What happens when people handle money? It turns out that many psychologists are interested in studying the psychological consequences of having money. Researchers have typically found that being wealthy, or feeling temporarily wealthy is associated with a number of self-interested outcomes, such as behaving selfishly, breaking laws, and being unethically (for example). Now there's a study that investigated the impact of money on kids. Does handling money have negative effects on kids, too?
Here's the link to the story in the Pacific Standard. According to the journalist, the researchers studied kids who were between 4 and 6 years of age. The journalist mentions that the article reported five studies. Let's examine the first one, as described by the journalist:
One of them featured 64 Polish children, ages four to six. Participants began by sorting 30 objects: either coins (by denomination), or similarly sized buttons (by color).
"Next, the children moved to another room, where they met a new experimenter who asked for help readying a task for another child," the researchers write."She asked the children to bring her as many red crayons as they could from a box in the far corner of the room." She then handed them baskets in which they could place the crayons.
"The children who had sorted money brought the experimenter fewer crayons than did the children who sorted buttons," the researchers report.
a) What are the main two variables in this study? For variable, decide if it is manipulated or measured.
b) What kind of study do you think is being conducted here? A correlational study or an experiment? Explain your answer. If it's an experiment, which of the four basic designs is it?
c) Sketch a graph of the results they describe.
d) Can the research support the journalist's headline, which was "Handling Money Decreases Helpful Behavior Among Young Children"? Apply the three criteria for causation.
e) You could reflect on the construct validity of this study. How would you ask construct validity questions about the two variables studied here?
It's worth pointing out that the journalist mentions:
Interestingly, this held true even for children who could not identify which coins were more valuable (that is, which of them "would buy the most candy").
This statement is about a potential moderator: Did kids' knowledge of money change the relationship between playing with money and their subsequent helpfulness? Apparently not: Knowledge of money is not a moderator.
Here's another experiment summarized by the journalist:
In another experiment, children who spent more time sorting money, "and hence were exposed to it longer, took more stickers for themselves, and donated fewer stickers to other children." In contrast, the amount of time they spent sorting buttons or candy did not produce this effect.
f) What about this study? The journalist called this an experiment. But was it? What do you think?
g) What seem to have been the variables in this study?
Suggested answers
a) The main two variables are 1) what kids played with (money or buttons)--this was a manipulated variable. and 2) how many crayons kids brought over--this was a measured variable.
b) This was an experiment (assuming they randomly assigned kids to the money or button conditions), because the variable of "what kids played with" was manipulated.
In fact, this is a post-test only experiment. It has an independent groups design.
c) A bar graph would have "number of red crayons" on the y axis, and the x-axis would have a label under two bars: "money" and "buttons." The "buttons" bar should be higher than the "money" bar.
d) This experiment is consistent with that causal claim. First, the results support covariance--there is a relationship between playing with money and being less helpful. Second, the experimental method ensured that kids played with the money (vs. buttons) before they had the opportunity to help the experimenter. Third, the experimental nature of the study helps with internal validity. The journalist doesn't say, but if we assume kids were randomly assigned to play with money vs. buttons, this controls for many individual difference variables such as the age of the kids, their preexisting levels of helpfulness, their comfort in this experimental situation, and so on. Both tasks (sorting money and buttons) involved objects that were about the same size, and involved a categorization task, so that's not a confound. It does seem to support the claim.
e) To assess construct validity, we'd ask, first, "how well does sorting coins (vs. buttons) manipulate the variable, 'playing with money'?" Then we'd ask, "how well does bringing an experimenter red crayons measure the variable, 'helpfulness'?"
f) This one is more difficult to classify as experimental or correlational. It's not clear if the variable, "amount of time spent with money" was a manipulated variable or a measured variable. It could have been manipulated, because you could assign some kids to play with money (or buttons) for a short time or a long time. But it might also be measured, because you could simply observe how long kids choose to play with some money or some buttons. This is an example of a time we'd have to go to the original journal article to learn more about the study. The journalist left out some details.
g) One variable is "amount of time being spent." Another variable is "how many stickers children gave to other kids". And I think another variable is "playing with buttons versus money."