Are you among the ones who thought if you had more money, you would be generous with it? If a paper published last week in the journal Science is any measure, that impulse to share does not come naturally to anyone who is thinking about money, even unconsciously.

In a series of experiments, psychologists found that subconscious reminders of money prompted people to become more independent in their work, less likely to seek help from others or to provide it. They became reluctant to volunteer their time and stingy when asked to donate to a worthy cause.

“Everybody says that if they had the money, they’d give more away, they’d do what Warren Buffett did,” said Kathleen D Vohs, lead author of the study. “Well, we thought that that was a nice thing to bring into the lab, to test in a variety of ways,” added Dr Vohs, a psychologist in the University of Minnesota school of management.

In one experiment, involving 52 undergraduates, the students unscrambled sets of jumbled phrases. One group untangled phrases that were often about money like “high a salary paying.” A second group solved word puzzles that did not refer to money.

The researchers then had the students work on a difficult abstract puzzle that stumps most people and offered to help if the students wanted.

By “priming” unconscious thoughts, the researchers found that students with money on their minds, while clearly self-reliant, were less likely to lend assistance: twice as slow to help and about twice as cheap when asked to donate to the needy.

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