Your Money

Does Money Make You Mean?

Bankrate.com
By Jay MacDonald


We all know that money can't buy love or happiness. But could just thinking about money actually make you mean?

A new behavioral study finds that folks with money on their minds are less helpful, less considerate and less willing to ask for assistance or engage with others than those who have not been preconditioned to money. On the bright side, the money-minded tend to be more independent and focused and they tend to work longer on a task before asking for help.

The nine experiments in the study, published as "The Psychological Consequences of Money" in a recent issue of Science Magazine, used random samples of students and nonstudents at the University of Minnesota, Florida State University and the University of British Columbia.

Kathleen Vohs, the assistant professor of marketing at the UM Carlson School of Management who authored the article with Nicole Mead of FSU and Miranda Goode of UBC, says she was surprised at how consistent the findings were across the nine experiments.

"Money may not be the root of all evil, but it might be the root of some indifference," she says. "It does make you perhaps indifferent to others."

At the drop of a pencil
To determine whether money in mind leads to self-sufficient behavior, Vohs and her team divided their subjects into groups. The control group received neutral preconditioning while the "money prime" group was subtly reminded of money in various ways: a word scramble puzzle that contained money references, a poster depicting different currencies, stacks of play money or tokens, or reading an essay that mentioned money.

Following the preconditioning, the groups were given a task or placed in a staged situation that tested measurable subconscious behavior.

In the first two experiments, subjects were given a puzzle and told that help was available for the asking, either from the experimenter or a peer who had just completed the exercise. Result: The money-prime participants waited significantly longer than control subjects to ask for help.

In the next four experiments, subjects were asked for help in several scenarios: by the experimenter, by another participant, by a passerby who spilled a box of pencils in a random accident or by the suggestion that they donate to the University Student Fund. Result: The money-prime subjects offered to fill out fewer data sheets, spent less time helping a peer, picked up fewer pencils and donated less to the student fund than their neutral counterparts.

In the final three experiments, money-prime participants placed more physical distance between themselves and a participant partner, preferred solitary to group leisure activities and more frequently chose to work alone rather than with a peer compared to the control participants.

'Social cluelessness'
But does that necessarily mean money makes you mean?

"No, we don't find any evidence of that," Vohs says. "We take a lot of emotion measures, and money reminders don't put people in a different mood. Since mean people are generally in a bad mood, we rule that out. In nine studies, we found no effect on mood."

Then again, money primes weren't exactly candidates for Mr. or Miss Congeniality either.

"We didn't find any animosity; it was more of a sense of social cluelessness. They're not mindful of other people. We don't have any indication that they were being rude to these people. It was more 'I can't help you' or 'I don't know how to help you.' Granted, being helpful would be a nicer thing to do, but the intention wasn't to be selfish or mean; they just didn't see that they had a role in this person's life."

The study doesn't surprise New York psychologist and author April Lane Benson. She's been counseling clients for years that the acquisition of wealth for the wrong reasons is virtually a prescription for unhappiness.

"So much of the literature says that there is an inverse relationship between subjective well-being and materialism," she says. "But it only holds when the motives have to do with the desire to hoard, amass and use money for power and control, keep up with the Joneses, rather than as a vehicle for generosity. It does not hold when you want money in order to educate your children or save for the future."

Benson notes with interest that the study's findings were remarkably consistent, regardless of geography or the wealth of the participants.

"The fact that it is consistent over nine studies might tell us that there aren't that many of us around who want money for the right reasons," she says.

Money changes everything
Vohs says the study's findings may have broad implications from the boardroom to the schoolroom. If just the thought of money tends to alter behavior, an increased awareness of that might one day lead to more productive relationships at work and at home.

"I think there is a power here to be used for good as well," she says. "Depending on the results you are seeking to bring about, you can either underplay or enhance the role of money."

Take "Dilbert," which portrays the prototypical dysfunctional corporate cube farm where the well-intentioned efforts of the engineers are continually undercut by the bottom-line reasoning of a clueless management.

"If, as a manager, your goal is to get work groups to be very, very cooperative, you want to really minimize the presence of money and the importance of money, because if cooperation is the key, that's going to be problematic," says Vohs.

"On the other hand, you can use money to orchestrate certain situations. For instance, if you had a task where you really wanted people to just go at it full force and independently because maybe teamwork would slow the project down, then you may want to motivate them with money."

On the home front, where money battles rank as the No. 1 cause of divorce, an ounce of awareness of the potency of the subject may eliminate the need for a ton of counseling.

"In interpersonal relationships, we know that it's very difficult to talk about money," she says. "Couples, and even parents and children, need to approach the topic with very open eyes and realize that disagreements that arise might just be because of the money and not because of what the other person is saying."

When it comes to raising kids, motivating with cash may defeat your purpose.

"You're working at cross purposes if you're going to incentivize with money. I think it's important to learn just to learn. On the other hand, I think that things like making the bed or helping set the table could be incentivized with a weekly allowance and I think that would be just fine because those are daily tasks that they're not going to find much love in anyway. You can use money as an incentive to help kids be more self-reliant, but downplay the role of money when you're teaching values."

Benson agrees: "These are important findings that parents should know about. These studies show parents that if they're throwing money and money talk around too much, this is the kind of long-term effect it could have."

  12.20,又是一个特别的日子，我回到了中国，在离开的半年之后，我又回来了！曾记得前年第一次准备踏出国门的时候，我和妈妈说我三年都不回来，却难料到一年之内回来了两次，也成就了两件人生大事！无独有偶，这次回来的日子，刚好是我和老婆恋爱七个月的纪念日，但我必须说明当初我订机票的时候，选的日子只是在课程结束后的周一－－12.18，但在空中飞了一圈最后到达广州白云国际机场的时候，却刚好是12月20日，整整的七个月了。刚刚走出闸口，我就看到老婆在那儿等着我，她明显在那里等了很久，思绪也很凌乱，那时候的她脸上似乎没有过多的表情，毕竟她面对的是一个传说多过实际的男朋友，我们传奇式的爱情故事让我们这对情侣虽然恋爱七个月，但从相识，恋爱到7月2日离开中国的时候加总起来也不足十天，然而却要分开半年再聚，很明显我在她脑海里面的模糊程度多过我对于她－－因为我的房间，手机，电脑都铺满了她的照片，分开的时间天天都对着她，即使不是真人。