{"id":52849,"date":"2012-03-22T10:13:27","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T14:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=52849"},"modified":"2018-10-03T13:55:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T17:55:14","slug":"money-self-control-boucher-kofos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2012\/03\/22\/money-self-control-boucher-kofos\/","title":{"rendered":"Musing about money improves self-control, Bates study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bates psychology study based on a recent senior thesis suggests that thinking about money boosts self-control.<\/p>\n

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Priming your mind with money-related words and ideas can improve self-control, according to a new study co-authored by Bates graduate Monthe Kofos ’11 and Associate Professor of Psychology Helen Boucher.<\/p><\/div>\n

The study appears online in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology<\/em><\/a><\/strong> (purchase required) and is co-authored by Associate Professor of Psychology Helen Boucher and recent graduate Monthe Kofos ’11, based on his senior thesis research last year.<\/p>\n

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Monthe Kofos ’11 co-authored the study on money’s effect on self-control.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Boston Globe<\/em> highlights the study<\/a><\/strong> in its March 11 edition, noting that “understanding how self-control works \u2014 and when and why it doesn\u2019t \u2014 is a hot topic in psychology.”<\/p>\n

Reporter Kevin Lewis explains that “a study out of Bates College now suggests that one thing that can boost willpower is the mere thought of money.”<\/p>\n

In psychological research, a person’s waning self-control is called “ego-depletion,” reflecting the idea that willpower is an exhaustible resource.<\/p>\n

In the Bates study, Kofos, with Boucher as his adviser, used tools of the research trade to conduct a straightforward but telling test about the power of just thinking about money.<\/p>\n

“Those reminded of money performed better.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A study group of five dozen Bates students was divided into a control group and test group. The test subjects first completed a mind-bending editing task, which depleted their self-control. Then they were exposed to money-related words, “priming” their minds with money, as it were. Finally, their self-control was put to the test again.<\/p>\n

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Helen Boucher is an associate professor of psychology.<\/p><\/div>\n

Turns out, the notions of money restored their self-control. Boucher and Kofos report that “among depleted participants, those reminded of money performed better on the second self-control task than those reminded of neutral concepts.”<\/p>\n

A followup experiment by Boucher “suggests that this buffering effect was due to money reducing both the subjective difficulty and effort required on the second self-control task.”<\/p>\n

Boucher’s recent projects include the role of culture in shaping self-knowledge, self-evaluation and the pursuit of uniqueness in identity; the role of important others in self-regulation; and the effect of threats to meaning systems on self-knowledge. Now in her seventh year at Bates, she received a doctorate at the University of California.<\/p>\n

Kofos is living in the Boston area, where he is a counselor at an inpatient psychiatric ward at a local hospital while applying to graduate programs.<\/p>\n