Money Affects Theory of Mind Differently by Gender

Theory of Mind (ToM)--the ability to understand other's thoughts, intentions, and emotions--is important for navigating interpersonal relationships, avoiding conflict, and empathizing. Prior research has identified many factors that affect one's ToM ability, but little work has examined ho...

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Published inPloS one Vol. 10; no. 12; p. e0143973
Main Authors Ridinger, Garret, McBride, Michael
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 03.12.2015
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Autism
Behavior
Cognition
Competition
Decision making
Donations
Economics
Emotions
Experiments
Female
Females
Gender differences
Humans
Incentives
Laboratories
Male
Males
Motivation
Payments
Profits
Psychological aspects
Psychologists
Sex differences (Biology)
Social factors
Social interactions
Social sciences
Studies
Theory of Mind
Women
United States
United Kingdom > UK
United States > US
California
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Summary:Theory of Mind (ToM)--the ability to understand other's thoughts, intentions, and emotions--is important for navigating interpersonal relationships, avoiding conflict, and empathizing. Prior research has identified many factors that affect one's ToM ability, but little work has examined how different kinds of monetary incentives affect ToM ability. We ask: Does money affect ToM ability? If so, how does the effect depend on the structure of monetary incentives? How do the differences depend on gender? We hypothesize that money will affect ToM ability differently by gender: monetary rewards increase males' motivation to express ToM ability while simultaneously crowding out females' motivation. This prediction is confirmed in an experiment that varies the structure of monetary rewards for correct answers in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). RMET scores decrease for females and increase for males with individual payments, and this effect is stronger with competitively-structured payments. RMET scores do not significantly change when monetary earnings go to a charity. Whether money improves or hinders ToM ability, and, hence, success in social interactions, thus depends on the interaction of gender and monetary incentive structure.
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Conceived and designed the experiments: GR MM. Performed the experiments: GR. Analyzed the data: GR. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: GR MM. Wrote the paper: GR MM.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0143973