Would you do something for me? The effects of money activation on social preferences and social behavior in young children

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• 作者：Agata Gasiorowska^a ; ^b ; ^{agata.gasiorowska@pwr.wroc.pl} ; Tomasz Zaleskiewicz^b ; ^{tzaleskiewicz@swps.edu.pl} ; Sandra Wygrab^b ; ^{san_wyg@interia.pl}
• 关键词：Money ; Children ; Interpersonal relations ; Social preferences
• 刊名：Journal of Economic Psychology
• 出版年：2012
• 期刊代码：44_01674870
• 类别：bus
• 出版时间：June, 2012
• 卷：33
• 期：3
• 页码：603-608
• 文件大小：194 K

摘要

The research presented in this paper shows that merely activating the idea of money affects the social behavior and social preferences of young children who do not understand the economic functions of money. From an economic point of view, money is universal, instrumental, and can be defined by the functions that it provides. From the psychological point of view, money is more symbolic and emotional than instrumental, and can serve as social resource in interpersonal and intrapersonal regulation. These effects of money are connected with its symbolic, rather than its instrumental, nature. To test whether the symbolic and instrumental meanings of money are developing at appropriate ages, we conducted two experiments on 5-8 year olds. After money activation, children were more selfish in economic games, revealing less prosocial preferences and were less prone to help the experimenter than children from the control group. Even if children at this stage do not understand the economic mechanisms of money and are not able to use money properly in the instrumental context, they react to symbolic activation. This might imply that the symbolic meaning of money is more primal than the instrumental meaning.