Experimental Research Paper

Effect of Money Prime on Altruism and Self-Efficacy

Does Money Make us Selfish?

The Effect of Priming Money on Altruistic Behavior and Self-Efficacy

Nathaniel Furey

Northwestern University

12/9/13

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Abstract

Money appears to have a complex relationship with human behavior and well-being. While it is

a necessity to obtain basic biological needs such as food, water, and shelter, the pursuit of wealth

has been shown to promote higher levels of antisocial behavior. Namely, previous research has

shown that it increases self-sufficiency and motivation to achieve goals, but decreases the desire

to cooperate socially and help others. In our experiment, we attempted to find a causal

relationship between different amounts of money shown to participants and both their self-

efficacy and altruistic behavior. Participants were shown one of three primes; the experimental

conditions were shown an image of hundred dollar bills or an image of pennies and asked to

estimate the value in dollars, while the control group was shown an image of jellybeans and

asked to estimate the total amount depicted. They were then given a questionnaire that measured

their life satisfaction, self-efficacy, and altruistic intentions for the upcoming year. We

hypothesized that priming larger amounts of money would lead to smaller donation amounts and

that higher levels of individual self-efficacy would lead to larger donation amounts, but our

results did not provide support for either of these conclusions. However, our hypothesis that

priming larger amounts of money would lead to participants reporting lower levels of self-

efficacy was supported in that the average level of self-efficacy for each condition correlated

negatively to the amount of money primed.

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Introduction

There is a nearly endless list of proverbs and adages touting the joys of wealth and

attesting to the destructive nature of greed. Because money can be perceived with such

conflicting attitudes and use of currency has been so deeply ingrained in the social functioning of

humans for thousands of years, it is a topic of great interest to social psychologists. The ways in

which money affect self-perception and behavior have immediate and important implications, as

money is a commodity with which people directly or indirectly come into contact everyday. In

this experiment we focused on self-efficacy as a dimension of self-perception and behavior in the

form of altruistic intent. More specifically, we attempted to find a causal relationship between

an amount of money displayed on a computer screen that varied across experimental conditions

and both altruistic intentions for the upcoming year and perceived self-efficacy. We also

attempted to see if higher levels of self-efficacy would lead to a higher level of intended altruistic

behavior.

In order to donate money to charity, a person must have enough so that they can still meet

their basic needs on top of what they plan to give. A reasonable extension of this idea is that

those with more expendable income will donate more in general. Previous research, however,

provides evidence to the contrary. In one experiment, participants were given two dollars in

quarters that were said to be leftover from an earlier study, primed with money or neutral stimuli

depending on condition, and told that the laboratory was taking donations at the “conclusion” of

the experiment. Even though both conditions had the same amount of unexpected, extra income,

the condition primed with money donated significantly less than the control (Vohs, Mead, &

Goode, 2006). This suggests that when an individual is thinking about money, they are less

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likely to donate money, regardless of his or her wealth. In another experiment participants were

asked how they would respond to a water shortage affecting either “consumers” in the

experimental condition, or “individuals” in the control condition. The participants in the

experimental condition showed significantly lower levels of personal responsibility, trust in

others, and social cooperation (Bauer, Wilkie, Kim, & Bodenhausen, 2012). This further

supports the idea that ones wealth in and of itself does not promote altruistic behavior. It also

suggests that a materialistic mindset will lead to relatively more antisocial behavior. Based on

our belief that priming larger amounts of money would trigger a materialistic state of mind, we

predicted that being primed with larger amounts of money would lead to lower planned donation

amounts.

In the context of this experiment, self-efficacy is defined as ones confidence in his or her

ability to complete tasks and accomplish goals. Past research has demonstrated a causal

relationship between being primed with money and valuing self-sufficiency. In one such

experiment, an experimental condition was primed with money while a control condition was

not, and all participants were given a difficult problem with the option of aid from a confederate.

It was found that individuals primed with money waited significantly longer before they asked

the confederate for help (Vohs, et al, 2006). This can either indicate that priming money

increases self-efficacy and participants work alone because they are more confident in their own

abilities, or that it decreases self-efficacy and participants feel the need to work alone in order to

restore confidence in their own abilities. In one experiment where participants were shown

either luxury goods or neutral stimuli, viewing luxury goods was correlated with negative affect

(Bauer, et al, 2012). Because a materialist mindset is correlated to negative affect, and negative

affect is likely to be linked to low self-confidence, it would follow that the self-sufficiency

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described in Vohs, et al (2006) is the result of lower self-efficacy as opposed to higher self-

efficacy. A more self-efficacious person will by definition feel more in control of his or her

finances, so he or she may feel more capable of giving to charity than a less self-efficacious

person. Due to our sample consisting of college undergraduates who we assumed would not

have much disposable income, and our belief that self-sufficient participants in the study by

Vohs, et al (2006) were less likely to donate money to the laboratory because of low self-

efficacy, we predicted that higher levels of self-efficacy would lead to larger donation amounts.

As previously stated, we believe the self-sufficiency displayed in the experiments of

Vohs, et al (2006) to be the result of a money prime lowering self-efficacy as opposed to raising

it. Namely, it is likely that participants felt the need to be more self-sufficient in order to restore

the self-confidence they lost in thinking about money or wealth. Viewing luxury goods has been

linked to increases in negative affect across dimensions of depression, anxiety, and self-

dissatisfaction (Bauer, et al, 2012). Higher levels of depression, anxiety, and shame would lead

to lower confidence in ones abilities, so it does not make sense for priming money to increase

self-efficacy. Indeed, a correlational study examining the relationship between self-efficacy and

depression among Iranian adolescents found a significant negative correlation between self-

efficacy and depressive symptoms, and integral component of which is negative affect

(Ghofranipour, Saffari, Mahmoudi, & Montazeri, 2013). We believe viewing images of money

will cause people to think either of material items they want but do not have, or more generally

of the financial success they wish to, but have not yet, achieved. Furthermore, given that our

sample is composed of college undergraduates, it is highly unlikely that any have met all of their

professional goals at this point in their lives. Because there is evidence to show that priming

individuals with stimuli related to money leads to increased negative affect and that depressive

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symptoms such as negative affect are negatively correlated with self-efficacy, we predicted that

priming larger amounts of money would lead to lower levels of self-efficacy.

Methods

Participants

99 Northwestern University students (N=95, MAge=20.23, SDAge=1.71; 59 females; 52% White;

24% Asian; 3% Indian; 4% Latino; 8% Multiracial; 8% Black; 1% Middle Eastern) were

recruited by our class for an experiment that consisted of a visual prime followed by a

questionnaire. 4 participants’ data were excluded due to either incorrect answers on questions

intended to gauge an adequate level of attention to the questionnaire or obvious insincerity in

answering the questions.

Procedure

The experiment consisted of a visual prime, which served as the independent variable,

followed by a questionnaire, which measured dependent variables of altruistic behavior, life

satisfaction, and self-efficacy. Consent was obtained from participants via an opening question

that stated all responses to the upcoming survey would remain anonymous and confidential, that

it would take about 10 minutes to complete, and that questions which made the participant feel

uncomfortable could be skipped. The survey commenced if the participant elected to continue.

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Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, two experimental and

one control, and each condition was shown a different visual prime. The experimental

conditions were shown images of money and asked to estimate the value in dollars, and the

control group was shown an image jellybeans and asked to estimate the total number depicted.

Participants then completed the questionnaire that gauged their altruistic behavior, life

satisfaction, and self-efficacy.

Materials

The visual primes for the two experimental conditions were an image of a stack of one

hundred dollar bills and an image of several stacks of pennies. The visual prime for the control

condition was an image of a jar of jellybeans. As stated before, participants were asked to

estimate the dollar amount or number of jellybeans depending on the condition to which they

were assigned.

The questionnaire consisted of 31 items intended to gauge altruistic behavior, life

satisfaction, self-efficacy, demographic information, and attention to the questions. The first

section asked participants about their altruistic behavior, namely a question the amount they

would donate in 2014, a series of three questions regarding their participation in philanthropic

activities, two questions about the charitable causes and scopes of charitable organizations they

found to be most important, and a question asking whether or not they donated money to aid

typhoon victims in the Philippines and why. Following this line of questioning were the five

questions that compose the Satisfaction with Life scale (Diener, et al, 1985). A series of ten

questions intended to gauge participants’ self-efficacy came next. Finally, demographic

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information in the form of age, gender, region of birth, environment of upbringing, ethnicity, and

class year were obtained. The questionnaire concluded with a question asking the participant

what image he or she saw at the beginning of the survey. The fourth item in the series of

questions regarding participation in philanthropic activities and the tenth item in the series of

questions regarding self-efficacy asked the participant to choose a specific score value in order to

ensure he or she was paying attention to each individual questions of the survey.

For the scales intended to measure life satisfaction and self-efficacy, reliability scores

of .80 and .78 were calculated, respectively. Thus, these scales were averaged into indexes. For

the scale intended to measure altruistic behavior, a reliability score of only .51 was calculated.

As a result, each item in that scale needed to be treated as a separate variable.

Results

The five questions composing Diener’s Satisfaction with Life Scale (1985) were scored

on a seven point Likert scale and the scores were averaged into an index. Values ranged from

2.8-7.0, with higher values reflecting higher life satisfaction (N = 95; M = 5.16, SD = .97). The

self-efficacy scale consisted of ten items scored on a four point Likert scale, of which scores

were also averaged into an index. Values ranged from 2.3-4.0 with higher values representing

higher self-efficacy (N = 95; M = 3.16, SD =.34). Because we could not create an index from the

questions regarding altruistic behavior, we used the amount participants planned on donating in

2014 as a measure of altruism. This question contained eight items, with the first being zero

dollars, the eighth being over $300, and the intermediate six contained varying ranges of money

between one and $299 (N = 95; M = 4.15, SD = 2.052).

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The amount of money primed did not appear to have an effect on the amount of money

participants planned on donating in the upcoming year [F(2,92)=.76, p = .47], disconfirming our

hypothesis that priming larger amounts of money would lead to lower donation amounts for

2014. No significant correlation was found between self-efficacy and the amount to be donated

in 2014 [r(95) = -.046, p < .05], disconfirming our hypothesis that self-efficacy would lead to

larger donation amounts in 2014. Participants primed with hundred dollar bills showed

significantly less self-efficacy than the control group [F(2,92) = 5.14, p = .008]. This confirmed

our hypothesis that priming larger amounts of money would lead to lower levels of self-efficacy.

It is also noteworthy that life satisfaction was positively correlated to both self-efficacy [r(95)

= .242, p < .05] and the amount to be donated in 2014 [r(95) = .355, p < .01].

Figure 1: Effect of Money Prime Amount on Donation Intentions

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Figure 2: Effect of Money Prime on Self-Efficacy

Discussion

Our experiment did not find evidence to support our hypothesis that larger money primes

should lead to lower donation amounts. It is possible that priming money does not have a

significant effect on altruistic behavior, but the results of similar experiments conducted by

Vohs, et al (2006) and Bauer, et al (2012), demonstrate a markedly low propensity to donate to

charity when money is primed and higher levels of selfishness when consumerism is primed.

This would suggest that priming with money should have some kind of effect on altruistic

behavior. The fact that we were unable to create an index out of our scale intended to measure

altruistic behavior throws the construct validity of these measurements into question.

Furthermore, the amount an individual plans to donate as a dependent variable is unusually

susceptible to participant error. For example, if a participant gives $300 to charity per year on

average, and he or she stated an intention to donate $200 the following year after being primed

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with hundred dollar bills, it could indicate an effect of the prime that the experiment cannot

detect. Although it would make the survey more invasive, a question asking participants to enter

the amount they donated to charity over the prior year or over a range of previous years could be

added. If taken directly from tax records, this value would not be susceptible to individual bias

or influence from the money prime. The difference between the donation value or average and

the amount a participant planned on donating in 2014 as a measure of altruism would act as a

normalization of the donation amount values we used and also minimize participant error.

We did not find evidence to support our hypothesis that participants displaying higher

levels of self-efficacy would donate more to charity on average than those with lower levels of

self-efficacy. We predicted that if an individual felt more confident in his abilities to succeed, he

or she would feel more capable to give to charity, and would give more as a result. However, as

the research of Vohs, et al (2006) has shown, ability to give to charity is not the dominant effect

after money is primed, so our results are not entirely surprising. It is worth noting that

significant positive correlations were found between life satisfaction and self-efficacy, as well as

life satisfaction and the amount to be donated. The interconnectedness between these variables

suggests that the relationship between all three merits further investigation. It is likely that self-

efficacy has an indirect effect on altruistic behavior, given its positive correlation to life

satisfaction and life satisfaction’s positive correlation to altruistic behavior. More

comprehensive research on the effect of life satisfaction on altruistic behavior is also warranted,

as our results suggest it is a more significant contributor to altruistic behavior than self-efficacy.

A study consisting of multiple experiments, one or more of which that explore a causal

relationship between life satisfaction and altruistic behavior, and one or more of which that

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explore the possibility of self-efficacy as a mediating variable, could shed more light on the

correlational data we found.

There was support for our hypothesis that priming larger amounts of money would lead

to lower levels of self-efficacy. This was in line with our prediction based on the studies of

Bauer, et al (2012), which found support for a causal relationship between priming luxury goods

and negative affect, and Ghofranipour, et al (2012), which found a negative correlation between

depressive symptoms and self-efficacy. This relationship could exist for a number of reasons, all

of which are worth exploring. Participants primed with money may be reminded of material

goods they want, but cannot afford or they may be reminded of their professional goals that they

have yet to achieve. More specifically, given that our sample consisted of undergraduate college

students who likely cannot pay tuition on their own, priming money may also remind them of

large, impending amounts of student loan debt or the fact that they are incapable of paying for

their own educations; two lines of thinking that could lead to feeling a lack of control over ones

finances.

Because our sample consists only of college undergraduates at an expensive private

university, our results are not very generalizable, but this could be remedied simply by

modifying the sample to include a larger and more varied population. A more general study in

the same format could show whether or not these results are specific to college students. It could

also be modified to test the hypothesis that priming larger amounts of money leads to lower self-

efficacy by reminding participants of what they haven’t achieved; a scale measuring satisfaction

in achieving professional and financial goals could be included, and when participants are with

an image of a large amount of money, it can be determined if those who score highly show

similarly low levels of self-efficacy to those who do not. Even though our study is not highly

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generalizable, the results we obtained from the sample we used suggest unique questions for

further research relevant to college students that would not be obtained from a more

generalizable study. An experiment separating conditions based on student loan debt could be

used to measure self-efficacy as a function of said debt. Also, the effect of tuition cost and a

school’s reputation on both self-efficacy and life satisfaction would be worth exploring.

Separating conditions based on high or low tuition and high or low notoriety, and measuring the

resultant life satisfaction and self-efficacy would accomplish this. Finally, an experiment that

separates participants into conditions of full-time students, part-time students and part-time

workers, full-time students and part-time workers, and full-time workers and full-time students

could be used to measure the relationship between employment and self-efficacy and life

satisfaction. Data from these hypothetical experiments would have valuable applications with

regard to the mental and emotional health of college-aged adults.

The two main limitations of this experiment are most likely the construct validity of the

amount to be donated in 2014 as a measure of altruistic behavior and the relatively small sample

size in conjunction with the haphazard sampling method used to recruit participants. As stated

before, the fact that we could not form an index out of the scale intended to measure altruism

indicates that some, if not all, items in the scale are not ideal representations for the dependent

variable of altruism. Possible solutions to this include running pilot studies until a scale with

high enough reliability to be averaged into an index is determined, or to ask participants to input

the amounts he or she donated in the previous years, average them, and take the difference

between this value and the amount to be donated so as to normalize intent to donate as a variable.

The sample size and method may also have had a confounding effect on our results due to how

susceptible our dependent variable measuring altruistic behavior was to participant error. For

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example, there was no way of controlling for variation in economic background among

participants, a factor that can vary significantly among Northwestern students. While we cannot

say for sure that this would have an effect on altruistic behavior, it cannot be discounted as a

variable given its close relation to money as a general concept.

While the internal validity with regard to our two disconfirmed hypotheses is

questionable, it is much higher with regard to our confirmed hypothesis. This is because

possible confounds that may have affected results relevant to our disconfirmed hypotheses, lack

of reliability in our altruism measure and lack of economic demographic information, should not

significantly affect how participants rate self-efficacy, as confidence in ones ability to succeed is

not inherently connected to socioeconomic background. Furthermore, as Northwestern

University is very selective with regard to admissions, students are more likely to have a

similarly high motivation to succeed than they are to come from the same economic strata.

The results of our experiment disconfirmed two of our hypotheses and confirmed one.

We did not find evidence to support our predictions that priming larger amounts of money would

lead to lower levels of altruistic behavior or that higher levels of self-efficacy would lead to

higher levels of altruistic behavior. It is possible that this is because there is no relationship to be

found, but it is also likely that a lack of construct validity for our measure of altruism and our

sampling method acted to confound our results. Our hypothesis that priming larger amounts of

money would lead to lower feelings of self-efficacy was confirmed. This could be due to

participants being reminded of what they do not have or have not achieved, or it could be an

effect specific to the financial struggles of college undergraduates, of which our sample

consisted. After determining a more reliable scale to altruistic behavior and changing the

sampling method so that socioeconomic background is controlled, the study could be generalized

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by selecting participants from a larger population. It can also be used as a basis to further

explore relationships between self-efficacy, life satisfaction, and finances among college

students.

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References

Bauer, M. A., Wilkie, J. E., Kim, J. K., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2012). Cuing Consumerism:

Situational Materialism Undermines Personal and Social Well-Being. Psychological

Science, 23(5), 517-523.

Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale.

Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.

Ghofranipour, F., Saffari, M., Mahmoudi, M., & Montazeri, A. (2013). Demographical and

Psychological Determinants of Depression, Among a Sample of Iranian Male

Adolescents. International Journal of Preventive Medicine, 4(10), 1217-1223.

Vohs, K. D., Mead, N. L., & Goode, M. R. (2006). The Psychological Consequences of Money.

Science, 314, 1154-1156.

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Experimental Research Paper