The Psychological Consequences of Money

Citation: Kathleen D. Vohs, Nicole L. Mead, Miranda R. Goode (2006) The Psychological Consequences of Money. Science (RSS)
DOI (original publisher): 10.1126/science.1132491
Semantic Scholar (metadata): 10.1126/science.1132491
Sci-Hub (fulltext): 10.1126/science.1132491
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): The Psychological Consequences of Money
Tagged: Psychology (RSS) psychology (RSS), money (RSS)

Summary

Experimenters show in this paper that being primed or reminded about the concept of "money" makes people behave more self sufficiently, want to be free from dependency, and prefer others not depend on them. In these experiments participants were either primed with the concept of money by either completing a sentence unscrambling task, or simply just shown money (screen savers with pictures of money, posters with pictures of money, monopoly money, etc.). When people were primed with money, they were less likely to ask for help on a difficult task than if they were not primed with money. Participants primed with money were also shown to be less likely to help others, less likely to donate money, and less interested in social interaction.

Theoretical and Practical Relevance

While money is good because it makes us self sufficient it may have implications for how we live in communities. If money makes us somewhat antisocial it is no wonder that in wealthy countries such as the US people are facing more isolation. Future work might consider how this effect of self sufficiency affects happiness.