is that financial behaviours, apart from the level of inances held, depend on many social and psychological factors like, for instance, a person’s general approach to life, their level of optimism, sense of control over their life, relation to money, level of materialism, and money spending style.

在与经济学家交谈时，人们经常可以听到人们之间的金融行为差异是由他们的物质状况来解释的：人们花更多的钱，购买更昂贵的产品，当他们赚更多的钱时，他们有更多的储蓄。从宏观角度和观察到的统计相关性来看，这种看似简单的关系是正确的，但当从单个人的个体角度来看待它时，它不再是真实的。结果往往是，在任何两个收入相近、生活状况相似的人中，一个人不会对花钱感到不安或有任何问题，而另一个人则会发现即使花很少的钱也会很痛苦。可以解释这些差异的原因是，除了持有的空虚程度外，金融行为还取决于许多社会和心理因素，例如，一个人对生活的总体态度、乐观程度、对生活的控制感、与金钱的关系、物质主义的水平和花钱的方式。