Greedy people in friends - reasons for greed, how to understand and forgive them

There are many people among us who are ready to give their last ruble. There are also plenty of people who could hang themselves over a discounted product. Some people prefer to live in poverty, like dragons, accumulating various junk and valuables under them. Live for tomorrow, not today - the motto that adorned the banners of the generation of the 90s and the times when people were in need. There is no need to build direct correlations with the level of income: both a person who grew up on oak parquet floors and a person who, as a child, wore the clothes of an older brother or sister, can become greedy. How do they become greedy? What's behind this? Is greed treatable? Find answers to these and other questions in our new article.

What kind of greedy guy is he? What are the symptoms of the “disease”?

He does not lend (or gives with demonstrative reluctance).
He eats the last piece of “sweet” with a light heart.
His wardrobe contains branded items, but at home he will wear just anything. When meeting guests (which rarely happens) in an expensive shirt, he will not be ashamed to brew one tea bag in a friend’s cup for the second time.
He never throws away “old junk” like an ancient refrigerator or grandma’s chandelier. Hoarding is in his blood.
He always bargains in markets and even in shops, never leaves tips and very carefully counts the change.
He is extremely jealous. The second half, in his opinion, is also his property.
Everyone around him is his potential rivals and competitors.
He always feels jealous of more successful people.
He loves shopping.
He takes care of his car, but saves on gas and travels more often by bus.
When presenting a gift, he will definitely notice that it cost him a lot, or he will simply leave the price tag in a visible place. However, waiting for a gift from him is a real miracle.
When paying for goods, there is universal sorrow on his face, as if he were giving away his last.
He is constantly looking for ways to save money.
He will definitely time the wedding date to coincide with some holiday in order to save on gifts for his wife. Which, by the way, will give them according to her taste (so that “everyone will find it useful”).
Searching for discounts and sales is his favorite pastime. Even if he urgently needs a TV, he will wait until there is a promotion somewhere for this equipment. He makes most of his purchases in the first days of January, when stores massively lower prices for city residents who are temporarily “impoverished” after the holidays.
As soon as you leave the room for a couple of minutes, he is already flying there to turn off the light. And you can completely forget about “taking a bath.” Just a shower, and quickly like an army! Counters after all!
He is always unsatisfied with his life.

Possible consequences

Often people lose their sense of proportion and make mistakes. The line when a mild form of money-grubbing turns into a pathological form is erased.

In family

Stinginess is clearly manifested in family relationships.

The husband's ability to earn more than his wife or to fully support the family leads to the desire to use money as a means of power. Total control of expenses brings satisfaction to a man; he allows himself to humiliate his wife. The husband demands an account for every amount spent, expressing dissatisfaction with the large check. His greed manifests itself in the material side, in the absence of spiritual warmth. An egoist man spends money on his needs without restrictions, justifying them as family necessity. He takes his wife’s work around the house for granted, without feeling gratitude, without taking into account her needs. This behavior causes conflicts and leads to divorce.

In business

Greed is a positive incentive when it leads to development and the search for new ways to make a profit. On this path you need not only to earn income, but also to make investments for the future. In this case, the negative character trait acts for the good.

The desire to acquire a quick profit, to “squeeze” everything as much as possible at once, without forecasting ahead, leads to ruin. Stinginess ruins business just like wastefulness.

In progress

A greedy attitude towards work has positive and negative aspects. The employee strives for career growth. This motivates to increase their professional level and improve the quality of work. Such money-grubbing is only welcomed by the leader.

Unreasonable demands for higher salaries or job status driven by greed can end badly. It will lead to damaged relations with the employer and dismissal.

With friends and loved ones

People live in society. They communicate with family and make friends. They share emotions and give gifts. The miser refuses meetings, afraid of spending. Thoughts about the expected expenses irritate him. Jokes about his greed lead to aggression, provoking conflicts. Greed destroys connections and leaves a person alone.

“He was a great housekeeper!”

It is important to distinguish greed from the usual desire to save due to life circumstances (or character).

A thrifty friend will also look for sales and maybe even make tea a second time, but he will never leave his friend without a holiday gift, and the gift itself - with a price tag.

When communicating with a thrifty friend, you do not experience negative emotions , and the word “miserable!” does not involuntarily fly out of your mouth. On the contrary, you admire his ability to allocate money and save even where this is usually impossible.

conclusions

It is a common belief that if people were not greedy, we would still be living in caves. The desire to save, get rich and accumulate seems natural to humans. The dual status of greed has always raised questions among people. On the one hand, this is the engine of progress: a person satisfied with the minimum would not invent ways to live better. On the other hand, this is a vice condemned in society and religion. Greedy people are not liked, people judge them and try to avoid them. Moreover, in modern culture, where materialism is encouraged, the problem of greed comes to the fore.

Stingy or stingy?

It is worth noting that these two concepts are also different. A stingy person saves on everything, including food. He will travel across the city to buy a kilo of fish for 10 rubles cheaper, and will look for a new “mobile phone” via the Internet, because the price is always lower there.

But he will not skimp on gifts for a friend or his beloved woman , and will never “make excuses” with a box of chocolates for his birthday. At general friendly meetings, he will always contribute his share for the “banquet” and will not try to enter heaven on someone else’s hump.

His stinginess only applies to him . Greed spreads to everyone around.

Causes

Psychologists and scientists who analyze the motives for the emergence of greed put forward various assumptions. One hypothesis is that the roots of the problem go back to childhood. Acquisitiveness arises as a reaction of the self-preservation instinct to life's difficulties.

Main factors:

Fears . There is a theory in psychology that declares fear to be the cause of greed. A person has no confidence in the future. The danger of losing material well-being pushes a person to preserve what he has accumulated. Then even this becomes not enough, and a desire arises to increase values. Gradually, the natural desire to be financially prosperous is hypertrophied. This may mean it turns into greed. Childhood trauma - the child did not receive the love and affection of his parents to the fullest, he was afraid to be left alone. Fears first gave rise to complexes, then hoarding and multiplication.
Poverty of the soul. One-sided upbringing of a child, when the material world dominates the spiritual component, develops selfishness in him. Parents do not give their child warmth and fill the void in the relationship with toys and gadgets. By replacing love with objects, they do not think that they are raising a future greedy person. The desire for kindness, gratitude, and non-covetousness is replaced by a desire for greed and stinginess.
Poverty . The family in which the child grew up was constantly in need of food. He was ridiculed by his peers because he did not have good clothes or a telephone. Growing up, a person feels the need to compensate for childhood grievances. In pursuit of wealth, he ceases to control desires and actions. He develops all kinds of greed.
Worship of material values (family model of behavior). The talk in the house boils down to the fact that money decides everything in life. Adults are busy with the problem of accumulating and increasing material values. In such conditions, children receive the wrong concept of good. Acquiring property becomes the goal of life. Manifestations concern not only the material side. Acquisitiveness is expressed in the desire for power, honor, and fame. It makes no difference what you accumulate; the process of multiplication itself is important.

This personal quality can have a positive meaning. To achieve what he wants, a person develops active activity. The attraction to knowledge and skills forces him to make maximum efforts. The main thing in the pursuit of something new is not to cross the line separating a good goal from a vice.

As for the reasons for greed, there are not so many of them:

Self-doubt and obsessive desire for physical/psychological safety. Constant fears of life push the greedy person to accumulate. Life for him is hostile and dangerous, so he must prepare for difficulties “today and now.”
An example from childhood. The children's family model, as a rule, is automatically transferred to the adult lives of children. If dad or mom were greedy, the child does not consider greed unnatural.
Mom and dad did not teach the child to be generous and simply did not notice how he turned into a greedy person. What to do if the child is greedy? This usually happens after the birth of the second baby in the family. The eldest child, left “on the sidelines of life,” takes matters into his own hands - the lack of attention, toys and love raises in him a person who begins to live for himself, in his own shell.
He grew up in a rich family. And from the cradle, mom and dad threw all their “riches” at his feet. He is not used to sharing, giving, giving. He is used to only taking and demanding. And even his first word was “give!”
He made his fortune with “sweat and blood” and sees a threat in everything that concerns his money.
Poverty in the past. Such life stages, when you have to save every penny, also do not pass without a trace. Some acquire the habit of living frugally and within their means, while for others, saving develops into greed and pettiness out of fear that “one day everything will collapse again.”
He simply lives with plans for the future. An obsessive dream (or a clear goal) of a car (apartment, cottage, travel, etc.) is more important than all his needs and the needs of his relatives and friends. The goal obscures a person’s eyes, and everything except it becomes unimportant and empty.

Greed

The world is big enough to satisfy the needs of any person, but too small to satisfy human greed.

Mahatma Gandhi

Greed is far from the most attractive trait in human character.
Excessively greedy people are generally perceived negatively by society. And for them, their greed can cause a lot of problems. Sometimes the behavior of a greedy person is not only ugly and therefore it pushes other people away from him, but also absolutely meaningless, and even very harmful for himself. However, greed is inherent in all people to one degree or another. And this is no coincidence. Nature would not endow a person with qualities that he absolutely does not need. And since we are all destined to be greedy by nature, then let’s find out why and why. There are two types of greed: aggressive greed and fear-driven greed. I’ll say right away that these are my own conclusions on this issue, based on my detailed study of the behavior of greedy people. Therefore, everything you learn about greed from this article may, to some extent, not coincide with what other psychologists and other specialists write about it in their articles and books. But at the same time, your point of view on such a personality quality as greed will definitely become much broader and richer after reading this article. What is greed? Greed is an overly aggressive desire of a person to appropriate for himself as much as possible of all kinds of benefits, both material and intangible. We can talk about various things, money, food, pleasures, power, information, attention and so on. Everything a person may need, he wants to have in unlimited quantities if he is greedy. Greed is also a desire to accumulate, a reluctance to share, as well as a desire not to lose, to preserve, to preserve what is available. Unlike frugality, greed is often meaningless when, for example, a person saves something, say, the same money, to his own detriment, and not to his benefit. In general, greed can cause many problems to a person when it is not realized and controlled by him, so it definitely needs to be curbed so that one does not lose clarity of mind because of it. I will not say that greed must be eradicated in the bud, as a quality absolutely unnecessary for a person. My study of this issue shows that greed can also be useful, not frugality, but greed. Moreover, we are all at least a little greedy. But it is not always useful, and especially not in those cases when a person is completely in its power. Below I will tell you about why a person is greedy and what benefits greed can have.

Aggressive greed

Aggressive greed is the same quality of a person as vanity and ambition. This is the deep motivation of an individual to achieve great results. You and I, as smart people, understand that greed is given to us by nature so that we have a better chance of surviving in this world, including by achieving greater and greater results. Aggressive people who never have enough are, without a doubt, much more likely to achieve success in life than those who are content with what they have achieved. Therefore, when you evaluate the actions of a person, always remember that first of all, natural instincts manifest themselves in him when he behaves in one way or another. This will allow you to understand what motivates this or that person to a greater extent - aggression or fear. Aggressive greed is expressed in a person’s uncontrollable desire to satisfy some of his desires, in acquiring even greater benefits, regardless of what he already has. For such a person, the appetite comes while eating - he wants more and more, he always has not enough of everything. First, give such a person a new “trough”, otherwise the old one is completely split, and then he already wants to be the mistress of the sea, and this is not the limit. Therefore, such a person will never stop, or better said, will never get enough.

This is not always bad and not always good. Being an aggressively greedy person is generally beneficial. After all, in this world, aggressors and invaders have always achieved more than those who led a mediocre life. But you must always make sure that your aggression is not too straightforward, that is, one for which you can pay dearly. After all, you can strive for more in different ways - you can push through like a tank until some obstacle stops you, or you can strive for more by carefully and competently avoiding obstacles, and with less resistance and a greater degree of probability, achieve what you want. So, on the one hand, aggressive greed makes a person more ambitious and purposeful - it gives him strength and energizes him. But on the other hand, it clouds the mind and makes a person less prudent, less cautious, less pragmatic. Such greed has ruined many people because they were unable to control it with their minds, and it pushed them to their limits, after which they fell prey to it. Therefore, of course, you can and should want more, but at the same time you need to balance your desires with your capabilities. We all have limited strength.

Greed driven by fear

But greed caused by fear, although it does not exclude a person’s desire to have as much as possible, but at the same time, the emphasis is on the desire to preserve what he already has. In this case, fear encourages a person to hold on to everything he has, and due to his lack of confidence in his own capabilities, he is afraid of losing even what he doesn’t really need. In fact, friends, aggressive greed is also fundamentally a product of fear, since aggression itself is the other side of fear. More precisely, behind greed there is always fear, only it manifests itself in different ways - in one case a person is very afraid of losing something, afraid of parting with something, and in another, he tries to drown out his fear by striving for more. After all, if you think like this, then a simple and obvious question arises - why do we need to have more than what we already currently have and what we objectively need? Okay, if a person has little of everything, if he lives on the edge of survival, his greed can still be understood, he is really scared. But when a person has a lot of everything, but he still can’t calm down and furiously strives for more, this can cause bewilderment in some people. Such greed is difficult to understand. But probably. After all, the best way to get rid of the fear of losing the benefits you have is to increase them. In addition, we should not forget about the pleasures that we all strive to obtain in our lives. After all, no matter what you say, greed helps a person receive great pleasure when, with its help, he acquires the desired benefits.

Pain and pleasure are what drive us. Greed allows us to avoid pain and helps us experience pleasure, depending on what we want more at one time or another in our lives. Usually, the fear of losing something is stronger than the desire to gain something. Therefore, for the vast majority of people, greed is a means of getting rid of fear when, as mentioned above, not wanting to lose what they have, they strive to get more. Fear makes many people greedy. But greed does not always help improve life; more often than not, it makes it worse. And all because a greedy person does not control himself, he is not aware of his actions when he gives in to the feeling of greed.

And yet greed is needed, both aggressive and that which is caused by a feeling of fear. Our life is designed in such a way that there must always be some kind of change in it; it cannot, because it should not, always be stable and unchanged. And if not one thing, then another will cause these changes. Greed is one of those incentives that forces a person to change his life. It is good that when a person is aware of his greed, then he can make the necessary changes in his life more thoughtfully. Well, if there is no awareness, if a feeling of greed blinds a person and forces him to act thoughtlessly, then the consequences of his actions are quite difficult to calculate. They often lead a person to extremely negative consequences. I will tell you below about the harm greed can cause to a person. But first, let's talk in more detail about how it benefits us. Still, we must clearly understand what greed gives us in order to benefit from it.

The benefits of greed

So, the benefit of greed lies in the fact that a person driven by it, as we have found out, always strives for more, he does not stop there and is constantly aimed at a greater result. This allows greedy people, whose greed is based primarily on aggression rather than fear, not only to preserve the benefits they have, but also to acquire new ones. As for the greed that is caused by fear, it is useful in that it allows people to hold on to the vital goods they have when they are not confident in their capabilities. Even if it often doesn’t look very nice, sometimes even disgusting, greedy people often turn out to be more resistant to all sorts of shocks that can seriously harm their well-being. Sometimes a saved penny or a saved piece of bread can come in very handy in a difficult situation, when the fate of a person, as well as his family members, depends on even a small amount of resources.

A greedy person always takes the resources he has very seriously, as well as those resources that do not yet belong to him. The slight madness into which he falls, being possessed by a feeling of greed, contributes to the fact that he persistently pursues his goals, trying at all costs to preserve what he has and/or get even more. We must admit that if we weren’t all a little greedy, we would be less tenacious. It's my personal opinion. And then, if not for greed, life itself would be less dynamic. After all, some people, as they say, burn because of greed, others achieve impressive results, and still others survive. All this makes life less predictable, more intense and, of course, very interesting. Greed gives every person a chance to improve their life. After all, on the one hand, a person can take advantage of the greed of other people when they lose their heads because of it, and on the other, he can achieve impressive success in life due to the burning desire to have more of what he already has. So while some people lose everything they have due to greed, others gain it. And life does not stand still - something changes in it all the time.

I have long been convinced that motivation plays the most important role for a person in this life. Not knowledge, not the ability to use it, not something else, but motivation - which makes a person active, which pushes him to learn something new and to work. You can be talented, but lazy, you can be very smart and know a lot, be able to do a lot, but do nothing, strive for nothing, want nothing. Without motivation, without incentive, no matter what society you live in, even if it is all saturated with useful information, you will achieve nothing. And it doesn’t matter what pushes a person forward - fear, greed, aggression, sexual desire, curiosity - the main thing is that the person is “alive”, that he strives for something. Otherwise it is not a person. Our life takes on additional meaning when we do something, strive for something, want something, are charged for something, when our eyes sparkle and we are interested in living. And even though greed is not the best source of internal energy, not the most ethical incentive, not the most beautiful motivation - if the person driven by it “lives”, if he is full of plans and ideas, if he is active and purposeful, then it is definitely useful for him.

The harm of greed

The harm of greed is also obvious - first of all, it is the lack of a sense of proportion in everything. If a person goes to extremes because of greed, he can lose everything, absolutely everything. Greed blinds people, it forces them to make mistakes, prevents them from making more balanced and thoughtful decisions, and does not allow them to establish normal relationships with other people. If a person is greedy, he can either be unreasonably afraid of losing everything and then inevitably lose everything, or he can overly aggressively strive to get that “nut” that is too tough for him. Greed destroys many - we all know this very well. But it also destroys those who are unable to curb their feelings and emotions when necessary. A person can be greedy, but at the same time he can be quite intelligent when reason helps him stop if necessary. But reckless greed, which most often overcomes many people, definitely harms them. Sometimes, of course, people obsessed with greed, as they say, get away with it when, despite great risk, they achieve something. But at the same time, one should always remember that people blinded by greed walk on a razor’s edge and anything can happen in their lives, both good and bad. Often the risk that very greedy people expose themselves to is absolutely not justified.

Greed also prevents a person from competently and correctly managing his resources. If, say, he saves every penny, afraid to spend money again, then it is quite possible that in this way he is causing serious harm to himself and his family, depriving them of necessary resources. Because of greed, by the way, some families break up. A person can sometimes be unbearably greedy, so it is simply impossible to live with him. And at the same time, it doesn’t matter at all how much or how little money he has, because everyone can be greedy - both rich and poor. In general, greed caused by fear is sometimes so reckless that a person is ready, as they say, to hang himself for some little thing that he does not need at all. Having millions and even billions, people can deny themselves the things they need, sparing money on them to their own detriment. Such cases are known. This kind of greed is definitely not good for a person. But it causes him a lot of harm.

How to deal with greed

To cope with greed you need to recognize it. This is the best thing you can do with it. You just have to know that you are a greedy person - this is the most important thing. Then you need to understand what exactly is causing your greed - aggression or fear. If it is aggression, then in this case you need to think about the consequences to which your greed can lead you. That is, you need to correctly assess the risk you are taking when you strive for more. You don’t need to give up the desire itself—you just need to implement it competently. Perhaps it is not so much the desire to receive more benefits that is a problem for you, but the way in which you want to receive them. Therefore, while in a calm state, think carefully about everything that your greed calls you to do. You don’t need to fight it, you don’t need to resist it, you don’t need to suppress it within yourself - you just need to manage it competently. Want more? Great! This is fine. Wanting more is a completely normal and natural desire for any healthy person. But wanting and being able are still two different things. You shouldn’t get into trouble out of greed, wanting to get what you want no matter what, it’s not smart. It is better to think through different ways to get what you want and choose the most acceptable ones for yourself. So analyze your behavior and identify signs of greed in it, they must be there. And then decide how best to satisfy your desires generated by greed.

If your greed is caused by fear, then you definitely need to work on your self-esteem and self-confidence. If you are afraid of losing something, it means you doubt that in the future you will be able to acquire it when you need it. Think about what and how much you need to live and how you can get it. Suppose your greed manifests itself in your unwillingness to spend the money you need to spend on things you need. So, do you doubt that you will be able to earn them in the future? Why do you doubt this? What's stopping you? What are your problems? Can they be solved? Of course they can be solved! Any problems can be solved. Do you agree? If you agree, then solve your problems. You have nothing to fear - you can always earn the amount of money you need, so don't be greedy - don't save every penny if you need to spend it. Don't deprive yourself of what you need. In this life, resources need to be used, not collected and then protected. It is pointless. You will always be able to obtain the resources you need, do not doubt it, do not doubt your capabilities. When you doubt yourself and your capabilities, it gives you a feeling of fear, which in turn makes you greedy. So don't doubt yourself. And if in doubt, then work on those weaknesses that make you unsure of your capabilities. Any weaknesses can be strengthened. And as you become stronger, you can definitely get everything you need.

Thus, friends, I believe that greed is not evil, not a sin, or even a problem, but you definitely need to be able to work with this feeling. And for this it is necessary to understand it, to realize it. You yourself see that greed is inherent in all people by nature, because everyone is afraid of losing something and everyone wants to get as much as possible. But at the same time, we do not call all people greedy, because not everyone’s greed manifests itself in an obvious negative way. Some people know how to manage it because they are aware of the harmful effects of greed on their lives and therefore control it or skillfully hide it from other people, while others behave like a capricious child whose candy was taken away, demanding more and more, or like a real miser, from whom you can’t ask for snow in winter, thus showing everyone his greed in the most obscene form. The only difference is this. I am sure, friends, you will be able to cope with your greed if it overcomes you, because now you know a lot about it. Greed is an insidious thing, and you absolutely cannot do without it; it motivates and can be difficult to cope with. So, don't let her control you.

How to deal with a greedy friend - understand, accept and forgive?

According to Chinese (and indeed any other) philosophy, a greedy person is always unhappy . Simply because he is unable to be satisfied with today and is always tormented by groundless vanity.

But the main question for the greedy’s friends remains: what to do? Should I completely sever the relationship so as not to feel constant resentment towards my fellow miser, come to terms with it and accept my friend as he is, or try to re-educate him?

Of course, if a relationship is an unbearable burden that you want to get rid of, then there is no point in such a relationship, and you need to leave.

But still, even a greedy person is capable of being responsive, interesting and loyal. Greed is not a death sentence , and it can be completely cured (or at least “de-aggravated”) with cunning, as well as understanding and love.

Portrait of a greedy man

Manfred Kets de Vries, a clinical psychoanalyst from Holland, elevates greed to the category of pathology. He compiled a unique portrait by which one can identify a greedy person:

Egocentrism. As a rule, such people are fixated on themselves. The word “I” is heard in their communication as often as situations occur in which they place their own interests above the feelings and needs of others.
Envy. Expressed in people's strong desire to own other people's property, status or privileges. Greed and envy go together like twin brothers.
Lack of empathy. Caring about other people's feelings is not part of the repertoire of qualities of a greedy person. All that remains is a mimicry of sincerity. In reality, they do not understand and are not interested in the emotions and experiences of others. They tend to avoid taking responsibility for their behavior, which creates communication problems and makes people “difficult.”
The mood color is grey. As a rule, greedy people think in slightly different categories. Let's take the situation with the business pie: when everyone is focused on increasing it, a greedy person will try to grab a significant part of the existing result. Such people believe that they always deserve more, even in cases where saturation occurs at the expense of others. This is where the greatest dissatisfaction with life comes from. The mood color is grey.
Manipulation. Greedy people are master manipulators. They are much more talented in relation to the work done by others. Charm, coquetry and charm are used. All for the sake of feeding your ego.
Here and now. Another characteristic of greedy people is their focus on short-term results. Satisfy your desire here and now, and let others deal with the consequences. This, by the way, very organically coexists with hoarding and frugality.
Unprincipled. Greedy people are not distinguished by their subtle mental structure. Compromising your values and ethics to achieve a goal or satisfy a desire is acceptable. Such people love to look for loopholes and workarounds, go against society and break traditional norms and ideas about morality.

How to do it?

Be an example for your friend. Give him gifts, treat him to dinner, and do not skimp on kind deeds and words.
Treat your friend's greed with a smile and humor. Let him understand that you notice his greed, and you don’t like it, but you are not going to give up your friend.
It also makes sense to teach your friend “lessons of greed” from time to time, mirroring his attitude towards you. Again, without anger or moralizing. Let him feel how insulting it is to be the friend of a greedy person.

And most importantly, be magnanimous, merciful and generous yourself . It is impossible to remain greedy when you are surrounded by kind and bright people, whose words and actions come from the heart.

Have you ever had greedy friends in your life? And how did you build relationships with them? Share your stories in the comments below!

Treatment

Manfred Kets de Vries recommends that those suffering from greed make an appointment with a psychotherapist. The fact is that often this quality grows from childhood and goes into the unconscious. The task of a psychologist in such a situation is to find out the reason why a person developed greed. In therapy sessions, unresolved conflicts, childhood traumas, and learning to control emotions are often discussed. Sometimes a replacement of values occurs: in them, the therapist tries to bring to the fore in the patient not greed, but love, feelings of emotional closeness and acceptance towards others. Altruism and the idea of “giving gets rich” are encouraged.

What are the benefits of aggressive greed?

As we have already written, greedy people in an aggressive form can always boast of having greater benefits and, as a rule, they achieve more. But in order not to get bogged down in this unpleasant greed, you should know when to stop and know when to stop. Perhaps you consider yourself a normal person, moreover, you look down on those who do not know how to save and earn money. But still, you shouldn’t reveal your essence too straightforwardly; be careful not to attract attention with your defiant behavior.

It turns out that you can be aggressively greedy, but you need to understand that there are two sides to this coin. On the one hand, this is justified ambition and the desire to be wealthy. On the other hand, excessive greed can cloud a person’s mind and lead to a complete loss of control over his actions.

Aggressive and uncontrolled greed has ruined more than one life. People lost their minds and could not control their actions. Think of wars, crime stories, murders and other serious crimes. More often they are committed due to enrichment.

Why do people become greedy?

The reasons for greed are multifaceted and not always clear-cut. Some people are forced to become greedy by loneliness, which literally develops excessive selfishness and self-centeredness, while others are driven by envy. There are also people for whom their own financial situation is the most important thing in life: they simply save, save, and save.

We will show 4 groups of reasons , most often identified by psychologists who in one way or another work with greedy people. This:

Hard past . It has already been shown that in a number of situations, depression due to a lack of something, for example, money, can in the future, if opportunities exist, lead a person to greed. He will save, but not spend. He will receive, but not give.
Heredity . Here it is fair to talk not about heredity as such, but about what a person learns while living with his parents. This is not in the literal sense of the word heredity, but something like the absorption of attitudes. Looking at parents who are greedy in everything, the child unwittingly becomes the same.
Upbringing . This is almost the same as the second point, however, the matter concerns not the indirect formation of greed, that is, due to observations of parents in childhood, but the direct one. The point is that some parents deliberately literally program their children that it is normal to be greedy. A simple example is instilling the following attitudes: “Play with this toy yourself, don’t give it to anyone”; “I packed lunch for you at school, eat it yourself and don’t share it with anyone.”
Psychology . There is a fair opinion that greed can be a consequence of serious complexes and phobias. In such situations, a person who is a greedy person simply seeks to compensate for his fears and experiences through it, resorting to the accumulation of various kinds of material and non-material benefits. It's like stress eating, only instead of eating there is accumulation, often combined with an inability to share or spend.

What reasons do you think influence the formation of the quality in question more than others?

I think it's a difficult past.

It seems to me that it's all about heredity.

I think it's fairest to talk about education.

100%

It seems that the reasons are exclusively psychological in nature and are tied to phobias and complexes.

Voted: 2

When is it necessary to be greedy and is there any benefit from it?

Greed in moderation is good. But only in moderation. The desire to have 100 thousand in a bank account or in a sock at home for a rainy day is a completely normal desire. The ability to help a truly needy loved one is the same norm. Being greedy in moderation is not necessarily necessary, it requires a balance between real necessity, between possibilities and the expediency of frugality.

There is no benefit from greed as such. However, we are all greedy in our own way. Some more, some less. And that is why it is extremely important to always seek balance. Based on the example given with savings for a “rainy day,” we can say that the usefulness of greed is only really revealed as real usefulness when the corresponding impulses (to accumulate, save, multiply, and so on) are rational and justified, do not have fanatical aspirations and impulses that are not adequate to reality.

Do you think it is good to be a greedy person or is it still bad?

It seems to me that this is more bad than good. Anyway.

50%

Fine. At least for me personally.

I think it's good, but only in moderation. The one you're talking about.

Can not say. It all depends on the specific case of greed, I guess.

50%

Voted: 2

The result of improper upbringing

According to psychologists, the age at which a child begins to develop a sense of greed is 2 years. At this time, he is already well aware that he exists separately from the outside world - mom or dad, their things. It is then that it is important to form a clear idea in the child of his own toys and his right to use them at his own discretion.

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If parents give their child a toy, but demand that they follow the rules for using and storing it, the child begins to think that it is not the same as him. This leads to the development of greed.

The next reason may be that the baby is taught too early the need to share toys. If parents do this before the age of 3-4, the child turns out to be psychologically unprepared for such an action and begins to worry about what will happen to his things if they don’t want to return them or if they are returned broken.

Children from large families, as a rule, do not have their own toys, so they do not feel that they have played enough with them. This is also the reason for possible greed.

Inability to be a friend

If a person has not been able to make friends with anyone since childhood, he feels psychological discomfort. And then he looks for the opportunity to communicate with others for their or his own benefit.

This problem forces us to think in exclusively material terms, completely forgetting about spirituality. To identify such people, it is enough to observe how interested they are in listening to your problems. If this bothers a person, it means that he is making friends only for the sake of profit.

Psychological basis

It's not just people who are greedy by nature. If you look at the animal world, the feeling of insatiability is not alien to most species of mammals. Animals constantly strive to increase their chances of survival in a cruel world, and greed helps them do this. Gluttony for food ensures survival in the event of hungry times. The insatiable desire to reproduce helps increase the chances of passing on your DNA to more descendants. Greed is an integral part of the very natural structure of life.

The desire for abundance, profit and enrichment has been inherent in humanity since the appearance of our species on the planet. This is a natural personality characteristic of people. Gluttony is inherent in each individual to varying degrees.

The psychology of greed is based on several mechanisms.

Human behavior is determined by three biological instincts - nutrition, reproduction and dominance.
For several thousand years of evolutionary development, humanity lived in conditions of limited resources. This circumstance did not allow biological instincts to be fully satisfied. There was a constant risk of death, starvation, inability to procreate, or the emergence of a dominant competitor.
To minimize threats to biological interests, a person constantly strives to accumulate and increase the number of values. The more food, mates, and dominance mechanisms, the greater the likelihood of survival in a harsh world with limited resources. This is the essence of greed, its evolutionary benefit.
Gluttony began to be perceived negatively with the development of socialization, when a person began to share with other unrelated individuals. To regulate and restrain biological instincts, social regulatory instruments (rules, laws, religious norms) were formed.
The irrepressible desire for benefits acquired an even more negative connotation during the period of development and improvement of human economic activity. The amount of food has increased, people have become more mobile. This circumstance made it possible to facilitate the search for a partner and limit dominance by laws, moral and ethical values.
General living conditions and rules of behavior in society were formed too quickly. A person’s biological instincts have not had time to restructure, which is why greed and other vicious feelings are so relevant in modern society. A person instinctively strives to protect his main values - satiety, the opportunity to procreate and dominance.

Based on the nature of people, the feeling of greed is inherent in every person. But the degree of dominance and manifestation of this trait over other feelings depends on the degree to which a particular person perceives social factors (upbringing, education, cultural values, traditions, etc.)

From a psychological point of view, greed can be of two types.

Aggressive. This desire manifests itself in the desire to get more new things, to multiply what is available.
Cowardly. Aspirations aimed at preserving existing values, regardless of their usefulness.

The reasons that lead to greed based on the psychology of the phenomenon:

unconscious, instinctive predominance of the biological principle over the social foundations of the individual;
fear of not realizing oneself in life, of losing the benefits gained;
desire for security;
limitations, low level of intellectual, spiritual, creative development.

A wide variety of factors can lead to greed. Events in childhood, difficult living conditions, attitudes from other people - all this influences the rooting of a feeling of insatiability in the inner world.

Initially a negative character

The reason for an incorrect attitude towards money may also be a lack of moral qualities, such as sympathy, support, and mutual assistance. Such people are not ashamed to use someone else’s Wi-Fi, not leave tips to waiters, deceive sellers, and the like.

And such greedy people, as a rule, are wealthy people themselves, but they always try to be in the category of those in need. Sometimes people who really lack finances share the latter, but greedy people without moral principles do not have such a habit.

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Difficult past

Experts have proven that if depression occurs in a person against the backdrop of a lack of money or other primary material benefits, in the future this can awaken in the patient greed and a desire to accumulate funds, not allowing himself to spend them. Instead of sharing, such a person is only able to receive.

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How to detect in another person?

It is very easy to recognize a vice in a relative, friend, colleague, or even a casual acquaintance - simple observation is enough .

A person is definitely greedy if you notice that he meets at least three descriptions from the list:

He is aloof from the general mass of people, stingy with emotions and words, often constrained and limited in movements.
Takes part in joint events with pleasure only when he does not have to pay for them. In all other circumstances, strive to “merge.”
Haughty and arrogant. A typical greedy person considers himself higher than others in social rank because he is more thoughtful and has a financial cushion that he does not waste, unlike other “spendthrifts,” in his opinion.
Too pedantic. In most cases, greedy people always have everything organized and rarely out of place. The ideal order in this case is again dictated by a painful phobia of losing something important from material wealth.
He gets very upset if someone managed to get something on more favorable terms than him, be it a consumer product or a more respectable thing such as a high position or an expensive car.
Cold even in relationships with close people. It is very difficult for greedy people to develop connections, become attached to the opposite sex, and simply show interest. These people often quarrel because they make excessive (sometimes exorbitant) demands not only on themselves, but also on their family and friends.