The Impact of Conscious Reminders on Female Mood Alteration and Prosocial Behavior.
John doe
Psychology 360
July 2011

Abstract
For something that affects our modern lives so greatly there is little research in understanding the relationship of money and people. Money is not just numbers on a spreadsheet or bank account, money is an idea and construct that goes far beyond what’s just in your wallet. It has an impact on how women choose their mates. Money can drive us to act in prosocial and antisocial ways; increasing our self-sufficiency, but reducing cooperation. Our emotions can influence our thought processes about money without us even being consciously aware of it. In this paper, I will summarize research concerning these concepts and propose a study. The study will test whether conscious reminders of money with visual images from a film clip depicting high financial status activities such as; a person in an expensive sports car, and a person jewelry shopping etc. ,to women will result in a change in the self-perceived mood of the participant, and decrease the participates choice to engage in prosocial behavior Keywords: money, prosocial, female, emotion, financial status.

The Impact of Conscious Reminders on Female Mood Alteration and Prosocial Behavior.

Money. Money is not just about numbers. Money drives us to accomplish things, it drives us together it drives us apart, it solves problems, it creates problems, it gives us respect, it gives us worry. We crave it, we scorn it…and in modern life, we can’t escape it. Understanding how people think about, perceive and interact with money is vitally important to understanding the psychological underpinnings on a subject that most people spend very little time thinking and analyzing how their feelings, behavior, and thought processes influence their relationship with money.
Emotion is a part of human nature, and everyday life, yet many financial experts advise not to make a financial decision when you are emotional. Given this, it is useful to know how emotion affects financial decisions, and how even leftover emotions can influence your decisions.
In a study by Lerner, Small, and Loewenstein (2004). Participants watched a film clip designed to induce an emotional state. Some saw a sadness inducing clip, others saw a disgust inducing clip, a nature video was used as a neutral control. Some participants were given a highlighter set and were later asked how much they would sell it for. For the other participants, the price they would buy the pen for was measured. Participants that saw the disgust clip lowered their selling price for the highlighter set, they also lowered the price they were willing to pay for it. Sadness induced participants lowered their selling price, unlike disgust though; sadness caused participants to increase what they were willing to pay for the highlighter set.
Most people would agree that having money would make you more self-sufficient, but what if this came at the cost of reduced prosocial behavior, that is doing something that is good for other people or for society as a whole. In one study by Vohs, Mead and Goode, (2006), a set of experiments was designed to test this out. They manipulated the conscious activation of money in participant’s minds. They tested this by exposing participants to a computer screen saver with money on it, having participants unscramble words relating to money, and displaying stacks of play money from the board game monopoly. They also had participants fill out a questionnaire consisting of solo and group leisure activities while sitting under a poster of hard currency or a poster of a watercolor nature scene. Participants who had been reminded of money were more likely to choose solo activities than group activities from the questionnaire, indicating a reduction in people’s preference to interact or be with others. Participants were less likely than others to give help to someone in the experiment, even when that person specifically asked for help, they were even less likely to help a confederate who had spilled a box of pencils. In other studies of the same investigation, participants were less likely to ask for help when faced with difficult puzzles, and placed chairs at a greater distance from a would be conversation partner. From their study, we can see that money can make people more persistent and more self-reliant, but it can also reduce helpfulness cooperation and have people put more distance between themselves and others. This shows that reminders of money produce changes in behavior that are less than prosocial, as evidence in the reduced likelihood to help the confederate, the reluctance to ask for help, and the greater distance of chair placement between individuals.
In a study by Singh (1995). Women were shown a silhouette of different men with different waist-to-hip ratios or WHR, as you would probably expect the women chose the man with the normal weight and a WHR of 0.9, but would the WHR still matter if women were told the amount of money the hypothetical man made? While WHR still mattered, the amount of money the man made was much more important, especially when being considered for a long-term partnership or marriage. From this, we see that the power of money can allow men to use money to accomplish non-financial goals, such as marrying a more attractive spouse.
Given that money influences our emotions, our prosocial behavior and the long term mates choices we have, then how would conscious reminders of money and sex affect prosocial behavior in female subjects.

Hypothesis

I predict that based on research done by Vohs, Mead and Goode, (2006) which resulted in less prosocial behavior such as a decrease in likelihood to help others, to ask for help, and the tendency to put more distance between themselves and others, when exposed to unconscious reminders of money. That when female participants are exposed to conscious reminders of money, they will be less likely to show a preference of group activities, thus showing a decrease in their level of prosocial behavior as exhibited by a greater preference for solo activities.

Methods

Participants
Participants will be female University of Kansas students recruited by flyers and will be paid $10 for their participation. We would like at least 25 participants; we expect an age range of 18 to 30 based on the available female candidates in a college town like Lawrence.

Materials/Variables
The independent variables will be participant’s exposure to explicit symbols of money. It will be operationalized by having each female participants look at a photo of stacks of money, then view a film clip featuring clips depicting images of money, such as a person driving an expensive sports car, or shopping for expensive jewelry. In addition, participants will fill out a questionnaire listing solo leisure activities and group leisure activities, in which they will choose one or the other.

The instruments use to collect dependent variable measures will be participant’s responses to a questionnaire featuring solo (e.g. Reading your favorite magazine) or group (e.g. going to a café with a friend) leisure activity questions similar to the one in the Vohs, Mead and Goode, (2006) study. A control group will be administered the same questionnaire, but without exposure to any film clips or photo.

Procedure
Materials will be administered to participants one at a time in an isolated testing room. Participants will first fill out the solo or group activity questionnaire. After that has been administer participants will be exposed to a photo featuring a stack of money, they will be told to wait five minutes. Participants will then watch a brief four-minute clip featuring depicting high financial status items. After viewing the clip, the participants will be asked to write a short paragraph explaining how they feel about what they just saw. After completing the paragraph, to measure individual vs. group activity preference, participants will then fill out the same solo or group questionnaire, these results will act as a dependent measure for levels of prosocial behavior, less selection of group activities from the questions will indicate a decrease in prosocial behavior.
Based on previous research from Small, and Loewenstein (2004) ; Vohs, Mead and Goode, (2006). We expect the results to indicate subjects to choose more solo leisure activities post stimulus exposure than before.

Discussion
If our findings validate our hypothesis we can add further to the body of evidence that conscious and unconscious reminders of money can lead humans to act in less than prosocial ways. Given that we know unconscious reminders of money results in both men and women acting in less than prosocial ways, we could potentially correlate our findings with that of Vohs, Mead and Goode (2006). If our hypothesis is correct, this would indicate that women would act in less than prosocial ways when primed with thoughts and images of money and video clips depicting high financial status imagery. This study may also help explain that like men who are primed with images of attractive young females, women too experience change in their level of prosocial behavior, and may exhibit a preference for solo activities and a decrease in cooperation. Roney (2006). This studies potential findings, and others related, could give people a greater understanding of why and how their choices and thought processes as far as females are concerned can be influenced by money. It could potentially lead to ways to help women and men engage in more prosocial behavior rather than less, and guard against making money influenced choices that may be against their short or long-term interests.

Limitations of the study
The choices of clips in the four minute film clip may consist of images that can activate different emotions in participants, like envy or disgust that are not the intended or the desired emotional response study authors are looking for. Another potential limitation is the cultural background of participants. Female subjects in other cultures may view western images of high financial status differently than their equivalent in their own culture, thus making our results restricted to only western females. A potential addition to dependent measures could be functional magnetic resonance imaging equipment used when the female participants are viewing the film clip; this could provide more concrete evidence of what actually happens in the brain when female participants are exposed to the film clip and when they are filling out the questionnaire.
References

Lerner, J., Small, D., & Loewenstein, G. (2004). Heart strings and purse strings: carryover effects of emotions on economic decisions. Psychological Science, 5,doi: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00679.x
Roney, J. (2003). Effects of visual exposure to the opposite sex: cognitive aspects of mate attraction in human males. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(3), 393-404.doi: 10.1177/0146167202250221
Singh, D. (1995). Adaptive significance of female physical attractiveness: role of waist-to-hip ratio. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.69.6.1089
Vohs, K., Mead, M., & Goode, N. (2006). Merely activating the concept of money changes personal and interpersonal behavior .Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17,doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00576.x