Author: Erhard Theophil Wonneberger
& Harald A. Mieg
Summary:
In this article, we want to prepare the grounds for a psychology of trust in money, trust being key to sustainable money systems. On the basis of an analysis of functional money characteristics, we constructed 12 scales for trust-related money aspects: liquidity, fungibility, stability, backing, credibility of the issuers, system security, image, manageability and idealistic aspects. In an online study (N = 394) comprising a sub-sample of 97 users of community currencies in Germany, we tested the scales for three currencies: Euro, gold and community currencies. We could confirm the hypothesis of a divide between a hard, economic factor and a soft factor of trust in money. In addition, we found a third, idealistic factor in community currencies. The three currencies significantly differed with regard to the 12 trust-related functional aspects and specific uses: Euro is preferred for purchase and investing and gold for storage and community currencies for donations. The discussion centres on the concept of trust applied to money.
