Mental representation of money in experts and nonexperts after the introduction of the Euro

The aim of the present study is to show the representation of the category “money” that Italians have after the introduction of the Euro. In addition, it was assessed whether different expertise in handling money might have an effect. To assess the expertise we asked to answer three different groups (students, retailers, and bank clerks) to answer the questionnaire. It was expected that the mental representation of the concept of money should be different among the three groups since they have different ways of handling money depending on their specific activities. Results showed that different exemplars of money are actually perceived as differently representative of the concept money. Moreover, there was an effect of expertise, which led the three groups to have different mental representations of the money category.