Based on metaphorical cognitive theory, this research did four experiments to examine whether and how one important feature of money, denomination, could influence prosocial behavior. Study 1 was an experiment with a sample size of 209 undergraduates (Mage = 18.97) showed that a larger denomination enhanced the probability of participants engaging in prosocial behavior rather than with a smaller denomination. Study 2 collecting data from 269 undergraduates (Mage = 18.50) further showed that larger denominations condition inspired more prosocial behavior than the control condition; and the small denominations condition produced similar levels of prosocial behavior to the control condition. Study 3 used single factor design with a sample size of 192 undergraduates (Mage = 20.49) repeated the results of Study 2. Furthermore, Study 3 excluded an important alternative explanation that the value rather than the denomination influenced prosocial behavior. Last, Study 4 applied a factorial design experiment with a sample size of 132 undergraduates (Mage = 20.92) which demonstrated that generosity mediated the effect of denomination on prosocial behavior; the effect of denomination on prosocial behavior did not depend on money priming methods. Finally, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.
AdamsF. M.OsgoodC. E. (1973). A cross-cultural study of the affective meanings of color. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 4(2), 135–156.
2.
AjzenI. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211.
3.
AndreoniJ.NikiforakisN.StoopJ. (2017). Are the rich more selfish than the poor, or do they just have more money? A natural field experiment (NBER Working Paper No. 23229). NBER Program(s): Public Economics.
4.
BaronR. M.KennyD. A. (1986). The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1173–1182. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1173
5.
BatsonC. D.ShawL. L. (1991). Evidence for altruism: Toward a pluralism of prosocial motives. Psychological Inquiry, 2(2), 107–122.
6.
BecchioC.SkewesJ.ElundT.FrithU.FrithC.RoepstorffA. (2011). How the brain responds to the destruction of money.Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics, 4(1), 1–10.
7.
BertiA. E.BombiA. S. (1988). The child’s construction of economics. Cambridge University Press.
8.
BeusJ. M.WhitmanD. S. (2017). Almighty dollar or root of all evil? Testing the effects of money on workplace behavior. Journal of Management, 43(7), 2147–2167. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314565241
9.
BregmanN. J.LipscombT. J.McAllisterH. A.MimsM. (1984). Sharing behavior: Effect of denomination value and number. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 144(1), 131–135.
10.
CamgözN.YenerC.GüvençD. (2002). Effects of hue, saturation, and brightness on preference. Color Research and Application, 27(3), 199–207.
11.
CarloG.RandallB. A. (2002). The development of a measure of prosocial behaviors for late adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 31, 31–44
12.
CarusoE. M.ShapiraO.LandyJ. F. (2017). Show me the money: A systematic exploration of manipulations, moderators, and mechanisms of priming effects. Psychological Science, 28(8), 1148–1159.
13.
CarusoE. M.VohsK. D.BaxterB.WaytzA. (2013). Mere exposure to money increases endorsement of free-market systems and social inequality.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General Issue, 142, 301–306. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029288
14.
CohenJ. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd Ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
CunninghamM. R. (1979). Weather, mood and helping behavior: Quasi experiments with the sunshine Samaritan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(11), 1947–1956.
17.
DovidioJ.PiliavinJ.SchroederD.PennerL. (2006). The social psychology of prosocial behavior. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
18.
EisenbergN.FabesR. A. (1998). Prosocial development. In W. Damon (Series ed.) and N. Eisenberg (Vol. ed.) (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology, vol. 3: Social, emotional, and personality development (5th ed., pp. 701–778). Wiley.
19.
EisenbergN.MillerP. A. (1987). The relation of empathy to prosocial and related behaviors. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 91–119. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.101.1.91
20.
EisenbergN.ShellR. (1986). The relation of prosocial moral judgment and behavior in children: The mediating role of cost. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12, 426–433. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167286124005
21.
EisenbergN.VanSchyndelS. K.SpinradT. L. (2016). Prosocial motivation: Inferences from an opaque body of work.Child Development, 87, 1668–1678. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12638
22.
FaulF.ErdfelderE.LangA.G.BuchnerA. (2007). G*power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences.Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175–191. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193146
23.
FazioR. H.OlsonM. A. (2003). Implicit measures in social cognition research: Their meaning and use. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 297–327.
24.
FieldA. (2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics. Sage Publications Ltd.
25.
FurnhamA. (2014). The new psychology of money. Routledge
26.
GasiorowskaA. (2019). Lay people’s and children’s theories of money. In GanglK.KirchlerE. (Eds.), A research agenda for economic psychology (pp. 11–25). Edward Elgar.
27.
GasiorowskaA.ChaplinL. N.ZaleskiewiczT.WygrabS.VohsK. D. (2016). Money cues increase agency and decrease prosociality among children: Early signs of market-mode behaviors.Psychological Science, 27(3), 331–344. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615620378
28.
GasiorowskaA.ZaleskiewiczT.WygrabS. (2012). Would you do something for me? The effects of money activation on social preferences and social behavior in young children. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33, 603–608.
29.
GinoF.PierceL. (2009). The abundance effect: Unethical behavior in the presence of wealth. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(2), 142–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.03.003
30.
GrayH. M.GrayK.WegnerD. M. (2007). Dimensions of mind perception. Science, 315(5812), 619.
31.
GuéguenN.JacobC. (2013). Behavioral consequences of money: When the automated teller machine reduces helping behavior. Journal of Socio-Economics, 47, 103–104.
32.
GuinoteA.CotziaI.SandhuS.SiwaP. (2015). Social status modulates prosocial behavior and egalitarianism in preschool children and adults.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(3), 731–736. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1414550112
33.
HaidtJ. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgement. Psychological Review, 108(4), 814–834
34.
HayesA. F. (2018). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
35.
HoffmanM. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge University Press.
36.
IliesR.PengA. C.SavaniK.DimotakisN. (2013). Guilty and helpful: An emotion-based reparatory model of voluntary work behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(6), 1051–1059.
37.
IsenA. M.ClarkM.SchwartzM. F. (1976). Duration of the effect of good mood on helping: “Footprints in the sands of time.”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(3), 385–393.
38.
JonasE.SullivanD.GreenbergJ. (2013). Generosity, greed, norms, and death: Differential effects of mortality salience on charitable behavior. Journal of Economic Psychology, 35, 47–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2012.12.005
KouchakiM.Smith-CroweK.BriefA. P.SousaC. (2013). Seeing green: Mere exposure to money triggers a business decision frame and unethical outcomes. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 121(1), 53–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2012.12.002
41.
KrausM. W.CallaghanB. (2016). Social class and prosocial behavior: The moderating role of public versus private contexts. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8(7), 769–777. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616659120
42.
KruegerD. W. (1986). Money, success, and success phobia. In D. W. Krueger (Ed.), The last taboo: Money as symbol and reality in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis (pp. 3–16). Brunner/Mazel.
43.
LakoffG.JohnsonM. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenges to western thought. Basic Books.
44.
LeaS. E.WebleyP. (2006). Money as tool, money as drug: The biological psychology of a strong incentive. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 161–176.
45.
LennonR.EisenbergN. (1987). Gender and age differences in empathy and sympathy. In N. Eisengerg & J. Strayer (Eds.), Empathy and its development: Cambridge studies in social and emotional development (pp. 195–217). Cambridge University Press.
46.
LiuW.AakerJ. (2008). The happiness of giving: the time-ask effect. Social Science Electronic Publishing.
47.
LodderP.OngH. H.GrasmanR. P. P. P.WichertsJ. M. (2019). A comprehensive meta-analysis of money priming.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(4), 688–712. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000570
48.
MarxK. (1964). The economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844 (Milligan Martin, trans). International Publishers.
49.
MeierB. P.RobinsonM. D.CavenA. J. (2008). Why a big mac is a good mac: Associations between affect and size. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 30(1), 46–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973530701866516
50.
MichailovaJ.BührenC. (2017). Money priming and social behavior of natural groups in simple bargaining and dilemma experiments. Magks Papers on Economics, 13, 121–133.
51.
MokA.De CremerD. (2015). Strengthened to forgive workplace transgressions: Activating thoughts of new money increase interpersonal forgiveness. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 45(8), 437–450.
52.
OstromE.WalkerJ.GardnerR. (1992). Covenants with and without a sword: Self-governance is possible. American Political Science Review, 86, 404–417.
53.
Padilla-WalkerL. M.CarloG. (2014). The study of prosocial behavior: Past, present, and future. In L. M. Padilla-Walker & G. Carlo (Eds.), Prosocial development: A multidimensional approach (pp. 3–16). Oxford University Press.
54.
Persico, Postlewaite, & Silverman. (2004). The effect of adolescent experience on labor market outcomes: The case of height. Journal of Political Economy, 112(5), 1019–1053.
55.
PiffP. K.DanielM. S.CôtéS.Mendoza-DentonR.KeltnerD. (2012). High social class predicts increased unethical behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(11), 4086–4091.
56.
PiffP. K.KrausM. W.CôtéS.ChengB. H.KeltnerD. (2010). Having less, giving more: The influence of social class on prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(5), 771–784.
57.
RaghubirP.SrivastavaJ. (2009). The denomination effect. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(4), 701–713.
58.
RandallB. A.WennerJ. R. (2014). Adopting a multidimensional perspective on college students’ prosocial behaviors. In L. M. Padilla-Walker & G. Carlo (Eds.), Prosocial development: A multidimensional approach (pp. 374–392). Oxford University Press.
59.
RobertsJ. A.RobertsC. R. (2012). Money matters: Does the symbolic presence of money affect charitable giving and attitudes among adolescents?Young Consumers, 13, 329–336.
60.
RuciL.AllenZ. M. V.ZelenskiJ. M. (2018). Pro-social personality traits, helping behavior, and ego-depletion: Is helping really easier for the dispositionally pro-social?Personality and Individual Differences, 120, 32–39.
61.
SavaniK.MeadN. L.StillmanT.VohsK. D. (2016). No match for money: Even in intimate relationships and collectivistic cultures, reminders of money weaken sociomoral responses. Self and Identity, 15(3), 342–355.
62.
SimpsonB.WillerR. (2015). Beyond altruism: Sociological foundations of cooperation and prosocial behavior. Annual Review of Sociology, 41(1), 43–63. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112242
63.
SmeetsP.BauerR.GneezyU. (2015). Giving behavior of millionaires. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(34), 10641–10644.
64.
StürmerS.SnyderM. (2010). The psychology of prosocial behavior: Group processes, intergroup relations, and helping. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
65.
SuriT. (2017). Mobile money. Annual Review of Economics, 9, 497–520.
66.
TengF.ChenZ.PoonK.-T.ZhangD.JiangY. (2016). Money and relationships: When and why thinking about money leads people to approach others. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 58–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.08.002
67.
TurnerJ. H.StetsJ. E. (2006). Moral emotions. In J. E. Stets & J. H. Turner (Eds.), Handbook of the sociology of emotions (pp. 545–566). Springer.
68.
VenkataramaniV.DalalR. S. (2007). Who helps and harms whom? Relational antecedents of interpersonal helping and harming in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(4), 952–966.
69.
VohsK. D. (2015). Money priming can change people’s thoughts, feelings, motivations, and behaviors: An update on 10 years of experiments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General Issue, 144(4), e86–e93.
70.
VohsK. D.MeadN. L.GoodeM. R. (2006). The psychological consequences of money. Science, 314(5802), 1154–1156.
YangQ.WuX.ZhouX.MeadN. L.VohsK. D.BaumeisterR. F. (2013). Diverging effects of clean versus dirty money on attitudes, values, and interpersonal behavior.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(3), 473–489. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030596
74.
ZhouC. Y.GuoY. Y. (2013). Impact of family social status on mental health: Mediating role of belief in a just world. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, 21(4), 636–640.
75.
ZhouX.KimS.WangL. (2019). Money helps when money feels: Money anthropomorphism increases charitable giving. Journal of Consumer Research, 45(5), 953–972. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucy012
76.
ZhouX.VohsK. D.BaumeisterR. F. (2009). The symbolic power of money: Reminders of money alter social distress and physical pain. Psychological Science, 20, 700–706.
