An Investigation of Why Mere Thoughts of Money Buffer Feelings of Social Exclusion

A recent study involving students from a Chinese university showed that thoughts of money evoke feelings of strength that buffer social exclusion (Zhou et. al, 2009). The present study aimed to investigate underlying factors that might explain this finding. Participants at Carleton College (N = 60) were randomly assigned to one of four groups in which they were primed with either thoughts of money, Monopoly money, powerful animals, or slips of paper (control condition). The Monopoly money condition was utilized to assess whether thoughts of money were related to temporary social status. The powerful animal condition was added to investigate whether priming of a powerful image unrelated to money could produce a sense of strength similar to money. After being primed, participants\u27 feelings of strength were measured prior to playing Cyberball, a computerized ball-tossing game that has been shown to produce feelings of social exclusion (Zadro et. al, 2004). Participants\u27 levels of social exclusion were then measured. In contrast to past research (Zhou et. al, 2009), we found that thoughts of money did not produce feelings of strength or buffer social exclusion. Thoughts of Monopoly money and thoughts of powerful animals also had no significant influence. Our failure to replicate the finding in China that thoughts of money produce feelings of strength that buffer social exclusion may reflect cultural differences in money associations