fake money/real pain

Running head: FAKE MONEY, REAL PAIN

Fake Money Soothes Real Pain; Understanding and Quantifying the Effect of Money as a

Psychological Buffer Against Physical Pain.

John K. Carvalho

Macalester College

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Abstract

The experimental protocol that led to the recent discovery that mere reminders of money

can reduce subjective perception of physical pain (Zhou, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2009) was

adjusted in several key ways to further increase understanding of the nature of this effect.

Introductory psychology students participated in a study substantially similar to the target

study, but substituted fake money for real, added a second denomination of money to

search for a dose-response relationship, substituted the more frequently-used cold-pressor

task for hot-water immersion, and used a rejection sensitivity questionnaire to consider

the social exclusion effects of handling money and influencing pain. No dose-response

relationship was found, but a single degree of freedom contrast of pooled means found a

significant effect of “some money” vs. “no money” on reducing pain, F(1,29) = 4.17, p

= .05, MSW= 14.138. As well, higher ratings of pain were significantly correlated with

higher feelings of rejection, Pearson’s r = .366, p<.05. These data confirm the previously

discovered effects of money on pain, but strengthen them significantly by proving that

when “reminding” subjects of money, the money does not have to be real. Additionally,

we find additional evidence to bolster the strong relationship between physical and social

pain.

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Money is a relatively new innovation on our evolutionary timeline- several

thousand years ago, we survived and flourished with no concept of its meaning or method

for its use. That being said, recent research is now focused on understanding its effects on

us, how we deal with it, how we interact with it, how we spend it or save it, and its

surprising and wide ranging psychological power, and its interaction with pain, both

psychological and physiological. It is an interesting area of research precisely because

money is so key to our collective existence in many ways-the glue that holds many social

interactions together.

The current research begins with understanding the interaction between social

pain, physical pain, and money. The connection between social and physical pain was

first suggested by Panksepp and has now been well established by others (Panksepp,

1998). They postulate that the social attachment system evolved from more primitive

regulation systems already in place, like those involved in thermoregulation and physical

pain. To quote MacDonald and Leary (2005), “threats to one’s social connections are

processed at a basic level as a severe threat to one’s safety…such threats are partly

mediated by the same system that processes physical pain because the pain system was

already in place when social animals evolved adaptations for responding to social

exclusion.” The strength of this relationship has been established from both theoretical

directions; not only is social pain believed to be evolutionarily connected to physical

pain, it has also been empirically shown that common methods for reducing physical pain

also reduce social pain, adding further credence to this surmised connection (DeWall et.

al, 2010). Additionally, recent data suggests that the distressing elements of both

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physical and social pain are both processed in the dorsal region of the anterior cingular

cortex (Lieberman & Eisenberger, 2006).

Furthermore, some general information is also already known about money and

social pain. Money and social feelings of belonging are intimately connected. Research

has found that social exclusion leads people to be willing to spend more, perhaps in an

effort to counteract a loss in social standing with a gain in material goods, especially

those that signify belongingness or wealth (Mead, Baumeister, Vohs, & Stillman, 2008).

Zhou, Vohs, and Baumeister showed that after being informed of a rejection by their peer

group, students’ desire for money strongly increased (2009). Money acts as a social

buffer in a variety of ways, promoting feelings of distance and increased striving towards

individuality (“I’m in it for me and me only”). In one study, participants who were

primed with images of money then told to set up two chairs in order to have a

conversation with another participant set up the chairs farther apart than those who were

primed with neutral screensavers (Vohs, Mead & Goode, 2006).

So, the idea that money serves as a buffer or a replacement for social support

when none is available is well established. In the words of Zhou and Gao, money

“provides a sense of physical safety and psychological security and thus can serve as

another protective device against pain besides social support (2008).” And yet, there is

some concern (especially from the attachment perspective) that when significant pain is

encountered, this buffering effect may not be strong enough to mediate it. Shaver and

Mikulincer (2008) note the fragility of any and all avoidant defenses and state that

strategies aimed at replacing love and support may collapse under “prolonged threatening

circumstances”. Cheng, Chen, and LuoKogan (2008) note that the buffering role has not

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yet been sufficiently explicated since the level of experienced pain has not yet been fully

manipulated in these types of experiments.

A careful review of the relevant areas of research thus suggests money is linked to

buffering against social pain. Social pain is linked to physical pain. Thus, money should

help protect against physical pain, and yet there is also reason to believe that prolonged or

high levels of any type of pain may negate these types of buffering effects.

Therefore, this is precisely why the most current research on the topic deals with

money’s effects not on psychological pain but purely physical pain, in order to probe the

link between money and physical pain in greater detail.

In a groundbreaking study, Zhou, Vohs, and Baumeister discovered a strong new

effect of money on physical pain (2009), importantly using three levels of pain

manipulation, which we have noted had yet to be attempted. They invited subjects into

the lab, informing them that they would be participating in a test of finger dexterity.

Subjects were divided into two groups, and first completed a counting task, with half the

subjects counting 80 pieces of paper, and half the subjects counting 100-dollar Chinese

RMB bills (each equivalent to about fifteen to twenty US dollars). Upon completion of

the task, subjects were subjected to a hot-water-immersion pain task.

This type of hot water task that they used is slightly less common than the cold-

pressor task (seen in McCaul, Monson, & Maki, 1992; Schmidt, & Cook, 1999, and

others). Zhou, Vohs, and Baumeister took some liberty in deciding the time lengths of the

portions of their high-pain task, but significant research does pinpoint the proper

temperature for hot-water pain tasks to be in the 47°C-50°C range (Moshiree, Price,

Robinson, Gaible, & Verne, 2007; Streff, Kuehl, Michaux, & Anton, 2010). These two

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types of tasks are effectively identical, though, as recent research has shown that people’s

subjective ratings of pain from hot-water and cold-pressor tasks do not vary significantly

(Streff, Michaux, & Anton, 2010).

Subjects then recorded the level of pain they felt on a simple 1-9 Likert scale,

followed by the PANAS in order to measure their affect levels (both positive and

negative). The researchers discovered that subjects who had counted money prior to the

pain task reported the pain they experienced to be significantly less distressing.

With the discovery of this new effect, several questions remained, of which we

focus on two. First, is there a dose-effect relationship? That is, is the size of the effect

proportionately related to the strength of the stimulus that creates that effect? When

hashing out the parameters of a newly observed effect, figuring out this type of

relationship is key to inferring causality. This type of effect is frequently sought in

neuroscience research that deals with drugs or medicines (Quinteros-Munoz & Saez-

Briones, 2010), but is also found in a variety of other research, including researchers who

explicitly point out that a strong dose-effect ratio “suggests” causality (Rubino, Nanni,

Pozzi, & Siracusano, 2009).

Furthermore, although the researchers propose as a plausible explanation that

money substitutes and augments feelings of attachment, having the same effect on

physical pain as social pain because of the relationship between social and physical pain,

we do not yet know that to be the case.

If we can answer these specific questions, we will be able to advance in important

ways the understanding of a relatively new psychological effect.

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In order to do so, we completed a study that is similar in protocol to the

researchers’ 2009 study, but augmented in several key ways. While keeping the general

procedure of the earlier study the same, we added another level to the money/paper, the

current IV. Instead of having subjects count paper or $100 bills (essentially “money or

nothing”) we divided the subject pool into three groups. A third counted paper, a third

counted five dollar bills, and a third counted hundred dollar bills. This would enable a

dose-effect relationship to become evident.

The money used, however, was fake. This was the manipulation that provided the

most promise. In a study of gambling behavior, Carter and Pasqualini (2004)

demonstrated that people’s somatic responses to real and fake money were essentially the

same. Given that people’s physiological responses to money were largely similar

regardless of the money’s authenticity, it became the goal to see if the particular

psychological effect of money we were testing could also be replicated with money that

was not actually real.

Given that we have noted research that discusses the similarity (Streff, Michaux,

& Anton, 2010) in subjective pain ratings between hot-water and cold-pressor tasks, we

chose to use the much more common cold-pressor task. This was done partly for reasons

of practicality, in that cold-pressor apparatuses are easier to use and maintain specific

temperatures with, and also in an attempt to generalize the nature of the pain to the more

common task. Since hot-water immersion tasks are much less common in the literature, it

provided an opportunity to ascertain whether the effect we were searching for could be

induced using this more common type of pain.

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After rating their physical pain from 1-9, and their emotional distress using the

PANAS assessment in order to measure subjects’ levels of distress, they now also

completed Feldman and Downey’s Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (1996), in order

to test the explanatory construct that underlies the current research.

In this setup, we had one between-subjects independent variable, money; it had

three levels. The dependent variables were the subjects’ responses to the PANAS scale,

which showed their levels of affect, and their rankings of their physical pain, and their

responses the RSQ. The variables remained substantially similar to Zhou, Vohs, and

Baumeister (2009), in order to maintain the framework of the original research.

There are several possible outcomes. We could find no effect on pain in any of the

conditions or across any of the groups, which would suggest that the original effect

simply cannot be achieved using fake money.

If the pain ratings are lower in each of the money groups, but are not significantly

different between the $5 group and the $100 group, we will have replicated the original

effect, and found that there is no dose-effect relationship in evidence here.

If the pain measurements scale are lower in each of the money groups, but we also

see the $100 group significantly lower than the $5 group, then we will have discovered a

dose-effect relationship and found that for this effect, the strength of the stimulus really is

proportional to the effect, and we will have found evidence to support the hypothesis that

we have derived.

The same pattern of potential results exists for the RSQ scores and PANAS

scores. We could conceivably find no effect, find a pooled effect, find two effects of

different sizes, or find a dose-response effect.

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Given Zhou and Gao’s theory of money as a strong, global social buffer against a

variety of forces, it seems likely that the effect will be replicated with the fake money,

given that reminders of money have led to such large effects in the past. The data will

likely have a dose-response curve as well; there is no compelling data to suggest

otherwise.

Several potential limitations exist; it will require very high rates of participation

out of the participant pool in order to make sure that there is sufficient statistical power in

the sample set. Also, any protocol that requires great levels of specificity, as in the cold-

pressor task, wherein it is necessary to precisely control the temperature of the water, has

the potential for error. Finally, the attachment theorists among us wonder about effects

like this being stronger or weaker in those with different types of attachment styles.

We counteracted this potential for error by streamlining the study’s design as

much as possible and keeping it a 3x1 design, and we will anticipate and prevent the

potential for error by paying close attention to the parts where error could logically occur,

like the water heating. As well, with a truly random sample across a wide spectrum of

subjects and backgrounds, one would expect these innate differences in temperament and

background to be largely negated.

Method

Participants

Thirty-two young adults, recruited for partial course credit from a college

introductory psychology class were enlisted for the study. They were predominantly

women, and ranged in age from seventeen to twenty-one, although this type of

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categorical data was not prescient to the study and not analyzed in any way. Participants

participated voluntarily and received no further compensation for their participation.

Stimulus

The stimulus for the no-money condition was eighty blank white standard-sized

pieces of computer paper. The stimulus for the low-money condition was eighty fake

five-dollar bills. The stimulus for the high-dollar condition was eighty fake hundred-

dollar bills. The cold-pressor apparatus cooled the water to 4±2°C, and was constantly

monitored to stay within the stated range (Streff, Kuehl, Michaux, & Anton, 2010).

Design

The experiment used a single factor between subjects design. The fake money, the

independent variable, had three levels: ($0.00, $5.00, and $100.00).

Procedure

In a procedure substantially similar to Zhou, Vohs, & Baumeister (2009), subjects

were told that they would be participating in a test of finger dexterity. They then signed

informed consent forms. Prior to arriving at the lab, subjects had been randomly assigned

to three conditions. The conditions: no-money, small-money, and large-money. In the

no-money condition, the participants counted a stack of eighty sheets of paper. In the

small-money condition, they counted an equivalent amount of fake five-dollar bills. In

the large money group, they counted eighty fake hundred-dollar bills. As we have noted,

research has shown little significant difference in the somatic responses to real and fake

money. In all cases, the experimenter timed them during this task, in order to further the

illusion that the study concerned their level of physical dexterity. Upon completion of

the task, the experimenter thanked them, and explained apologetically that the next part

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would be slightly uncomfortable, but that the ice bath that they were about to experience

would relax the smaller muscles in the fingers and would allow for an unbiased

understanding of their dexterity. He instructed them to submerse their entire right hand in

the water up to their wrist, and he reminded them that they could remove their hand at the

point the pain became unbearable. The duration of immersion was recorded as a

dependent variable. Subjects then evaluated their physical pain on a Likert scale with 9

levels, with 1 indicating “no pain at all” and 9 indicating “nearly unbearable pain”. They

completed the PANAS, in order to measure changes in their levels of affect, then

completed an affiliation task as well, Feldman and Downey’s Rejection Sensitivity

Questionnaire (1996). They were thoroughly debriefed and thanked for their time.

Results

We ran one-way ANOVAs looking for a mean effect of money against RSQ

scores, positive and negative PANAS scores, overall PANAS scores and pain ratings. We

found a main effect money on pain: F(2,29)=3.78, p<.05, MSW = 12.821 (See Figure 1).

The mean pain ratings for the 0, 5, and 100 conditions were 6.364, 4.200, and 5.727

respectively. The data was a bit unexpected, in that we saw a stronger effect on pain for

five dollar bills than hundred dollar bills; Fisher’s LSD showed a significant effect in the

comparison of the five-dollar condition means to the no-money condition, p =.012, and a

nearly significant effect when compared to the hundred dollar condition, p = .068, but

there was no significant effect in the comparison of the hundred dollar means to the no

money condition. However, a pooled single degree of freedom contrast of means showed

a significant effect of “some money” vs. “no money”: F(1,29) = 4.17, p = .05, MSW=

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14.138. This replicates prior research: we found that being reminded of money does

significantly reduce subjective perception of physical pain.

Additionally, we found significant positive correlation between pain ratings and

rejection scores, Pearson’s r = .366, p < .05, further providing evidence for the theory

that we process physical and social pain in similar neural fashion (See Figure 2).

We considered several other possible effects, and found them without exception

to not be significant. We looked at PANAS scores, F(2,29) = .106, p >.05, MSW=.020.

We also considered only PANAS’s negative subscale: F(2,29) = .909, p>.05,

MSW=.149, and PANAS’s positive subscale: F(2,29) = .021, p>.05, MSW = .014. We

also found no main effect between money levels and scores on the RSQ: F(2, 28) = .575,

p>.05, MSW = 3.850. It is clear that being primed with money does not mediate feelings

of social rejection, as measured by the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire. Our final

dependent variable, time spent in water, approached significance: F(2,29) = 2.278, p>.1,

MSW = 7049.723.

Discussion

The physical act of having money is one that brings with it obvious benefits. We

have discussed the extent to which it can be used to improve one’s social standing; it can

be used to acquire material goods. It can be used to help return one their social status

after rejection.

However, money is not simply a tool that can be used after the infliction of social

or physical pain to return one to their prior status, and thus we focused more specifically

on money’s preventative or inhibitory effects on pain. We were concerned with the extent

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to which simply being reminded of money reduced one’s perception of later physical

pain.

Therefore, the present research had three goals. First, to ascertain whether the

previously discovered effect of handling money on reducing pain could be recreated even

if the money used for priming was fake. Second, we were concerned with finding a dose-

response relationship- that is, we were concerned with whether ratings of pain sensitivity

would decrease proportionally as the denomination of the bills used to prime subjects

increased. Finally, we were curious, given that much of this research is based on the

previously demonstrated effects of money on mitigating social rejection, whether

handling money would also cause subjects to express lower sensitivity to social rejection,

as measured by the Rejection Sensitivity Scale (Feldman & Bowney, 1996), which would

support the previously noted tendency of money to promote feelings of independence and

security.

We used as our target study Zhou, Vohs, and Baumeister (2009), which initially

found the effect of money on reducing perception of physical pain. We found a similar

effect, but also added a novel angle the research. These researchers used real money (in

this case Chinese RMB dollars) in their protocol; we were able to replicate their finding

using fake money. This suggests that people may effectively be reminded of money

simply by fake physical representations of paper money. There was no evidence of a

dose-response relationship; however, the small sample size may have hampered this, as

we did find a clear significant effect from the pooled data.

Also, we found a significant positive correlation between ratings of pain and

ratings of rejection.

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Note that there is a well-known aspect of the relationship between social and

physical pain that may seem paradoxical. When ascertaining the nature of the relationship

between social and physical pain, the order in which you induce and measure them

becomes important. When social exclusion is primed first, pain thresholds actually rise,

in the “numbness” effect (e.g. DeWall, & Baumeister, 2006). However, since in this case

physical pain was primed first, we find this correlation to merely reinforce something we

already know- these different types of pain are processed in very similar ways, and in the

previously discussed similar neural locations.

We did not find evidence in support of any of our other hypotheses. Again, with

the small sample sizes and between-subjects design, irregularities in subject groups are

magnified that may be diminished by increasing sample sizes. As well, there were other

possible theoretical limitations that will be discussed as they arise.

We found no evidence that feelings of rejection were mitigated by handling

money, as measured by the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire. This casts some doubt

on an explanatory construct that underlies much of this research; however, the use of a

tool that has stronger sensitivities to state-based, transient changes in mood may be

instructive here in the future. Nevertheless, it is worth nothing that the RSQ was

sufficiently sensitive to correlate with perception of pain, which is correlation that has not

yet been noted using this measure.

We found no significant effects of money handling on PANAS scores (whether

overall scores or positive and negative subscales), which is in line with prior research.

However, where Zhou, Vohs, and Baumeister (2009) found a main effect on handling

money reporting feeling “strong” on the PANAS, we did not; our F value was slightly

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over one. Clearly, the prior finding is not supported by these data .We deviated from the

protocol of the target study and introduced time as a dependent variable. That is, after

subjects counted the fake money, they, as in prior research, submitted to a pain task.

However, in order to provide a novel set of data to analyze and ease ethical concerns,

instead of mandating subjects keep their hand in the cold water a set amount of time and

then ask about their perceptions, we allowed subjects to keep their hand immersed only

as long as they could and remove it from the water whenever they chose. We did not in

fact find a main effect on this time in water and handling money, but it is again worth

noting that this data did approach significance.

This research is not sufficient to suggest that we begin wrapping lacerations in

money instead of bandages, or using money to replace aspirin as an analgesic. However,

it seems that in the same way physical analgesics have been found to reduce social pain,

we have found that reminders of money, an item that many people view as a “social

analgesic” of sorts, have a similar effect on physical pain. Furthermore, we found that

this effect is created by the merest reminder of money. This money was fake, printed on

the exact same paper that was used in the control condition-merely by arranging black ink

in a familiar pattern, designed to evoke a familiar response, we were able to reduce

perception of very real physical pain. This speaks to the strength of this effect, reminding

us that the smallest reminders of money can have quite notable effects on our behavior.

There were two potential limitations in the protocol as it was designed that could

potentially have affected different areas of the results.

One limitation may have affected the amounts of time subjects kept their hands

immersed in the water. Since we used the cold-pressor task here instead of the previously

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used hot-water task, and allowed subjects to keep immersed as long as they could, we did

encounter experienced several-student athletes who proved somewhat immune to long ice

baths, where they likely would not have had similar experience with heat. Given the

population, this possible bias could be addressed in the future by switching back to a heat

task, or at least mitigated or lessened by increasing the size of the subject pool used.

Another more subtle potential limitation that may have affected PANAS ratings

became evident after a thorough debriefing of several subjects. The fact that the cold-

pressor task was designed to give subjects the maximum control over how long they

immersed their hand seemed to arouse competitive urges in many, who then reported

filling out the PANAS not in the context of having handled money, but rather in feeling

proud or accomplished about the length of time that they were able to submerge their

hand in the water. While it is not clear that all (or even the majority) of subjects acted in

such a manner, it’s an open question whether mandating the amount of time exposed to

pain, while more ethically troubling, may produce more accurate results.

This topic of research can be an interesting one. While not suggesting that money

will ever be used as a pre-surgery anesthetic, or take the place of bandages, it can be

certainly interesting and instructive to understand the myriad ways that money does affect

our lives. In this case, we were able to add an interesting angle to the prior research.

Where it has been previously found that handling money briefly can then reduce one’s

perceptions of physical pain, we found that in fact merely handling fake money can do

the same.

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Figure 1. Mean pain ratings given by subjects in each condition.

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Money Condition

Pain Ratings


Figure 2. Shows the correlation between ratings of pain and feelings of rejection.

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fake money/real pain

Health & Medicine