Emotional Economics in Dogs and People

The recent economic cafuffle with the Bush administration acting as more of a socialist government than I would like turned my thoughts to economic issues. One of these is the variation in the value of things based on the situation. A great illustration is a dog's thought of value. Dogs have values for things, put down a stick, a tennis ball or a bone, and the dog will go to the bone first, and probably the tennis ball next. But these values aren't stable. A tennis ball dramatically increases in value if it is in the mouth of another dog. In fact everything increases in value in the mouth of another dog. This is because to a large extent the value of an object to a dog is how much it illustrates the dog's power in comparison to another dog. The most valued object is an object taken from another dog that is then used to taunt the dog it was taken from. This is, of course, exactly the same reason why Hummers were actually sold to people despite being extremely impracticle vehicles.
I am not immune to variation in valuation. Christina got her bonus in May. Before that point I valued a dollar in our accounts emotionally much more than after receiving the bonus, simply because there was less money in our accounts, and I despise debt. Debt makes me feel basically as though I am (or more accurately now, Christina is) a slave for the amount of time until that debt is paid off. Therefore the risk of being in debt, even for a short time, gives me stress. Now, that bonus money was earmarked for the hot tub, it wasn't going to be used for anything else, so effectively we had no more money to live on than before. We didn't actually spend much more money to live during that process. But I felt much less stress, simply because the number in the account was so much larger. Recently we paid upfront for the hot tub and construction, and the number went down (and because the payment wasn't finalized until yesterday it was uncertain) and my stress about money went up. The overall plan had not changed at all, the dollars were still going to be used for the same things, could buy the same amount of stuff, but I felt differently about things. And finally, the hot tub was completed, the payments made and a concrete number remains in the bank account, and I feel better as a result. Financially nothing had changed from the plan that was made, and yet my valuation of the basic unit of economic exchange had gone up and down based on the path along that plan. Completely irrational behavior.
The valuation of things also changes based on experience. I remember the first house that I rented with three other students when I was twenty years old. It was a rather crappy house that I shared with several people who cleaned even less than I (which was quite a feat, my father still talks about the horros residing within that house). But I loved living in that house because it was freedom, it wasn't living under the rules of another, it was my house. Now that I live in a house I own with a lovely wife my valuation of living in a crappy, filthy house with several twenty year old males has dropped dramatically. It now seems like something to avoid like the plague. But there's no inherent reason why my valuation should have changed. Ideally I would be in seventh heaven at my present situation, and should I ever have to share a house with college students I should simply return to loving that situation. But habituation to luxury actually reduces the emotional value of luxury. This is why being actively grateful for what we have is so tightly linked to happiness. Something I try to work on is to try to value things as I did when I first had them, rather than as I am prone to do now. It's not easy.