What's money worth? Determinants of the subjective value of money

This study with 181 subjects, 79 women and 102 men, randomly chosen from the local area of Upper Austria, is aimed at two major questions, (a) whether or not the validity of Stevens' power function can be replicated (Galanter, 1990) for money utility scaling, and (b) which of three possible determinants (monthly net income, attitudes towards money and money handling, and personality traits, i.e.: the combination of extroversion x emotional stability) influence the subjective value of money. To answer the first question we employed magnitude production methods, and for the second question we made use of LISREL analyses. The results of magnitude production do not support the validity of Stevens' power function for money utility scaling. The LISREL model reveals that the subjective value of money is dependent on monthly net income and on attitudes towards money, but not on the personality pattern of emotional stability and extroversion.