2024-07-22 02:17:26
When I was young, my grandparents’ birthday was approaching, so my uncles and aunts got together and discussed what to do for their parents’ birthdays. It was a special birthday, like their 70th birthday, so we talked about throwing a party or sending them on a trip. But no matter what I said, my grandparents just shook their heads and said no. The children were tired of their parents just saying no to many options. In the end, they said, “I’ll just give you the money, so do whatever you want.” They said that because they were annoyed because they kept saying, “I don’t like this, I don’t like that.” But at those words, my grandparents’ faces lit up.
When they saw the change in their expressions, the uncles and aunts knew what the grandparents really wanted. They wanted cash. The uncles and aunts decided to save up money and give it to them. Of course, they didn’t get through the birthday just by giving them money. They also had a separate meal, but the biggest gift was the cash.
At that time, grandparents wanted money, but they could not ask their children for money. They could say, “Send me on a trip,” or “Let’s throw a party,” but they could not easily ask for money, even though they were children. Even if they were children, it is morally problematic for them to openly ask for money. On the other hand, children thought of many things for birthday events, but they did not think of giving money. If it was an important birthday, they should do something other than money. If they just gave money and left it at that, they would be bad, unfilial children. People do not think of 1 million won in cash and an object worth 1 million won as the same. It is not simply a matter of money being more convenient to use. Saying, “Give me money,” and saying, “Just give me money” are morally problematic. Money usually contains a different moral value than objects.
Coke Can and Dollar Bill Experiment
Dan Ariely, a famous behavioral economist, conducted an experiment on how people treat money and things differently. The research team put six cans of cola and six one-dollar bills in a refrigerator shared by students in a U.S. university dormitory. The price of one can of cola was slightly lower than one dollar, but the value of the two was almost the same. The experiment looked at how much of the cans of cola and one dollar bills disappeared after three days of putting them in the communal refrigerator.
The rule is not to touch other people’s things. However, it is also true that when something is in the communal refrigerator, other people take it on a daily basis. Even if it is someone else’s, people drink drinks in the communal refrigerator without any guilt. So how did the dormitory students act in such cases?
When I checked the communal fridge three days later, all six cans of cola were gone. However, all six one-dollar bills were still there. The dorm students thought it was okay to drink the cola in the communal fridge. However, they thought it was okay to leave the money alone.
Let’s look at what this experiment suggests. First, people think differently about money and things other than money. It’s not a question of evaluating which is more valuable. The students didn’t think, “I can take the cheap one or I can’t take the expensive one.” They also didn’t think, “I should take the expensive one because it’s more profitable to take it.” The two were worth the same. However, the students took the Coke but not the dollar bill. They didn’t see them as the same thing worth a dollar. A Coke worth a dollar and a dollar bill are completely different things.
Money has moral value
Second, money has some moral value. There is a moral value that says you shouldn’t touch other people’s things. However, in the case of the communal refrigerator in the dormitory, there are people who touch other people’s things despite such moral values. All the cans of cola disappeared. But even those people didn’t touch the money. The students thought it was okay to take cans of cola. However, they thought you shouldn’t touch money. Money has a more strict moral value. The reason why there is a social custom that you can receive gifts but not money is because money contains some other moral value. Money contains some moral value in addition to its use value.
Another famous study on how people’s moral behavior changes depending on money is the ‘Recovering Lost Wallets’ study published in ‘Science’ in 2019. This study was conducted jointly by the University of Michigan, the University of Utah, and the University of Zurich in Switzerland. They reported 17,003 lost wallets in 335 cities in 40 countries around the world and investigated how often these wallets were returned to their owners. Someone reported a lost wallet to an employee at a bank, subway station, cultural center, or museum and handed the wallet over. The wallet had the local owner’s email and other contact information, so it could have been returned if they had wanted to. The problem was whether the person who found the wallet would contact the owner and return it.
There were two wallets, one with cash and one without. The researchers expected that the wallet with cash would not be returned, and the wallet without cash would be returned more often. They thought that since people could just keep the cash, they would take the cash and not return the wallet. However, the results were different from their expectations. The return rate of the wallet with cash was higher than that of the wallet without cash. People were more willing to return the wallet when there was cash in it.
In response to unexpected results, the researchers increased the amount of cash in the wallets. At first, they only put in $13.45 (about 18,500 won), but this time they put in $94.15 (about 130,000 won). However, the return rate increased as the amount of cash increased. People were more willing to return the wallet when they had more cash in their wallets. This study was conducted internationally, so the results varied by country. In Switzerland, 73% of people said they would return the wallet if they had no money in it, while 79% sent a return email if they had money in it. In China, only 7% of people contacted the wallet if they had no money, while 21% contacted the wallet if they had money. Although these rates varied by country, the rate of contact increased when there was money in the wallet. Follow-up studies that put 130,000 won in the wallets were conducted only in Poland, the UK, and the US. In these three countries, 46% of people contacted to return the wallet when there was no money in it, 62% when there was 18,500 won in it, and 72% when there was 130,000 won in it. The more money there was, the more effort was made to return the wallet.
What this study has taught us is that most people are honest. With a few exceptions, more than half of people will return a wallet if it contains money. In any society, there are immoral people who keep the money in the wallet and pretend not to know, but they are a minority. Most people are good people who will return a wallet with money to its owner.
Money that stimulates a sense of justice
Third, money stimulates people’s morality. The 18,500 won initially put in the wallet is not a large sum of money. The owner of the wallet will not experience great difficulties without this money, and it is not like he will gain much benefit by taking this amount of money. However, when 18,500 won was in the wallet, the percentage of people who wanted to return the wallet greatly increased. It is not because 18,500 won is a large sum of money. There was a sense of resistance to taking even a small amount of money for himself. Even though it was a small amount of money, the empathy for those who lost the money also increased. A wallet without money can be ignored, but a wallet with money cannot be ignored. The sense of justice and morality that the wallet should be returned to its owner with 18,500 won greatly increased. As the amount of money increases, such sense of justice and morality also increases. It is difficult to find any other reason for the fact that more than 70% of people tried to return a wallet containing 130,000 won.
Money is not simply a material means. It contains moral values. Even a small amount of money touches people’s moral values, and as a result, people’s behavior changes. This is why problems arise when money is distributed as a mere use value or exchange value. Money is associated with moral emotions. This is probably the biggest characteristic of money that sets it apart from other things.
Dr. Choi Seong-rak…
He graduated from Seoul National University’s Department of International Economics, received a doctorate in public administration from Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Public Administration, and a doctorate in business administration from Seoul Science and Technology University. He worked as a professor of business administration at Dongyang Mirae University, and after making 5 billion won in assets through investments in 2021, he retired and is now a member of the FIRE tribe.
![If you have cash in your wallet, you have a higher chance of getting it back if you lose it. If you have cash in your wallet, you have a higher chance of getting it back if you lose it.](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/07/21/126036007.2.jpg)
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〈This article Weekly Donga 〉Published in issue 1449
Seongrak Choi, Ph.D. in Business Administration
2024-07-22 02:17:26