Abstract: As a utility scale, money enables people to consensually determine values of material goods. Likewise, as another utility scale, cultural value allows people to consensually determine their own values. Here we propose that cultural value and monetary value overlap in the evolutionary functions, neurological correlates, behaviors, and cognitions of humans. In this review, we suggest that (i) cultural value and currency originate to serve similar evolutionary functions; (ii) behaviors that are consistent with social values (e.g., donation and cooperation) are represented in the same brain regions as monetary gain, while violations of social values (e.g., deception and aggression) are represented in the same brain regions as monetary loss; (iii) compared with prosocial behaviors and monetary gain, people are more sensitive to social transgressions as well as monetary loss (i.e., loss aversion); and (iv) globalization has similar effects on monetary systems as well as on value systems.

Key words: cultural value, money, social cognition