The effect of thinking of money on social distance: The moderating role of subjective socioeconomic status

Abstract

Building on recent literature, we examined whether subjective socioeconomic status moderated the impact of money priming on social distance. After manipulating the concept of money, participants indicated their social distance from others on a figure-based scale and evaluated their subjective SES on the MacArthur Ladder scale. Results showed that money priming significantly decreased the perceived social distance among people with lower subjective SES. The findings suggest that subjective SES differentially modulates the effect of money priming on the perception of social distance. This pattern in people with a lower level of subjective SES may stem from their perception of thinking money as a threat.