The Influence Of Money Priming On Pro-social Behavior

Money priming refers to a research method in which researchers use psychologically priming methods to manipulate independent variables,presenting money-related clues to individuals,and exerting greater influence on individual psychology and behaviors.Previous studies have found that money priming affects individuals’ prosocial behaviors.Based on the previous studies,this study explores the impact of money priming on prosocial behaviors through three sub-studies.Study 1 explored the impact of money priming on prosocial behaviors.The independent variable is the priming type,including the three levels of money-high priming,money-low priming and neutral priming,and the dependent variable is the prosocial behaviors.The result showed that the prosocial behavior scores of the money-high priming group and the money-low priming group were significantly lower than those of the neutral priming group.Study 2 introduced the variable of social class to examine the different effects of money priming,that is,the moderating role of social class in the influence of money priming on prosocial behaviors.The independent variable is the priming type,including two levels of money priming and neutral priming.The moderating variable is the subjective social class.The dependent variable is the prosocial behaviors,and its measurement index is the percentage of donations in a virtual charitable donation situation.The results showed that:(1)The estimated proportion of charitable donation in the money priming group was significantly lower than that in the neutral priming group;(2)The interaction between the priming type and the subjective social class could significantly predict the willingness of the participants to help others.Besides,for the lower class,under the money priming condition the proportion of charitable donations were significantly lower than the neutral priming condition.And for the higher class,there was no significant difference in the proportion of charitable donations under the different priming conditions.Based on the conclusions of study 1 and study 2,study 3 further investigated the mechanism of the impact of money priming on the prosocial behaviors of different classes,namely whether the moderating process is mediated by empathy.The independent variable is the priming type,including two levels of money priming and neutral priming,the mediating variable is empathy,the moderating variable is the subjective social class,and the dependent variable is the prosocial behaviors.The results showed that:(1)the prosocial behavior scores of the money priming group were significantly lower than those of the neutral priming group;(2)the interaction between the priming type and the subjective social class can significantly predict the prosocial behaviors of the participants;(3)the interaction affects the prosocial behaviors through empathy.The results show that:(1)under the conditions of money priming,the prosocial behaviors of individuals decreases,which confirms the negative effect of money priming;(2)the social class plays a moderating role in the relationship between money priming and prosocial behaviors.Among lower social classes,the reduction of prosocial behaviors is particularly obvious,but the impact on the higher social classes is not significant;(3)for the lower social classes,they have lower empathy levels under the condition of money priming,thus exhibiting less prosocial behaviors;while for the higher social classes,they have no significant difference in empathy level under the two priming conditions,thus not affecting their subsequent prosocial behaviors.