The Relationship Between Materialism And Prosocial Behavior, Aggression——A Comparative Study Between Male Drug Abusers And Ordinary People

We cannot live without money. The psychological effect of money is one of the focus of psychological research in recent years. Materialism is a kind of value which emphasizes on the importance of material wealth. Money priming is an experimental paradigm used to study the psychological consequences of money in recent years. This study aims to find the relationship between materialism and prosocial behavior and aggression in the perspective of materialism and money priming,and compare the results between drug abusers and ordinary people.The study 1 investigated the male drug abusers and ordinary people by Material Values Scale(MVS), Prosocial Tendencies Measure(PTM),Aggression Questionnaire(AQ) and Gratitude Questionnaire-6(GQ-6) to investigate the relationship between materialism and prosocial behavior and aggression,and the role of gratitude in the relationship.In study 2, we use the paradigm of money priming to study the influence of money on prosocial behavior by comparing the responses of subjects in different situations. Study 3 aims to find the influence of money on implicit aggression.We use the IAT to measure the implicit aggression, and money or scenery pictures as priming materials.The results are as follows.1.The drug abusers’ scores of materialism are significantly higher than ordinary people.2.Urban inhabitants’ scores of materialism are higher than rural ones. The older ones’ materialism are higher than the youngers.3.Materialism is significantly negative correlated with gratitude and prosocial behavior, and gratitude plays a mediating role between materialism and prosocial behavior.4.There is a positive correlation between materialism and aggression.5.Compared with the neutral-priming subjects, subjects under money priming condition have less prosocial behaviors. There is no significant differences between drug abusers and ordinary people.6.Drug abusers under money priming condition possess more implicit aggression than the neutral ones, while there is no significant differences between ordinary people.