Early Negative Experiences
In the case of greed, the early negative experiences typically consist of insufficient or inadequate nurturing in early childhood, perhaps enough to threaten the child’s survival.
All infants are born with a natural desire for love, nurture, care, attention and interaction. In some cases, however, the source of such things—notably the caregiver—may be absent or unavailable. Perhaps not all of the time, but enough for the infant to experience the lack. Enough for the child to become terrified of never getting enough of what he or she needs.
The situation could be natural and unavoidable, like the untimely death of a parent, or living through a time of famine. Alternatively, the situation could be deliberately imposed, such as willful neglect.
Another example would be a mother who is too off-her-head on drugs to look after her child.
Whatever the circumstances, the effect on the child is a sense of deprivation, unfulfilled need, of never having enough.
Another common factor in the formation of greed is the availability of substitutes. Imagine, for example, a parent who fails to provide nurturing but – out of guilt – provides lots of gifts in the form of money, toys, chocolate, TV. In effect, the parent says “You cannot have me, you cannot have what you really need, but – hey – you can have this instead.”
Ultimately, the substitute is always inadequate. No amount of TV can make up for lack of human contact. No amount of chocolate can make up for lack of love. But the child learns to make do with whatever is available.
Fear
Based on the above misconceptions and early negative experiences, the child becomes gripped by a specific kind of fear. In this case, the fear is of lack—of having to go without something essential as there may not be enough of it to go around.
What exactly “it” is dependent upon the individual’s own idea of what it is they really need, but it will be something specific like love, attention, power, fame, money, and so on.
Because of this constant fear, the individual will obsessively crave the “needed” thing. They will also tend to envy those who have that thing.
Source and Credits: Personality Spirituality