A Cross-cultural Comparison Of Money Attitudes Among College Students In China And In The United States

This study compares attitudes toward money among Chinese and American college students. Based on Hofstede's (1991) cultural values, Lea et al's (1987) psychological theory of money and previous researches on money attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, hypotheses were formulated for three dimensions of a money attitudes scale (MAS) developed by Yamauchi and Templer (1982). The null hypotheses were inferred from assumption that young people with similar cultural identity in the globalized world share similar attitudes toward money.Data were collected via questionnaire surveys from 196 college students, among which 101 were Chinese and 95 were Americans. After controlling age, educational level, gender and working experiences, a one-way ANOVA was performed to detect the difference along the three money attitudes: power/prestige, distrust/price sensitivity and anxiety between two cultural groups: China and the United States.Only two of the three null hypotheses were not supported. The findings indicate that the Chinese subjects are more likely to view money as a symbol of power and prestige and they show a lower level of distrust/price sensitivity in monetary situations compared with their American peers. Concerning anxiety, the two groups do not display significant difference, which implies that this age group is not very worried about money. The results demonstrate not only the interaction and assimilation of different cultures in the global village but also the cultural commonness in different peoples. Despite some inherent limitations, results of this study are instructive in consumer behaviors, marketing, human resources management and financial education in cross-cultural contexts.