Monetary Primes Increase Differences in Predicted Life-Satisfaction Between New and Old Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)

Dynamics between money and happiness has attracted many scholars due to its importance in everyday lives but there is no study on the psychological consequences of priming money on life-satisfaction judgments. We examined whether students report life-satisfaction of themselves and that of others differently, after being reminded of money and whether such judgments differ for new versus old institutes of higher education. Students from a new Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Gandhinagar and from an old IIT at Bombay were asked to rate how satisfied currently they are with their lives in general and were also asked to predict how satisfied students are at other new and old IITs. Exposure to money did not affect self-reported satisfaction ratings and predictions of life-satisfaction for other students at old IITs. However, predicted life-satisfaction for students at new IITs reduced in presence of money. This made the difference in predicted student life satisfactions between old and new IITs more pronounced after priming money. Money selectively affects life-satisfaction predictions depending on the context and social value of an institution, probably because money makes the market-pricing mode of thought salient. These findings have important implication for education both in Asia and other countries.