For the Brain, Cash Is Good, Status Is Better

A different way to look at how we value social status...but you still need some cash for stress reduction therapies....BD 

New research shows for the first time that we process cash and social values in the same part of our brain (the striatum)—and likely weigh them against one another when making decisions. So what's more important—money or social standing? It might be the latter, according to two new studies published in the journal Neuron.
"Our study shows that both behaviorally and in the brain, people place an importance on social status," says Caroline Zink, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Md., and co-author of one of studies. "It's hugely influential even [when we're not] in direct competition with someone else."

He notes that this new insight into how the brain processes social standing may have important public health consequences, possibly even paving the way to new stress-reduction therapies.

For the Brain, Cash Is Good, Status Is Better: Scientific American