Abstract

Does money change people? Based on circular model of social values(Schwartz, 1992) and previous research (i.e., Bauer et al., 2012), this study aimed to investigate explicit and implicit attitudes toward the elderly of young Korean and German students while activating the concept of money in two separate cultural settings. In Study 1 (N = 207, 41.3% Koreans), a survey was conducted to compare explicit attitudes toward the elderly between Korean and German students. According to the results, negative attitudes toward male seniors were most dominant in both cultures, while female seniors and young people were perceived overall positively. Study 2 (N = 45, 46.7% Koreans) examined whether money priming has a differential impact on young people's ability to behave egalitarian toward seniors. Participants filled out a questionnaire about their summer vacation either in a money prime condition, in which a picture of dollar bills was displayed, or in a control condition without any picture. To assess differences in negative stereotyping of the elderly between different cultures, an implicit association test was conducted. The results showed that there was a significant interaction between money priming and culture. Negative implicit attitudes toward the elderly were stronger among Korean students in a money priming condition than among German students, while these cultural differences were not significant in a control condition. This study provides empirical evidence supporting the possibility that the activation of the concept of money associated with rash industrialization may impair people's ability to respect the elderly and elicit big changes in human behavior in Asian culture.