还记得毕业之后的第一次搬家吗？如果薪水不是很高，通常我们都会依赖于朋友的帮忙，是否还怀念在共同努力之后分享皮萨饼和啤酒的同志之情？现在的你或许最先想到的是找搬家公司，因为你比以前有钱了。钱能使鬼推磨不一定正确，但钱却真的能影响甚至改变人。有人说钱是动力，也有人说钱破坏和谐，实验心理学家发现，当人们脑中想着钱的时候，人会更加关注自我，更不愿意获得他人的帮助。-psytopic.com

人们常说有钱能使鬼推磨，自古以来关于金钱对人的影响一直争论不休。日前，据《科学》杂志在线报道，实验心理学家发现，仅仅想到钱就可以改变人。在他们进行的试验中，当被试者脑中想着钱时，他们就变得比以前更加自我，然而这种自我有好的一面也有不好的一面——可以激励人奋斗，也会让人自私。

心理学家Kathleen Vohs说自己博士后工作结束时就开始考虑金钱对心理的影响。那时因为薪水大大增加，她可以雇用搬家工而不是依赖于朋友的帮忙。这当然会让搬家更容易，但是Vohs说她很想念以前在共同努力之后分享比萨饼和啤酒的同志之情。这种经历引导Vohs提出假设——金钱在让人更独立的同时，也成为隔离人的障碍。

Vohs如今在美国明尼苏达大学任职，为了更科学地检验这个假设，Vohs和她的同事招募了几百名大学生志愿者进行了一系列试验。在每次试验之前，研究人员都把志愿者分成两部分，让一半志愿者想着钱，比如说，让他们读一篇提到钱的文章，或者让他们看一张画着各种纸币的海报；而把没有想着钱的作为对照组。

在一次试验中，研究人员给志愿者们一个很难的字谜，告诉他们可以在任何时候求援。结果，想着钱的那些人比没有想到钱的人多等了70%的时间才去求助，他们帮助别人的时间比对照组少了一半，同时帮助别人捡铅笔的人也更少。

然而，这些不擅长社交的表现并没有结束，即使和帮手合作可以明显减少工作量，志愿者还是更愿意独自工作。在回答一份问卷时，脑中想着钱的志愿者更多地选择相对孤单的休闲活动，比如在一次四人晚餐和一堂私人烹调课中，他们选择了后者。

在另一次实验之前，研究人员让实验组的志愿者先观看一个以钱为主题的电脑屏保，让对照组的志愿者看以鱼为主题的屏保。结果在进行“开始了解你”的谈话时，前者比后者把谈话者所坐的两张椅子放得更远。Vohs和她的同事在11月17日的《科学》杂志上报告了这个结果。总体来说，实验结果显示，脑子中想着钱的人更自我——不想依赖他人也不愿意其他人依赖他们。

“这是会引发争议的发现”，康奈尔大学的心理学家Tom Gilovich表示，“即使是潜意识的，可以主宰人的这种想法和得到的效果都令人吃惊。”英国埃克塞特大学的经济心理学家StephenLea补充道，这项研究可以对一些日常决策有暗示作用，如是否要给你的孩子零花钱。零花钱会让孩子感到满足，Lea说，但是它同时也阻碍合作。“这不是一个容易的抉择，但是必须认识到如果你将一种关系货币化了，你就改变了它的本质。”

以下这段为心理学专业人士准备：

钱让人感觉自足

在一组9个试验中，从有关钱的短文到现金的照片等钱的提醒，使人更少地请求帮助，而更多的提供帮助。试验对象也更可能游戏、一起工作、增加他们自己与一个新认识的人之间的物理距离，Kathleen Vohs和同事报告说。有些学者曾把钱描述为使人们采取行动的鼓励，但也有人指责钱破坏社区的和谐。文章作者提出，这两个效应来自钱使人感到也表现出自己有能力的实事。他们的试验涉及让自愿者接触钱的想法，然后在完成某个任务上比较他们与一个没有接触钱的想法对照组的人的行为。有些任务涉及请求帮助，还有些涉及提供帮助、提供金钱、以及选择独自和社区活动。在所有的试验中，事先接触钱的想法的志愿者比对照表现出更自我倾向的行为。一篇相关的研究评述讨论了这些发现。

报告：The Psychological Consequences of Money, Kathleen D. Vohs, Nicole L. Mead, and Miranda R. Goode
研究评述：Money Is Material, Carole B. Burgoyne and Stephen E. G. Lea

附原文报导：

It’s often said that money changes people. Now a team of experimental psychologists has found that just thinking of money changes people. With money on their minds, experimental subjects became more focused on themselves–in both good ways and bad.

Psychologist Kathleen Vohs says she started thinking about the psychology of money when she moved from a postdoctoral position to her first faculty job. The big salary increase meant she could hire a mover instead of relying on help from friends. It certainly made the move easier, Vohs says, but she missed the camaraderie of sharing pizza and beer after a big group effort. The experience led her to hypothesize that while money makes people more independent, it can also act as an isolating social barrier.

To examine this idea in a more controlled setting, Vohs, now at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues recruited several hundred college students to participate in a variety of experiments. In each experiment, the researchers subtly prompted half the volunteers to think of money–by having them read an essay that mentioned money, for example, or seating them facing a poster depicting different types of currency–before putting them in a social situation. In one experiment, the researchers gave volunteers a difficult puzzle and told them to ask for help at any time. People who had been reminded of money waited nearly 70% longer to seek help than those who hadn’t. People cued to think of money also spent only half as much time, on average, assisting another person who asked for their help with a word problem and picked up fewer pencils for someone who’d dropped them.

The antisocial behavior didn’t end there. Volunteers reminded of money preferred working alone even if sharing the task with a co-worker resulted in substantially less work. They also chose solitary leisure activities on a questionnaire–preferring a private cooking lesson, for instance, over a dinner for four. And when asked to set up two chairs for a get-to-know-you chat with another volunteer, subjects who’d seen a money-themed computer screensaver placed the chairs further apart than subjects who’d seen a fish screensaver, Vohs and colleagues report in tomorrow’s issue of Science. Taken together, Vohs says, the findings suggest that thinking of money puts people in a frame of mind in which they don’t want to depend on others and don’t want others to depend on them.

“It’s a provocative set of findings,” says Tom Gilovich, a psychologist at Cornell University. “The notion that you can prime people, even subliminally, and get these effects is kind of stunning.” The study may have implications for routine decisions such as whether to give your children an allowance, adds Stephen Lea, an economic psychologist at the University of Exeter, U.K. An allowance might foster self-sufficiency, Lea says, but it might discourage cooperation at the same time. “It’s not an easy decision, but you need to recognize that if you monetize a relationship, you change it.”

By Greg Miller / ScienceNOW Daily News
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