You know how when our lives seem to be going wrong well meaning friends and family members often encourage us to “count our blessings”? According to a new study published in Psychological Science they may be giving out interesting advice. According to psychologists Xinyue Zhou, Sun of Yat-Sen University, Kathleen D. Vohs,of the  University of Minnesota, and Roy F. Baumeister, from  Florida State University, we would be better off counting our money instead.

The group set out to investigate the social, physical and psychological impact of money on the human psyche. To do this they studied two groups of voluntary study participants. One group was asked to count out eighty $100 dollar bills and the other 80 blank pieces of paper.

After this task was completed by all they were then asked to take part in a computerized ball tossing game called Cyperball while being monitored for social distress levels.  All participants were told that they were playing with three other unseen human gamers but in actual fact their only competition was computer generated. Some gamers received the ball an equal number of times while others were quickly excluded from the game. Out of the excluded participants those who had counted the money and not the blank paper registered less social distress.

In the next experiment participants were asked to immerse their fingers in bowls of very hot water after either counting money or blank paper again. Those who had counted the money rated a lower intensity of the feeling of the hot water and physical pain they experienced than the paper counters. Those who had counted currency also rated themselves as feeling “stronger” than the paper counting group.

As a final twist ending to their experiments the researchers asked some of the group to list their monthly financial expenditures while others were asked about the weather in the last month. Both groups were then sent back to Cyperball game and once again measured for social distress. Those who had discoursed about the weather experienced normal levels of social distress while those who had been asked to detail their personal finances experienced both higher social distress when they were excluded from the ball game and increased pain from the hot water test.

As the psychologists conclude at the end of their study, “The mere idea of money has considerable psychological power, enough to alter reactions to social exclusion and even to physical pain.”