So in terms of psychology, I think Steemit and Crypho has a bunch of them attached. In terms of Steemit, I have always seen the currency as free money, didn't invest any fiat, can't lose any fiat. Of course, nothing is really free, since I spend a lot of time sometimes crafting a post, however I see this as something that I benefit from anyway.
So to be more specific, I like art, and most of my posts are art contest related, this being not so much for the potential reward, but rather I use it as a means of inspiration. I love the fact that I don't have to think of a topic, since my day job involves solving design problems. So the point I am actually trying to get to(sorry took the long road), is that the real value to me is the fact that I get to skill up in terms of digital drawing, and I get to hang out with people that share my interest in this.
So to be fair, I've never had the power to grant someone some $20+ magical money, but I imagine it must be a great and also somewhat uncomfortable feeling? I don't think I would quite know how to treat it fairly, especially with so much nice content on here. I feel it's a lot like judging art, do I only vote for things I like? What if I can see someone spent hours on something, even though it might not be my preferred style? Do I reward people I know, simply because I like them, or perhaps think in the same things they do? I imagine this could be quite a dilemma, although I do think it's vastly easier to give out money without any big direct repercussions.
One other thing I can mention, it that I only recently really grasped the concept of how much money we are really working with here, after I took some SBD out. (Took me forever since I was a bit of a noob about it) When I finally saw it in my wallet, 10 SBD turned into about R860 (South African Rand). This was a significant amount of money. For about 3 time this amount I can replace my glasses that I've been putting off for like 3 years now or something. This really gave me some context on the actual value of what I am working with.
So this did make me think about the actual value of Steemit, however I don't think this really influenced my vote, but rather it sparked my motivation to engage more with people on Steemit. And of course this has a side interest of earning some money, but then again, I think earning rather than asking is a great principal to go on. And if this could help solve some real world problems for other people and of course myself, how much more awesome does it make this whole community.
Sorry if I babbled on a bit, I do find psychological topics very interesting, hope most of this made sense...