Greed is one of seven basic character flaws or “dark” personality traits. We all have the potential for greedy tendencies, but in people with a strong fear of lack or deprivation, Greed can become a dominant pattern.
Greed is the tendency to selfish craving, grasping and hoarding. It is defined as:
A selfish or excessive desire for more than is needed or deserved, especially of money, wealth, food, or other possessions.
Other names for greed include avarice, covetousness and cupidity.
As with the opposite chief feature of self-destruction, greed stems from a basic fear of life. To be exact, greed is driven by a fundamental sense of deprivation, a need for something that is lacking or unavailable.
When this feeling of lack is particularly strong, a person can become utterly fixated on seeking what they “need”, always trying to get hold of the one thing that will finally eliminate the deep-rooted feeling of not having enough.
That one thing could be money, power, sex, food, attention, knowledge … just about anything. It could be something concrete or abstract, real or symbolic. But it will be something very specific on which the entire need-greed complex becomes fixated.
Once that happens, life becomes a quest to acquire as much of it as possible.
Components of greed
Like all chief features, greed involves the following components:
- Early negative experiences
- Misconceptions about the nature of self, life or others
- A constant fear and sense of insecurity
- A maladaptive strategy to protect the self
- A persona to hide all of the above in adulthood
Selfish and excessive desire is widely considered immoral, a violation of natural or divine law. For example, “avarice” is one of the seven deadly sins in Catholicism (avarice: pleasing oneself with material acquisitions and possessions instead of pleasing God). And according to Buddhism, “craving” is a fundamental hindrance to enlightenment (craving: compulsively seeking happiness through acquiring material things).
Source and Credits: Personality Spirituality