Merely activating the concept of money changes personal and interpersonal behavior

Money plays a signi¿cant role in people¿s lives,and yet little experimental attention has been given to the psychological underpinnings of money. We systematicallyvaried whether and to what extent the concept of moneywas activated in participants¿ minds using methods thatminimized participants¿conscious awareness of the moneycues. On the one hand, participants reminded of moneywere less helpful than were participants not reminded of money, and they also preferred solitary activities and less physical intimacy. On the other hand, reminders of money prompted participants to work harder on challenging tasks and led to desires to take on more work as compared to participants not reminded of money. In short, evensubtle reminders of money elicit big changes in humanbehavior.