The Effect of Money Priming on Consumers’ Choice

Previous research has revealed the significance of money cues on people’s behaviors and thoughts in diverse domains: People primed with money, compared with the control participants, persisted longer before requesting others’ help, reduced their time or money for others, and preferred to work or play alone (Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006). Reminders of money also alleviate people’s social distress and physical pain (Zhou, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2009). One recent investigation highlighted that reminders of money also influence how people would respond to social influence attempts (Liu, Smeesters, & Vohs, 2012). Liu et al. (2012) demonstrated that people subtly primed with money did not conform to recommendation because they perceived social influence as a threat to their autonomy. Building on this investigation in the psychology of money, we propose that the effect of money priming on persuasion can be moderated by the degree of freedom in one’s choice. Those who are reminded of money are likely to react to the social influence and behave in opposition to the agent’s intent. We predict that suggesting an opinion with some degree of decisional freedom, such as a recommendation for a subcategory or a group, would mitigate the effect of money priming. Because recommending a subcategory of a category provides a certain amount of freedom in decision-making, it would not necessarily lead people to feel social influence as a threat. Hence, people who receive a subcategory recommendation are more likely to conform or comply with the opinion, even if they are money-primed.