Impact of money on emotional expression☆

• Money-primed individuals see public emotional expressions as less appropriate. • Money-primed individuals show less emotional expressions themselves. • Money-primed individuals judge others' emotions to be more extreme. • Money-primed individuals avoid interacting with emotional others. • These effects disappear when emotional expressions are believed to be private. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Activating the concept of money can influence people's own expressions of emotion as well as their reactions to the emotional expressions of others. Thinking about money increases individuals' disposition to perceive themselves in a businesslike relationship with others in which transactions are based on objective criteria and the expression of emotion is considered inappropriate. Therefore, these individuals express less emotion in public and expect others to do likewise. Six experiments show that subtle reminders of money lead people to have more negative attitudes toward expressing emotions in public and to avoid expressing emotion in their written communications. In addition, money-primed participants judge others' emotions to be more extreme and are disposed to avoid interacting with persons who display these emotions, especially when participants believe that these emotions are expressed in public. Money is the most common medium of exchange and pervades many aspects of daily life. Consequently, most research has traditionally focused on the motivational and functional effects of money. For example , some studies have addressed the impact of having money on subjective well-being (Diener, Ng, Harter, & Arora, 2010); others have identified situational and individual difference variables that affect how people perceive money More recent research, however, indicates that the mere exposure to money, devoid of any goal to which it might be relevant, can influence people's behavior. For example, it may stimulate the adoption of a utilitarian and businesslike mindset (Kouchaki, that leads to behaviors that are relatively impersonal and self-focused, showing little concern for the These findings have implications for a broad range of phenomena, many of which have not yet been considered. The present research is concerned with people's willingness to express emotion and their reactions to others' emotional expression. Business relationships are relatively impersonal and are guided by objective criteria. Emotions, however, typically convey information about one another's needs (Ekman, 1993), and consequently the expression of these emotions is often considered inappropriate in business relationships. Therefore, if activating a concept of money stimulates the adoption of a …