Psychologist Kathleen Fox, researcher from Carleton Management School in University of Minnesota, found that people would feel satisfaction when they think of money. Based on other research which is that satisfaction can enhance the tolerance of pain, Fox began to consider whether the money can reduce the pain. Despite the pain had been studied for many years, but scientists had failed to figure out why people feel the pain and endurance is quite different. For example, supposed 1 to 10 as a measure of the degree of pain, for a people, the degree of pain is four, but it may be the eight for another man. In addition, the same individuals and the same pain, but at the different situation, the degree is not the same. Fox and his colleagues recruited two groups of students for this experiment, one group counted many 100 U.S. dollars while the other group counted eighty pieces of paper, then the researchers asked students to immerse their fingers into water with 50 degrees, as a result, student who had counted the money feel less pain. In another experiment, researchers asked students to play games, throw a virtual ball between each other, the results showed that the student who had counted the money feel less tension and pain.

In order to understand why the bills help alleviate the pain, the researchers asked the students participated in this experiment to assess their self-esteem, attraction and emotions. The results showed that the only relevance is people would feel strong ability and deal with the negative situation if they have much money. Daily Mail quoted the words of Fox: When people think of money in a subtle way such as counted currency, they would feel less pain when face discomfort." Before suffering from pain, you may be able to think of a way to recharge your batteries," she said," The next time when I run the marathon, I would firstly think about money."

But, social psychologist Ellis Finkel who comes from Northwestern University didn’t agree with this point. He said the discovery is groundbreaking, but if bring these laboratory data into the real world, poor men or people who encountered problems of life or physical discomfort should feel more pain than the rich. In response to Finkel’s point, Fox said there is no need to enjoy the benefits of money by cash, just keeping your eyes on the computer screen where display lots of money, you could feel better.