A comprehensive meta-analysis of money priming

Paul Lodder*, How Hwee Ong, Raoul P P P Grasman, Jelte Wicherts

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

50 Citations (Scopus)
1773 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Research on money priming typically investigates whether exposure to money-related stimuli can affect people's thoughts, feelings, motivations and behaviors (for a review, see Vohs, 2015). Our study answers the call for a comprehensive meta-analysis examining the available evidence on money priming (Vadillo, Hardwicke & Shanks, 2016). By conducting a systematic search of published and unpublished literature on money priming, we sought to achieve three key goals. First, we aimed to assess the presence of biases in the available published literature (e.g., publication bias). Second, in the case of such biases, we sought to derive a more accurate estimate of the effect size after correcting for these biases. Third, we aimed to investigate whether design factors such as prime type and study setting moderated the money priming effects. Our overall meta-analysis included 246 suitable experiments and showed a significant overall effect size estimate (Hedges' g = .31, 95%CI = [0.26, 0.36]). However, publication bias and related biases are likely given the asymmetric funnel plots, Egger's test and two other tests for publication bias. Moderator analyses offered insight into the variation of the money priming effect, suggesting for various types of study designs whether the effect was present, absent, or biased. We found the largest money priming effect in lab studies investigating a behavioral dependent measure using a priming technique in which participants actively handled money. Future research should use sufficiently powerful pre-registered studies to replicate these findings.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)688-712
JournalJournal of Experimental Psychology: General
Volume148
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • meta-analysis
  • money
  • priming
  • publication bias
  • CONDUCTING METAANALYSES
  • AFFECTS CONSUMERS
  • SYMBOLIC POWER
  • MERE EXPOSURE
  • REMINDERS
  • REPLICATION
  • TIME
  • PREFERENCES
  • THINKING
  • BIAS

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