The more money we have, the less we want to share with other people
Few of us like to think of ourselves as being greedy, although we might describe ourselves as being self-sufficient or finan-cially independent. And many of us like to think that if we suddenly received a wind-fall, we'd share the wealth.
Yeah, sure. The trouble is that self-per-ception is often very different from reality. Several ingenious recent experiments by a group of American and Canadian behavioral researchers show just how big a gap there is between the two. The fact is that money has almost immediate psychological effects on people, and many of us get more selfish if a pile of cash is placed near us--or even if we're just shown pictures of money or phrases that allude to it.
That's one upshot of a study published in the journal Science last November that looked at how money affects interpersonal relationships. In the article, Kathleen Vohs from the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, Nicole Mead from Florida State Univer-sity, and Miranda Goode from UBC's Sauder School of Business reported on the results of nine experiments at their universities. The study was financed by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair Council.
The trio started with the familiar psychological premise that having more money reduces your feeling of dependence on others. It does, but they also found that participants developed some selfish attitudes that carried over to a wide range of activities.
In one experiment, subjects were given $2 worth of quarters and led to believe that it was money left over from a previous experiment. They were then asked to solve word puzzles--some of the answers were phrases that referred to money, such as "high-paying salary"; other answers were neutral, such as "she read the book." Afterward, participants were told they could put quarters in a container for a student emergency fund. The ones who unscrambled money-related phrases donated an average of 77 cents, compared with $1.34 for those in the non-money group.
Another experiment started with a game of Monopoly. Afterward, different groups were left in sight of Monopoly money worth either $4,000 or $200, or no money at all. In a staged accident, a per-son walked through the room and dropped a box of pencils. On average, the high-money players helped pick up fewer pencils than the low-money or no-money players. "Monopoly money connotes the concept of money," Mead told a university newspaper. "Even mentioning the word 'money' will activate this concept in our brain."
The same me-me-me attitude seems to manifest itself on a much broader scale. What's worse, the more money we have, the greedier we seem to get. According to a 2004 Statistics Canada survey on charitable giving and volunteering, low-income households donate a higher percentage of each dollar they earn to charity than do high-income earners. Households with an average income of less than $20,000 gave an average of 1.7% of their pretax earnings to charity, compared with just 0.5% for households with an average income of $100,000 or more.
Or how about your wonderful parents and what investment advisers artfully de-scribe as the "generational transfer of wealth?" Just how eager are some people to inherit money? According to Dr. Peter Brymer, an assistant professor of dentistry at the University of Toronto who founded a dental care service for seniors in retirement homes and long-term care facilities, you'd be surprised at how many people deprive their aged parents of dental treatments.
If you're a rich old codger, the lesson should be clear: Your kids are most likely plotting, so give them some cash now--after you've paid for new dentures and other necessities, of course. There are no pockets for money in coffins.
Having been shown our self-centred instincts, is there any hope we can modify our behaviour? In the recent 50th anniversary issue of New Scientist magazine, more than 70 leading theorists in various disciplines were asked to forecast the big-gest breakthroughs over the next 50 years. Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico, said he hoped that the appeal of conspicuous consumption would fade and that "absurdly wasteful display will become less popular once people comprehend its origins in sexual selection, and its pathetic unreliability as a signal of individual merit or virtue."
That's very eloquent, but I wouldn't bet on it.
It might make sense to give your kids some cash now. there are no pockets for money in coffins
photograph derek shapton/wardrobe courtesy harry rosen
Doug Steiner has a real job in the financial services industry in downtown Toronto. He can be reached at
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