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Money and the Mind: How Does Someone's Economic Situation Affect Their Moral Decision Making?

CSEF · 2015 Behavioral & Social Sciences

Justine Dominic D. Encontro · Muir (John) Middle School, Burbank, Los Angeles County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The purpose of this project was to find out how the factor of money in a person#s situation affects the way they make moral decisions. Methods/Materials In this experiment, I created 5 different scenarios with different economic levels written out in each along with a event that would remain unsolved. Upon the completion of a final draft, I gathered a total of 30 subjects, each of whom received 1 consent form to confirm their participation. They would then be given 1 of 30 copies for each of the 5 scenarios written on paper that they would read, analyze and respond to in any way they deemed necessary by writing down their next possible action. I then evaluated each response and recorded the data on a computer to determine whether it was "moral" or "immoral" based upon a rubric where any responses that harmed others or solely benefitted the subject were considered "immoral," while anything in between or having no affiliation with this issue was "moral." Results Only 7 of the 30 of the subjects managed to only make 1 or no harmful decisions, while the other 23 subjects managed to make 2 or more of harmful decisions. Using this information, it was confirmed that the percentage of #moral and immoral# people reached 76.7% while only 23.3% of the 30 subjects remained #moral.# The most common trend was that most of the subjects tended to make better decisions morally in poorer economic situations. Conclusions/Discussion Knowing that the project supported the hypothesis I had made that 70% of subjects would be immoral, and knowing the trends listed above, I reached the conclusion that people in the middle class generally make better moral decisions in poorer situations rather than rich ones. If I were to continue this experiment, I would like to investigate how different economic backgrounds of subjects affect response types. I would also like to find out how the language put into the creation of a scenario affects how a subject will respond.

Summary statement

My project was created to find out exactly how greatly money effects moral decision making, and I did this through the creation of 5 scenarios in which 30 subjects would read and free write a response.

Help received

Was advised on how to put together and present my project by Ms. O'Keefe; Assisted by parents to find willing subjects and put together board

Competition history

  • CSEF 2015 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0405

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