Musing about money improves self-control, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ study finds
A ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ psychology study based on a recent senior thesis suggests that thinking about money boosts self-control.
Priming your mind with money-related words and ideas can improve self-control, according to a new study co-authored by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ graduate Monthe Kofos ’11 and Associate Professor of Psychology Helen Boucher.
The study appears online in the (purchase required) and is co-authored by Associate Professor of Psychology Helen Boucher and recent graduate Monthe Kofos ’11, based on his senior thesis research last year.
Monthe Kofos ’11 co-authored the study on money’s effect on self-control.
in its March 11 edition, noting that “understanding how self-control works — and when and why it doesn’t — is a hot topic in psychology.”
Reporter Kevin Lewis explains that “a study out of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College now suggests that one thing that can boost willpower is the mere thought of money.”
In psychological research, a person’s waning self-control is called “ego-depletion,” reflecting the idea that willpower is an exhaustible resource.
In the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ study, Kofos, with Boucher as his adviser, used tools of the research trade to conduct a straightforward but telling test about the power of just thinking about money.
“Those reminded of money performed better.”
A study group of five dozen ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students was divided into a control group and test group. The test subjects first completed a mind-bending editing task, which depleted their self-control. Then they were exposed to money-related words, “priming” their minds with money, as it were. Finally, their self-control was put to the test again.
Helen Boucher is an associate professor of psychology.
Turns out, the notions of money restored their self-control. Boucher and Kofos report that “among depleted participants, those reminded of money performed better on the second self-control task than those reminded of neutral concepts.”
A followup experiment by Boucher “suggests that this buffering effect was due to money reducing both the subjective difficulty and effort required on the second self-control task.”
Boucher’s recent projects include the role of culture in shaping self-knowledge, self-evaluation and the pursuit of uniqueness in identity; the role of important others in self-regulation; and the effect of threats to meaning systems on self-knowledge. Now in her seventh year at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, she received a doctorate at the University of California.
Kofos is living in the Boston area, where he is a counselor at an inpatient psychiatric ward at a local hospital while applying to graduate programs.
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