Monetary Primes Increase Differences in Predicted Life-Satisfaction Between New and Old Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)

Running Head: MONEY AFFECTS PREDICTED LIFE-SATISFACTION

Monetary primes increase differences in predicted

life-satisfaction between new and old Indian

Institutes of Technology (IITs)

Sumitava Mukherjee, Maithilee Nargundkar and Jaison A. Manjaly

Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar

Corresponding Author:

Sumitava Mukherjee,

Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar,

VGEC campus, Chandkheda, Ahmedabad- 382424, India.

Phone: +91 8905430004.

MONEY AFFECTS PREDICTED LIFE-SATISFACTION

Fax: +91 7923972586

Email: [email protected]

2

mailto:[email protected]


Abstract

Dynamics between money and happiness has attracted many

scholars due to its importance in everyday lives but there is

no study on the psychological consequences of priming money on

life-satisfaction judgments. We examined whether students

report life-satisfaction of themselves and that of others

differently, after being reminded of money and whether such

judgments differ for new versus old institutes of higher

education. Students from a new Indian Institute of Technology

(IIT) at Gandhinagar and from an old IIT at Bombay were asked

to rate how satisfied currently they are with their lives in

general and were also asked to predict how satisfied students

are at other new and old IITs. Exposure to money did not

affect self-reported satisfaction ratings and predictions of

life-satisfaction for other students at old IITs. However,

predicted life-satisfaction for students at new IITs reduced

in presence of money. This made the difference in predicted

student life satisfactions between old and new IITs more

pronounced after priming money. Money selectively affects

life-satisfaction predictions depending on the context and

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social value of an institution, probably because money makes

market-pricing mode of thought salient. These findings have

important implication for education both in Asia and other

countries.

(198 words)

Keywords: Life-satisfaction, Money, Happiness, Judgment,

IIT, India

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Monetary primes increase differences in predicted life-

satisfaction between new and old Indian Institutes of

Technology (IITs)

“Money has never made man happy, nor will it; there is nothing in its nature to

produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.”

- Benjamin Franklin

“Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one

need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all.”

- Arthur Schoepenhaur

The quotes mentioned above reflect the very contradiction

that our society lives through. Often it is said that money

does not lead to happiness. However, on surveying a large

sample of Americans, it was clear that people associate money

with happiness (Mogilner, 2010). The literature exploring the

relation between happiness and money is vast and yet,

inconclusive. Happiness studies from the economic point of

view assert that greater income and wealth bring greater

happiness. Psychological theories on the other hand, find that

factors such as interpersonal relationships and health

concerns are associated more with happiness than income

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(Easterlin, 2004). The economic theories are in line with the

current trends of societies and governments around the world

that emphasize the need to increase Gross Domestic Product

(GDP) to improve overall well-being. Some studies found that

increases in income were associated with increase in

subjective wellbeing (Stevenson & Wolfers, 2008; Inglehart,

Foa, Peterson, &Welzel, 2008). However, some other studies

showed that although income increases, the happiness reported

by an individual over his life-cycle remains more or less

constant (Easterlin, 2004). For example, the wellbeing of

United States of America has remained unchanged in spite of

tremendous growth in its GDP over the years (Layard, 2010;

Diener & Seligman, 2004). Instead, the rate of depression has

increased ten times since the Second World War (Seligman,

1990). Happiness is associated with increase in income up to a

point and not beyond it (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002;

Easterlin, 2004). The psychological theories of happiness

purport that each individual has a predisposed set-point for

happiness. According to this set-point theory (Brickman &

Campbell, 1971), in spite of going through harsh life-events

such as death of a loved one, divorce, conflicts, and wars, an

6


individual may deviate temporarily from his set-point but will

eventually return to his set-point due to adaptation and

adjustment to life-events. However, an individual’s set-point

may change due to some life changing events such as death of

spouse or child and issues like unemployment (Lucas, 2007).

Newer studies suggest that each scale of measuring wellbeing

has some degree of judgment evaluation. Single item global

evaluations of wellbeing such as general life satisfaction are

more heavily weighted by judgments, whereas those assessing

happiness may be saturated with affect (Diener, Kahneman, Tov,

& Arora, 2010). Further, evaluation of life or well-being is a

transient judgment and can be subjected to various contextual

effects such as mood (Schwarz & Strack, 1999) and cues in the

physical environment (Schwarz & Strack, 1991). Many of these

judgments are partly mediated by attention to specific cues

(consciously or arguably, unconsciously) that are temporarily

available in the context. For example, studies have found that

the activities one would like to engage in and the happiness

associated with it varies as a function of what one is made to

focus on (‘focusing illusion’, Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade,

Schwartz, & Stone, 2006; Schkade & Kahneman, 1998). These

7


judgments are often subject to other attention related

processes that result in relativistic criterion set by the

cognizer like considering one’s account in comparison to

another.

In this study, we adopted a new approach to look at life-

satisfaction judgments. Building on the growing literature on

the psychological consequences of priming money (Vohs, Mead, &

Goode, 2006; 2008), we measured how such reminders of money

affect life-satisfaction judgments. Note that we purportedly

used incidental exposures to money following previous

researchers (Vohs et al., 2006; 2008) without explicit

reminders of any monetary gain or loss. Moreover, as judgments

are often relativistic, we also intended to compare judgments

of life-satisfaction for self versus others when one is primed

with money among students of residential premier institutes in

India. Thus, we not only could test the effect of incidental

reminders of money on life-satisfaction, but also shed some

light on the self-other distinction while judging life-

satisfaction.

Students’ life-satisfaction at the educational

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institutions is an important issue as they are the future

workforce of the country. Life-satisfaction of university

students is correlated with social support (Chow, 2005),

physical health (Chow, 2005; Pilcher, 1998), parenting style

(Seibel & Johnson, 2001), self-esteem, academic experience,

and living conditions (Chow, 2005). The life-satisfaction of

residential educational institutions (those that require one

to stay on the campus) could be largely affected by the

institution they get admitted to as the quality of education

and facilities at institutes varies vastly from institution to

institution in India. The academic work culture,

infrastructure, recreational opportunities and general

lifestyle at institutions differs a lot, which may lead to

varying predictions of life-satisfaction. A study with

Malaysian students residing in hostels within the university

campus and those residing outside residential campuses found

that factors such as proximity to the campus, other facilities

in the hostel, fees, and security emerged as affecting

satisfaction (Khozaei, Ayub, Hassan, & Khozaei, 2010). Such

factors could vary a lot in the numerous new educational

campuses proliferating in India. New institutions typically

9


take time in order to be fully functional. It is important in

such situation to study the life-satisfactions of students in

emerging institutions. We found that there is hardly any study

that has looked into this major issue in contemporary India

though educational developments form an important part of

government policy issues.

The Government of India set up nine new (Gandhinagar,

Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Indore, Patna, Mandi, Jodhpur, Ropar

and IT-BHU) premier educational institutions called Indian

Institutes of Technology (popularly known as IIT) in the last

five years as of this research (ET Bureau, 2008) on the lines

of the seven existing IITs (at Bombay, Delhi, Kanpur,

Kharagpur, Madras, Guwahati, Roorkee). They are known for

their high quality undergraduate education, rigorous entrance

exams, and academic pressure (Mayuram, 2012). There are

continuous debates about the life satisfaction and happiness

of students in these institutions, occasionally spurred by

suicide cases (Times of India, 2012). Many academicians are

concerned about dilution of quality and brand of IITs through

the establishment of newer ones (Telegraph, 2010). Thus, there

also have been concerns among the students about opting for a

10


new IIT as most of them need to set up their infrastructure

and recruit more faculties (Kumar & Choudhary, 2013, Oct 30).

Although degrees from older IITs are highly coveted, a survey

conducted at IIT Bombay showed that students here were not

very happy. Their mean score on Oxford Happiness scale was

about 3.43 on a scale of 10 and could be attributed to stress

(Shrivastava, 2012, May 05).

We wanted to find if life-satisfaction ratings differed

for students at new IITs and old IITs when they rated for

themselves, students at new IITs, and students at old IITs.

More importantly, we were interested to see how an incidental

subtle reminder to the money which can prime a transactional

mindset (Vohs et al., 2006) modulates these life-satisfaction

judgments. Note that money might prime various other semantics

like starting salary and return of investment on one’s

education but there is no a-priori reason of one semantic

association to be more activated than another.

We hypothesized that money’s inducement of self-

sufficiency and a market pricing mode of thought (Vohs et al.,

2008) should increase the difference between the predicted

11


life-satisfaction ratings for students at old and new IITs due

to a market pricing mode of thought. Further, we wanted to

find whether monetary primes influence self-satisfaction

judgments. Two studies on students at a new IIT at Gandhinagar

(experiment 1) and on students at an old IIT at Bombay

(experiment 2) measured how monetary primes affect self-

satisfaction and predicted life-satisfaction for students at

old and new IITs in general.

Experiment 1

Participants

Forty-eight undergraduate students (females = 10%, mean age =

18.57 years) at IIT Gandhinagar (IITGN) participated in this

study after they finished a one hour lecture in a non-

psychology topic. These students were selected randomly from a

bigger class who belonged to a range of demographic, economic

and socio-cultural backgrounds.

Procedure

For one group of participants (money group), the concept of

money was primed by using a gray-scaled image of a one-

12


thousand Indian rupee as a watermark (Quoidbach, Dunn,

Petrides & Mikolajczak, 2010) on the sheet with questions

related to life-satisfaction. The other group of participants

(neutral group) saw a scrambled version of the same rupee

image as a watermark which was beyond recognition. Both groups

were additionally told that some sheets have faintly printed

images from another study, and in order to save paper, we are

re-using the same pages. All participants were asked to rate

their life-satisfaction (“Taken all together, how happy and

satisfied are you with your life in general these days”;

Schkade & Kahneman, 1998) on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 9

(absolutely), and predict similar life-satisfactions of other

students at IITGN (their classmates) and other students at all

other IITs (eight new and seven old). Single-item life-

satisfaction judgments present an approximate overall

evaluation that is commonly used in well-being research

(Kahneman et al., 2006). It correlates with multiple item

scales like Satisfaction-With-Life Scale (SWLS) and has good

concurrent validity (Abdel-Khalek, 2006). Finally, all

students rated on a scale (0 to 100) how bad they felt the day

before (“Thinking only about yesterday, what percentage of

13


your time were you in a bad mood”) to check whether they have

been overall in a biased mood (Schkade & Kahneman, 1998).

Results

Out of forty-eight participants, four of them did not fill up

all the life-satisfaction ratings and one was an outlier, so

data was analyzed from forty-three participants using the

statistical package SPSS1. Ratings for how bad they felt the

previous day were not significantly different across the

priming groups, (p > 0.1) ruling out any pre-set biases. A

difference score was created by subtracting the mean ratings

of new IITs from that of old IITs (DiffOld-New). Thus, we

measured the effect of priming on three dependent variables as

follows: (a) self-satisfaction, (b) predicted satisfaction of

other IITGN students, and (c) predicted difference in life

satisfaction between Old and New IIT students obtained by

subtracting the mean satisfaction predicted for students at

all new IITs from the satisfaction predicted for students at

all the old IITs (DiffOld-New). The mean values for self

satisfaction versus life-satisfactions predicted for others at

all old and new IITs are shown in table 1. 1 SPSS for windows, version 17.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL)

14


Insert Table 1 here

There was no effect of the prime on self-satisfaction (p

> .79), but predicted satisfaction for other IITGN students

were lower in the money group t(41) = 2.29, p = .02, and

overall predicted satisfaction for new IITs were less in the

money primed group, t(41) = 3.17, p = .002. Importantly, the

difference in predicted satisfaction between old and new IITs

(DiffOld-New) was significantly more, t(41) = 2.32, p = .02 for

the money group (M = 1.82, SD = 1.60) than the neutral group

(M = 0.92, SD = 0.84). These results showed that priming money

did not influence self-satisfaction ratings but enhanced the

difference in predicted life satisfaction between old and new

IIT students.

Experiment 2

To increase validity, a follow-up experiment was conducted on

a larger student population from an older IIT at Bombay. We

also asked them to report happiness and satisfaction in two

separate items instead of a combined single item.

15


Participants

Out of a large student pool, 280 undergraduate students

(females = 20%, mean age = 20.8 years) voluntarily

participated in response to a request sent to them to complete

a web based student survey (implemented using the

SurveyMonkeyTM platform) purported to study how people judge

aspects of their life. They were randomly selected from

different classes in IIT Bombay (IITB).

Procedure

Participants were sent a link that took them to a website. For

one group of participants (money group; n = 140), all items

were presented on a background which had Indian currency

images. The other group of participants (neutral group; n =

140) were presented the same items on a background which had a

scrambled version of the money picture (for a similar method,

see Mukherjee, Manjaly & Nargundkar, 2013). The first part of

the survey measured self-satisfaction using two items: (a)

Taken all together, I am happy with my life in general and (b)

Taken all together, I am satisfied with my life in general.

Participants had to rate on a 9-point scale (1 = not at all; 9 =

16


absolutely) how much they agreed with the statements. Then, in

the second part, they were asked to predict on a scale of 1

(not at all) to 9 (absolutely), (a) how happy would most students be

with their life in general at old IITs and at new IITs, and

(b) how satisfied would most students be with their life in

general at old IITs and at new IITs.

Results

Ratings for happiness and satisfaction were highly correlated

and were hence aggregated into a combined satisfaction rating

(Cronbach’s α = .86). Priming money did not affect self-

satisfaction (p > .4) and predicted satisfaction for students

at old IITs (p > .7). Money reduced predicted satisfaction

among students studying at new IITs, t(278) = 2.96, p = .003

and the difference in predicted satisfaction between old and

new IITs (DiffOld-New) was significantly different, t(278) = 2.53,

p = .01.

Insert Table 2

These results were in-line with those obtained in

experiment 1. Money did not influence self-satisfaction

ratings but reduced predicted satisfaction for students

17


studying at new IITs, which resulted in enhanced differences

in predicted life satisfaction between old and new IIT

students.

Discussion

The results shed light on the effect of priming money on life-

satisfaction ratings of Indian students at institutes of

national importance, and also on how satisfaction ratings

differ for oneself versus others. It is interesting to note

that priming money did not alter reported self-satisfaction at

both new (Experiment 1) and old (Experiment 2) IIT

undergraduates at Gandhinagar and Bombay, respectively.

Importantly, for our discussion, monetary primes enhanced

differences between the new and old IITs. Thus, while money

did not significantly affect life-satisfaction ratings for

oneself, it affected predicted ratings of others’

satisfactions differently for new versus old IIT students.

Money also did not affect predicted satisfaction for students

at old IITs, but it significantly lowered life-satisfaction

predictions for students at new IITs. Reminders of money

possibly alters (in this case lowers) life-satisfaction

18


judgments when there is ambiguity and uncertainty as with

newer institutes of education.

As money primes a market-pricing mode of analysis (Vohs

et al., 2008) where people expect more in return of

investment, it potentially makes the difference between the

old and new IITs salient. Although fees are almost similar

across IITs, the new IITs are often assumed to lag behind the

older ones in terms of infrastructure and other returns which

might gain salience in presence of money; thereby pulling down

affective satisfaction predictions of newer IITs compared to

older ones.

In the domain of positive psychology, it remains

important to judge the extent to which life satisfaction

ratings predict wellbeing (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999).

One important determinant for well-being is judgment provided

by informants (Schneider & Schimmack, 2010) that helps

researchers compare satisfaction ratings of the self with

those of the informants. It is reasonable that students at

different institutes and universities have significant amounts

of knowledge about fellow students at other academic

19


organizations. Self-hood is almost always embedded in a social

context (Baumeister, 1998) and it is natural for institutes

under the same name (like Indian Institutes of Technology) to

often draw comparisons. We need to explore further how self

and identity concerns (Cameron, 1999; Haslam, Jetten, Postmes,

& Haslam, 2009; Sharma & Sharma, 2010) of students in India

are shaping up after major policy changes in education and

setting up of many newer campuses. Thus, this line of inquiry

into predictions or judgments of others at different

organizations along with a comparison with self-satisfaction

ratings shall be beneficial for research on well-being. More

specifically, how such self-satisfaction judgments interact

with contextual common cues like money could inform us more

about the way these judgments work.

Overall this report introduces a newer way to look at the

dynamics between money and positive psychology. Self-reported

satisfactions and predictions are malleable and can be

situationally subjected to subtle cues in the environment

(Schwarz & Strack, 1999). Building on priming paradigms to

look at various measures of positivity could be a direction

which might uncover newer associations. This report is an

20


indication of this wide area of research intersecting money,

positive psychology, and education, with special significance

for South-Asia which would have more than 500 million

university-aged youth by 2020 (Lane, 2012). Such research is

relevant to the expanding Indian educational market because we

need to look at relational self constructs in academic

workplaces (Petrella & Gore, 2013) with more vigor to pave

better policies in education and well-being in institutions.

21


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List of Tables:

Table 1. Self-reports of life-satisfaction and predictions of

life-satisfaction for others by students at IIT Gandhinagar

Table 2. Self-reports of life-satisfaction and predicted

satisfaction of students at old and new IITs by students at

IIT Bombay

30


Table 1

Life -Satisfaction

Mean (SD)

t -

value

df = 41

p

Money Neutral

Self5.79

(1.44) 5.91 (1.67) .272.79

Others at IITGN5.80

(1.24) 6.60 (1.10) 2.29.02*

All Old IITs6.29

(1.09) 6.64 (1.11) 1.05.29

All New IITs4.46

(1.30) 5.71 (1.28) 3.17

.002*

*

Difference Old-New

1.85

(1.60) 0.92 (0.85) 2.32.02*

*p < .05, **p < .01

31


Table 2

Life -Satisfaction

Mean (SD)

t -

value

df = 278

p.

Money Neutral

Self6.48

(1.82) 6.33 (1.87) .69.48

Students at Old IITs6.39

(1.62) 6.45 (1.39) .29.76

Students at new IITs4.80

(1.78) 5.37 (1.43) 2.96

.003*

*

Difference Old-New

1.59

(1.86) 1.07 (1.56) 2.53.01*

*p < .05, **p < .01

32


Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and anonymous

reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of the

manuscript. Prof. Urjit Yajnik (IIT Bombay) facilitated data

collection for experiment 2.

33

Monetary Primes Increase Differences in Predicted Life-Satisfaction Between New and Old Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)

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