There seems to always be a connection between unethical behaviour and money, leading to the idea that money corrupts. Gino and Mogilner’s (2013) in their recent study looked into a new way of counteracting the possible undesirable effects money has on people. Across four experiments they found that by triggering thoughts of time and in turn self-reflection rather than money, individuals were more inclined to cheat less and behave more ethically. The effect of money as a corrupting factor is recognised (Festinger & Carlsmith 1959) and expressed in the Gino and Mogilner study and the links between money, time and morality clearly layed out. Gino and Mogilner’s findings that by priming time, higher levels of self-reflection are triggered and money primes create lower levels of self-reflection, propose important applications in offsetting the adverse effects of monetary influence.
Our society has an obsession with spending, buying and accumulating money, and research into the possible connection of money and corruption is continuously ongoing. Despite the numerous studies on money and its involvement with unethical behaviour, Gino and Mogilner (2013) directed a new focus, examining a way to offset the negative effect of money with an emphasis on the resource of time and in that, self-reflection. Gino and Mogilner primed, a subliminal memory effect where they exposed participants to the concepts of time or money in order to see how either would influence their response to the experiments. Gino and Mogilner (2013) found that by simply thinking of the concept of time, over money, pushed people to cheat less leading to higher moral value and that reduced cheating as a result to priming time was due to time having the effect of encouraging self reflection. However in light of other research the importance of Gino and Mogilner’s conclusion that recommending people to reflect on time rather than money as an effective method of reducing dishonesty
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