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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStudy: Just thinking about money can corrupt you
People who have just seen images of money or phrases about money are more likely to do something unethical like steal paper from their office because they ran out of paper at home. They're more apt to hire a candidate who says he will share confidential insider information about his former company. And if it means winning money, they're more likely to lie to get it.
These results come from four studies conducted by researchers at Harvard University and University of Utah. There were 324 participants overall, and to get a group of the participants to subconsciously think about money, researchers showed them images of currency or asked them to unscramble words to form money-related phrases.
"Across all of these studies we found that participants who were merely exposed to the concept of money were more likely to demonstrate unethical intentions, decisions, and behavior than participants in a control condition," said Kristin Smith-Crowe, one of the study's authors and an associate professor at the University of Utah's David Eccles School of Business.
Why? Because the exposure to money puts participants in a business mind frame -- leading them to make business decisions based on monetary benefits and big payoffs instead of morals, the study found.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/17/pf/money-corrupt/?source=cnn_bin
dem in texas
(2,673 posts)I have been in retail for over 35 years owning several antique shops and now selling on my own websites. I love money, think about money and like to make money, but I draw the line, my money is made honestly. And there have been many, many times that I have absorbed a loss from a customer even though it was not my fault, but my decision was because it was the right and moral thing to do.
I am 73, maybe the younger people have a different idea about money and moral character. I would like to take that test!
IDemo
(16,926 posts)The study wasn't conducted to discover how people would respond in every case. Per the article, they found it "more likely" for participants to relax ethical restraint when exposed to money, not invariably so in each case.