Emotional Factors in Currency Perception

People may fill currencies with moral and emotional meanings and become attached to currencies in a similar way that they are attached to a brand. Such meanings and affective attachments to a currency may result in people’s resistance to proposed currency changes as well as playing a significant role in everyday consumer behaviour. Following Tajfel’s accentuation theory, it is shown in two studies that (1) opinions that prices in a currency (labelled an “expensive currency”) are high result in perception of prices in this currency as higher than prices in another currency, and that (2) positive affect attached to a currency results in perception of prices in this currency being higher than prices expressed in a currency which is not emotionally laden.