Being reminded of money, even unconsciously, changes the way people behave, making them both harder working and more self-centered, a University of Minnesota researcher has found.
That is an unusual insight, fascinating but maybe not that useful in the day-to-day world of business.
Is a manager to e-mail a $100 bill to the sales staff each morning to get them to work harder? Should the boss make sure no one pays with cash when the project team goes to lunch at Perkins so employees come back still eager to work with each other?
Kathleen Vohs is the professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management behind a lot of the research in this academic field. As accomplished as she is, she can't quite articulate a good practical lesson from her research for businesspeople, either.
But Vohs sure finds money effects fascinating. She's got lots of other interests for her research, yet she's been generating research article after research article on the effects on behavior when people are reminded of money.
Being reminded of money is called money priming. It has turned out to be such a rich research vein that Vohs has been asked by publishers to think about how to package some of her observations and ideas for people outside of an academic audience.
She already is often invited to give talks on her psychology-of-money research, and even how the audiences react is fascinating to her.
People with a background in economics seem to nod their heads, not surprised at all to hear how being reminded of money makes people more diligent and focused. Here money is having the effect on behavior it's supposed to have.