Interests Over Morals? The Influence Of Money Concept On Moral Judgment

People can't live without money.In recent years,the research on money has aroused great interest not only in sociology,anthropology,marketing and other fields,but also in the field of psychology.Zhou,Feng,He,& Gao,2008;Zhou,Vohs,& Baumeister,2009;Zaleskiewicz et al.,2013;Xu,Zhou,Ye,& Zhou,2015),and at the same time,people can better control their own social resources to meet their own development(Zhou et al.,2008).For example,money affects the generation of people's emotions.Based on objective business transactions,individuals' thinking about money will increase their tendency to perceive their own interests in business relationships,but the generation of such emotions is considered inappropriate(Jiang et al.,2014).Money can also increase the generation of immoral behaviors,for example,money can hinder people from developing positive relationships(Vohs et al.,2008;Zhou et al.,2008),reduce helping behaviors and make people more likely to commit immoral behaviors(wu xianqi,2013;Zhang huanhuan,2017).Harm is an unavoidable issue in the study of moral judgment.Tremoliere and Neys(2013)manipulated the degree of harm perception by hinting at the situation of physical injury and found that the degree of an individual's perception of harm influenced the utilitarian choice in moral judgment.When it came to fatal injuries,fewer subjects advocated action.Pain is a cognitive and emotional explanation of nociceptive sensation(Tracey,2008),that is,an individual's sensory experience of self-injury(Merksey & Bogduk,1994).The individual who feels pain must be able to perceive harm.Avoiding harm is a biological instinct of human beings,and individuals will avoid themselves from harmful sources of harm(Young & Saxe,2011).Research shows that the need to avoid harm may be a core psychological mechanism for people to make moral judgments(zhang bingrong,2012).Money can help alleviate the pain of people,an individual's perception to hurt also can affect the moral judgment,and the existing research shows that high social class of individuals in the conflict more utilitarian ethical dilemma of moral judgment(Cote,Piff,& Willer,2013),money as an important reference basis of socialstratum division,can start the concept of money can change the individual perception of damage degree to influence the moral judgment? What are the mediating variables between monetary priming and moral judgment?In this study,three experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of money concept priming on people's moral judgment by referring to the money concept priming paradigm proposed by Vohs and Goode(2006).Experiment 1 examined the effect of money concept priming on moral judgment in different conflict situations(high vs.low).Experiment 2chose to set moral dilemmas with different degrees of harm(mortal harm vs.non-mortal harm)in moral dilemmas with high conflict to explore the influence of money concept priming on different degrees of physical harm.In experiment 3,the moral dilemma material involving physical harm was replaced by the daily immoral behavior material involving mental injury,and the influence of money concept priming on moral judgment was investigated,as well as the mediating variable between money concept priming and moral judgment.The study came to the following conclusions:(1)The monetary concept priming affects utilitarian moral judgment,that is,in the dilemma of high conflict,compared with neutral priming,subjects who conduct monetary concept priming will make more utilitarian moral judgment.(2)The severity of the money concept priming affected moral judgment,that is,compared with the neutral priming,the money concept priming was more tolerant to the judgment of daily immoral behaviors involving mental injury.(3)The money concept priming affects people's need to avoid harm,that is,compared with the neutral priming,people are less likely to arouse a strong need to avoid harm when the money concept priming is carried out.