Minding Money: How Understanding of Value is Culturally Promoted

Adding to the issues of cognitive economics (Cortes and Londoño IPBS: Integrative Psychological &; Behavioral Science 43(2):178–184, 2009) and the social psychology of “shadow economics” (Salvatore et al. IPBS: Integrative Psychological &; Behavioral Science 43(2), 2009), the carrier of economic exchanges, money, plays a key role in children’s socialization in different societies. Money given to children, ‘pocket money,’ is a negotiated settlement between children’s social demands and those of their parents. I analyze such negotiations here on the basis of a concrete case of a Korean family in which the provision of pocket money given the child was inconsistent over time. The results indicate the social ecology of money use, in both children and their parents, sets the stage for value construction of the meaning of money.