Abstract

 

 

In this report, we implement a simple experimental design in order to provide additional findings concerning the buffering power of money. We investigate the relationship between money and fear of death by wondering in which specific conditions money’s buffering effect can be optimized. A particular emphasis is put on the links uniting 1) cognitive implication in money making and reduction of the levels of fear of death and 2) social reward of money making and reduction of the levels of fear of death. We provide evidence that if money is a strong buffer against fear of death anxiety, the specific manner in which individuals produce money is a crucial dimension of the buffering power. We document that individuals who win money through cognitively and socially rewarding tasks benefit from higher gains in terms of fear of death reduction than participants who win money in a neutral condition.

 

 

Introduction

 

1.1 Money and its functions: 

 

Money and its different functions is an antediluvian research topic that still catches the attention of many scholars all around the world. Already in 2300 before JC we find traces of primitive forms of money in the Akkad Empire in Mesopotamia. One of the most ancient definitions of money, which is still largely used by economists, is the one given by Aristotle in its Nicomachean Ethics, which claims that money serves as a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value. Money prompts and facilitates trading, which enables all parties to better meet their needs and contributes to developing social relations. Closer to us, Marcel Mauss emphasised that the social role of “money” — in a non-institutionalised form — could run even deeper: in Maori cultures exchanged goods, through the practice of giftgiving, organise social hierarchies. More generally, states and governments, well aware of the symbolic power of money, have long been using its material support to install and maintain the legitimacy of their power.

 

But it is only recently, with the contribution of psychology, that we have managed to identify some new functions of money. Recent ethnographic studies, in particular, have provided solid evidence of money’s buffering effect. For instance, in some situations money can help maintaining a certain distance between individuals. A well-known example is divorce and break down among relationships. In those particular situations individuals tend to switch from a non-monetized interactional mode to a monetized interactional mode in order to build a symbolic distance between them (Simpson, 1997). Another example is Thompson, Harred, and Burks (2003), who provided evidence that top-less dancers deal with the social blame cast on their job by claiming that money socially justifies their occupation. Here, money plays the role of a buffer against negative social judgement insofar as it helps dancers put psychological distance between them and their clients. Conversely, Prasad (1999) documented that the clients use money, not only to “buy” a certain service but also to remain distant from prostitutes. Additionally, Desforges (2001) showed that British travellers’ understanding of money is the cornerstone of their destination implication: it seems that the way monetary transactions are made between tourists and locals influence the former’s perception of the destination’s authenticity and exoticness. Extensive empirical research has shown that social support buffers pain (Brown, Sheffield, Leary, & Robinson, 2003; Leary, Springer, Negel, Ansell, & Evans, 1998; Phillips & Gatchel, 2000) and, according to Xinyue Zhou and Ding-Guo Gaoview (2008), money also provides a sense of physical safety and psychological security and thus can serve as another protective device against pain, more effective, perhaps, than social support. The buffering effect of money is further supported by recent experimental findings (Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006). These experiments show that when participants are entitled to money, they tend to be more independent but socially insensitive: they choose to play by themselves, work alone and distance, or isolate, themselves from others.

 

The buffering effect of money, while not specific to pain, finds some of its most impressive examples in connection to the latter — in particular, in money’s capacity to become a death anxiety buffer. Strong evidences support the idea of a clear link between death anxiety and the desire for money (Zaleskiewicz et al. 2013). Research (Flouri, 2004; Goldberg et al., 2003; Kasser et al., 1995; Rindfleisch et al., 1997) has shown that individuals from poor, unsupportive and conflicted families have a tendency to overemphasize the importance of money.

 

Ultimately it has been documented that death salience tend to increase monetary desires. Moreover individuals who anticipate pain have a higher motivation for money. Furthermore Zaleskiewicz & al. (2013) suggest that money can help deal with existential anxiety, and reduce its effect. The present paper will investigate this assumption.

 

1.2 Assessing the problematic of death anwiety:

 

The way death is perceived is a central aspect of our questioning: even if its psychological ins and outs are today better understood in general terms, particular cultural, religious, and symbolic aspects are paramount in understanding how individuals cope with the anxiety due to their fear of death.

 

While affecting all without exceptions, death happens to be represented very differently among different cultures. This means that the anxiety level induced by death might actually vary quite strongly among individuals of different religions and cultural origins. Indeed, we can assume that death perception might be a greater source of anxiety among monotheist cultures which developed through time a very dark imagery of death (Brueghel, Bosch), as opposed to some polytheist cultures which seem to have developed an idea of reincarnation, perhaps less stressful from an individual point of view. Again, even though all these cultures have developed a strong set of maxims to be followed in order to have a “good” life, non-abidance seems nowadays more problematic for, say, Christians.

Indeed most of the literature (Xinyue Zhou and Ding-Guo Gao 2008) explains the death anxiety through anticipation of pain. From this perspective the middle age imagery has surely a greater impact than any other religion on catholic individuals (e.g. Hell according to Dante).

 

Even though we seem to have agreed with Epicurus famous claim, based upon his atomist philosophy, that “death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist” (Letter to Menoeceus), we still suffer a lot from the anxiety that the idea of death procures us. In particular, we still tend to consider that without giving a meaning to our lives we will not reach a ‘good death’, which elicits existential pain. The History of art is in fact the strongest guarantor of this idea: across history and cultures we can find anthropological evidence of the anxiety caused by death to human beings. Vanities perhaps express with most accuracy how the idea of death has caused terrible pain among individuals by evoking the transitory nature of human existence.

 

 

Literature Review

 

 

2.1 Death Anxiety: 

 

According to Fromm (1976), materialism is a very common trait among individuals of western and industrialized civilization. Richins & Dawson (1992) and after them Tybout & Artz (1994) provide this definition: “Materialists tend to consider the acquisition of money and possessions to be central to their lives, essential for their happiness, and crucial in the definition of success“. Additionally financial success is also perceived as more important than community and social affiliation and self-acceptance (Kasser & Ryan, 1993).

 

Belk (1985) focused on this last aspect by exploring the eventuality that material possessions are, somehow the “extended self”. One’s sense of identity is often defined by material possessions and consumption: “I am what I have and what I consume” (Fromm, 1976). Findings in cultural anthropology, psychology and consumer behaviours have stressed the complex relationships existing between meaning-making processes and Materialism.

Daun, (1983) and Linden (1979) have shown that Materialism provides life itself with purpose and meaning in situations when individuals perceive prevalent societal normlessness. Chang and Arkin (2002) documented that Materialism and desire for possession appear to be a coping strategy for individuals who have a need to make sense of their own existence.

 

An example is worth of interest, Arndt, Solomon, Kasser & Sheldon (2004) show that soon after September 11 the level of consumption increased by 6 % between October and December. Authors explain that September 11 events have been a strong reminder of awareness of death that have influenced individuals to engage into materialistic consumption in order to cope with the anxiety derived from these events. 

 

Possessions can be used in order to create meaning in the life of individuals — in particular, money and material possession can be a means to identity-formation and, to that extent, a buffering tool. These findings are consistent with the idea that money and material acquisition can be a coping strategy in order to deal with pain and therefore, to cope with death anxiety (Arndt et al., 2004). These authors documented empirical evidence that death anxiety reminders raise and create materialistic behaviours among individuals.

 

For example, in 1993 Solomon and Arndt ran an experiment in which they asked subjects to evaluate their interest in discovering a 20$ bill when walking on the street. Among the two groups of participants (controlled and Death reminded), the second one declared being more aroused by the idea. Conversely, Kasser and Sheldon (2000) interrogated individuals about their expectations on taxation, their salary and possession in the fifteen next years. As previously, the group of participants who were induced with a mortality reminder reported higher expectations. Kasser and Sheldon (2000) implemented a forest-management simulation game in which participants induced with a mortality reminder decided to harvest more than the obtainable resources in order to encourage a short term profit compared to the participants in the control condition.

 

The previous experiment supports the idea that fear of death increases the desire for money in individuals and encourage their willingness to obtain more material possession even if these desires can be damaging for other individuals.

 

T. Zaleskiewicz et al. widely explore to which extent money can be a death-anxiety buffer by showing that mortality salience influences individuals’ subjective perceptions of money (Size estimation richness criterion) and by assessing to which extent priming individuals with money reduce their reported death anxiety. T. Zaleskiewicz et al. showed through several experimental designs that mortality salience leads to an overestimation of the size of coins and bank notes, presumably because it intensifies the subjective value attributed to money. Moreover individuals reminded of their mortality seem to have higher monetary standards for being considered rich. Ultimately, individuals reminded of their mortality valued and desired money more, as they requested higher compensation for forgoing an immediate payment. All these considerations account for the idea that mortality salience will influence and thus modify the way individuals perceive money. This correlation, however, does not yet prove that money is an effective tool to reducing the anxiety linked to the fear of death. This is why the link must be revaluated from a more consequential point of view in order to answer the question : will earning money reduce individuals’ reported fear of death ?

 

The backward reasoning “If money eases pain, then salience of pain should increase the desire for money” must indeed be questioned since a higher level of wealth desire can also lead to higher pain.

 

T. Zaleskiewicz et al. (2013) explore this question by offering experimental evidences that priming the concept of money significantly reduced participants’ fear of death. Two types of money-related behaviours is identified : symbolic versus instrumental. These two behaviours refer to pre-existing attitudes toward money (Furnham & Argyle, 1998), as either sociologically-oriented and referring to a homo-donator (Mauss) scheme of thinking (symbolic attitude), or practically-oriented and related to a homo-oeconomicus scheme of thinking (instrumental attitude). All the quoted effects (Size evaluation, Richness criterion, Compensation for delayed payment, and Priming money) seem to be moderated by pre existing attitudes toward money. T. Zaleskiewicz et al. observe larger effects of mortality salience for people holding symbolic rather than instrumental attitudes toward money.

 

2.2 Money, Well-Being and Buffering power: 

 

In 1984 and 1985 Belk established the link between negative traits such as selfishness, greed and materialism, and provided evidence that such traits have a negative impact on subjective well being. Additionally, Richins and Dawson (1992) documented that materialistic norms and values among individuals is correlated with reduced levels of life satisfaction, augmented selfcriticism (Wachtel & Blatt, 1990), diminished levels of happiness (Belk, 1985a, 1988), heightened public self-consciousness, social anxiety (Schroeder & Dugal, 1995), and levels of depression (Kasser & Ryan, 1993).

 

Economic findings from Easterlin in 1974 documented that individuals having high revenues tend to declare themselves happier. International comparisons, on the other hand, show that the reported level of happiness average does not change significantly with national revenue per capita. This observation is at least true for countries that have revenues high enough to reach individuals basic needs. For instance, when revenue per capita rose significantly in the US between 1946 and 1970, reported happiness did not follow a longterm pattern and also decreased between 1960 and 1970. The "Easterlin paradox" suggests that there exists no clear correlation between a society's economic wealth and the average level of happiness.

 

More recently, Zhou and Gao (2008) suggested that the activation of monetary incentives diminishes the desire for social help since money and social help can buffer pain. By diminishing the desire for social relationships, money hinders the path to individual well-being.

 

Ultimately the question of the nature of the acquisition of money must be questioned and will be assessed in this paper. Indeed we must wonder if “wining money” happen to be different than “earning money”. The presence or absence of meaning is here questioned in the role of anxiety buffer that can be played by money. We hypothesize that a financial reward earned from the labour of the concerned individual will have a stronger buffering effect than a financial reward earned without effort (wheel of fortune type). Furthermore we also hypothesize that when money is earned for a noble cause or for positively connoted motives it will induce higher satisfaction and thus a strong buffering effect than a simple meaningless lottery. Ultimately we can assume that in the costly and socially rewarding conditions we will observe the higher buffering effect.

 

 

 

 

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Description of the experiment:

 

3.1 Participants and design:

 

For this experiment we recruited 50 participants. Since our experimental design implies that the subject will be systematically wining the different games — except for the control condition — we have a precise expectation of our experimental budget. Indeed we expect a total budget of 240 euros. Our 50 participants will be randomly assigned into four different conditions within which they will play a game. In conditions 1, 3 and 4 they will be rewarded 5 euros and in condition 2, 3 euros and 40 cents will be sent to Green peace in order to do credit to the social-reward engagement toward participants. The experiment will consist in a five-step procedure (see overview of the experiment below).

 

3.2 Materials and apparatus:

 

In this study subjects were asked to fill four questionnaires in order to evaluate our different variables (MAQ, PANAS, DAS-E and a socio demographic questionnaire). The Money Attitude Questionnaire scale is provided by Agata Gasiorowska (University Library of Munich) and is an English version of the SMAQ, which is waiting for publishing. The participants were recruited on their free will after posting an advertisement for the experiment. Interviews have been mainly led in the same place in the most sterile and standardized manner. The low number of participants is due to the difficulty I encountered in benefitting from university funding.

 

 

 

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Discussion, implication and conclusion:

 

This study offers additional evidences that, if money is a fear of death buffer, the conditions in which participants interact and more specifically acquire the money play an essential role in the efficiency of the buffer.

 

On the other hand this study has provided no evidence to the potential role that could have been played by either the money attitude or socio-demographic variables. This might be due to the fact that our study may seriously be flawed in two respects. First the small number of participants, due to financial issues, may impact negatively the accuracy of the study. Second, all the participants came from Paris, which is also a strong bias (especially when we remark that the results crossed with socio-demographic variables where not significant). Third, our experiment takes place within, and thus its findings must be relativized to, Materialistic cultures (see section 2.1).

 

Concerning now the results themselves, it must be mentioned that they imply a strong moral dimension in the problematic of money as a death buffer. Indeed we provide evidence that even if money reduces the fear of death in individuals, it is the way money is acquired that has the strongest influence on the fear reduction. From this perspective we could suggest that the buffering power of money mainly resides in the moral perceptions of individuals, especially in their relations with values such as desert and social pride. Indeed we could posit that self-worth perception, as opposed to money itself, may lie at the heart of the decrease in reported fear of death. This social desirability bias could take two forms. The decrease in reported fear of death could stem directly (i.e. not through money) from either the participant’s feeling of worth due to her contributing to a morally valuable goal (e.g. deforestation): or her feeling of worth due to her engaging in intellectual activity, which is, arguably, socially (or personally) valuable in itself. If this were the case, money itself would not be the buffer: self-worth perception would. Note, finally, that what we may call the ‘selfworth hypothesis’ seems to assume an instrumental attitude towards money: reduction of reported death-related anxiety in participants adopting a symbolic attitude could still be explained by the symbolic power of money.