Social Influence

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“Wrong place to get help”: A field experiment on

luxury stores and helping behavior

Lubomir Lamy, Nicolas Guéguen, Jacques Fischer-Lokou & Jérôme Guegan

To cite this article: Lubomir Lamy, Nicolas Guéguen, Jacques Fischer-Lokou & Jérôme Guegan
(2016) “Wrong place to get help”: A field experiment on luxury stores and helping behavior, Social
Influence, 11:2, 130-139, DOI: 10.1080/15534510.2016.1160839

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2016.1160839

Published online: 22 Mar 2016.

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Luxury stores and helping behavior, 2016
VOL. 11, NO. 2, 130–139
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2016.1160839

“Wrong place to get help”: A field experiment on luxury stores

and helping behavior
Lubomir Lamya, Nicolas Guéguenb, Jacques Fischer-Lokoub and Jérôme Guegana
a
Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France; bUniversité de Bretagne-Sud, Vannes, France

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Three experiments were conducted in field settings. It was hypothesized Received 25 May 2015
that luxury stores may act as environmental reminders of materialism Accepted 27 February 2016
and that helpfulness would vary according to the presence or absence KEYWORDS
of such cues. Study 1 (N = 80) indicated that consumers coming out Luxury store; helping
of famous brand stores displayed less helpfulness, as compared to behavior; priming
mere passersby. Study 2 (N = 112) showed passersby were less helpful
near a luxury brand store than in an ordinary street with no shops. In
Study 3 (N = 360), passersby were less helpful when walking down a
street lined with highly exclusive stores, as compared to streets with
ordinary stores or no stores. Results, limitations, and directions for
future research are discussed.

Flaunting luxurious goods has been found to signal status and prestige, to enhance self-es-
teem, to communicate about one’s personal values or personality, and to gain approval
from others (Han, Nunes, & Drèze, 2010; Wilcox, Kim, & Sen, 2009). Conspicuous con-
sumption is also used by men to attract romantic partners, and by women to discourage
rivals (Griskevicius et al., 2007; Wang & Griskevicius, 2014). Conspicuous consumption
has been defined as “one’s behavioral tendency of displaying one’s social status, wealth, taste
or self-image to one’s important reference groups through consumption of publicly visible
products.” (Chen, Yeh, & Wang, 2008, p. 686). As such, it can be conceived as a behavioral
counterpart of the materialistic value system, which is centered on “possessions and the
social image they project,” and “produces an endless drive to acquire ever more impressive
belongings” (Bauer, Wilkie, Kim, & Bodenhausen, 2012, p. 517). In the present research, we
explore the hypothesis that reminders of conspicuous consumption, as a situationally driven
form of materialism (Bauer et al., 2012), can deactivate competing, unselfish values such as
benevolence and helpfulness. Further, we tested the idea that cues of luxury, as compared
to non-luxury goods, would be more likely to decrease helping behavior.
Previous research has consistently found that endorsement of materialistic values is
associated with reduced levels of well-being (Burroughs & Rindfleisch, 2002; Dittmar, Bond,
Hurst, & Kasser, 2014). In addition, based on Schwartz’s (1992) circumplex model of val-
ues, Burroughs and Rindfleisch (2002) found materialism to be positively associated with

CONTACT  Lubomir Lamy  lubomir.lamy@parisdescartes.fr

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 Luxury stores and helping behavior   131

self-enhancement values and negatively associated with self-transcendence values. Self-

enhancement values are self-oriented and include hedonism, status, power, and achieve-
ment, whereas self-transcendence values are other-oriented and emphasize selflessness,
concern for others and benevolence. Also supportive of Schwartz’s model of competing,
self vs. other-oriented values, are Richins and Dawson’s (1992) findings that participants
high in materialism (a) are less likely than participants low in materialism to value “warm
relationships with others,” (b) would be less likely to give money to charitable organiza-
tions or to friends if they had received an unexpected gift of $ 20,000, (c) score high on
non-generosity items, e.g., they don’t like to have guests in their home, or to lend things
even to good friends. Another illustration of the existence of competing values is Maio,
Pakizeh, Cheung, and Rees’s (2009) study 5 where participants primed with achievement
values (sorting out words such as ambitious, capable, successful) sought success and were
less helpful, whereas participants primed with benevolence values (e.g., forgiving, helpful,
honest) were less inclined to seek success and tended more toward helpfulness. Believing
that possessions are a measure of success is also associated with increased loneliness over
time (Pieters, 2013). In summary, there is some evidence that materialistic values would be
detrimental to social connectedness and benevolence. Social connectedness (see Townsend
& McWhirter, 2005, for a review) can be defined as a sense of awareness that the self is in
relation with others, interdependent rather than independent, a sense of belonging to a
community that includes parents, friends, peers, strangers, communities, and society. It
could be stated that those who do not feel connected to others are less empathetic and less
attuned to their needs, and therefore would be less likely to help them.
Materialism is also closely intertwined with the construct of money. Money is the means
by which prestige possessions can be acquired. Money can be valued for itself, and it has
also been found that individuals who score high on a materialism scale tend to closely
associate their self with money (Mogilner & Aaker, 2009). Previous research has shown
that money primes decrease helpfulness toward others (Guéguen & Jacob, 2013; Vohs,
Mead, & Goode, 2006, 2008). Participants exposed to the idea of money tend to keep more
physical distance with others, to be less social and less ethical (Kouchaki, Smith-Crowe,
Brief, & Sousa, 2013; Mogilner, 2010; Vohs et al., 2006, 2008). They are not compassionate
or empathetic (Vohs, 2015). It has been suggested (Vohs et al., 2006) that reminders about
money would activate a self-sufficient orientation in which people want to be self-reliant
and would prefer that others not depend on them. The idea of money would also contrib-
ute to making the concept of performance more salient and connectedness to others, less
salient (Vohs et al., 2008). Past research has reached the goal of priming materialistic values
or the concept of money mostly in laboratory settings where participants are exposed to
relevant words (e.g., in a descrambling task) or an image of cash, handle money or play with
Monopoly money, or are asked to imagine what they would do if they encountered financial
affluence. Materialism can be dispositional, i.e., stable, or situational when individuals are
exposed to such environmental cues (Bauer et al., 2012). In this research, we reasoned that
similar cues can be found with luxury stores. Luxury stores exhibit the name of famous
brands which, beyond pricy technical excellence, evoke an ideology of beauty and the
symbolic dominance of an elite (Dion & Arnould, 2011). Luxury stores can be thought of
as reminders of materialistic values, e.g., the importance of money and of the possession
of high-prestige goods. If materialistic values are made salient in or around a luxury store,
self-transcendence values, including benevolence and helpfulness, should decrease. Thus,
132    L. Lamy et al.

we hypothesized that helpfulness should decrease near a luxury store, as compared to a no

store control condition. At the same time, given that money primes are sufficient to activate
self-enhancement, materialistic values, we also assumed that reminders of ordinary con-
sumption would decrease helpfulness. However, we anticipated that ordinary consumption
would activate materialistic values to a lesser degree than luxury consumption, the latter
being highly emblematic of wealth and possession per se. As a result, we expected that
people would display less helpfulness near a luxury store than near a midrange store, and
less helpfulness near a midrange store than in a no-store condition.
Recent research (Lamy, Fischer-Lokou, & Guéguen, 2015) has found helping behavior to
be influenced by “micro-level” variations within an area. Within a range of 800 m in Paris,
passersby displayed more helpfulness near the entrance to a hospital or near a flower shop,
as opposed to an ordinary street. Lamy et al. argued that specific places may act as primes
and activate related norms for helping. In line with this reasoning, the three experiments
presented below were intended to examine whether proximity to a luxury store, as compared
to an ordinary store or a neutral place, may decrease helpfulness. In this research, we focused
our investigation on luxury shops that focus on a single, famous brand, e.g., Louis Vuitton®,
Dior®, Chanel®, Prada®, Versace®, Guerlain®, and Boucheron®. In addition, we reasoned that
decreased helpfulness would not be related to the luxury brand type, i.e., that the ideas of
wealth, social status, and prestige conveyed by luxury brands are responsible for decreased
helpfulness rather than the objective characteristics or functionalities of the product. We
assumed that perfume, fashion, luggage, watches, or jewelry can equally decrease helpfulness
as long as they are very pricy and stamped with a famous brand.

Experiment 1
Method
Participants
The participants were 80 pedestrians (40 men and 40 women) who appeared to be between
30 and 60 years of age and were walking alone in the Paris Triangle d’Or which includes the
prestigious streets avenue des Champs-Elysées and avenue Montaigne which display luxury
shopping outlets. Among these 80 passersby, 40 were clients coming out of a luxury store
and 40 were mere passersby in an ordinary street in the same area but without shops. The
experiment took place within a range of approximately 600 m.

Procedure
Five 18- to 19-year-old female undergraduate students were used as confederates in this
study. They volunteered to participate in a study of helping behavior but were blind to the
hypothesis. In this study, we reasoned that many customers of luxury outlets in Paris are
not French and don’t speak French. Therefore, we used an implicit request for help, where
no words are needed either from the confederate or the participant. We used a “hurt leg”
procedure similar to Lamy et al. (2015). The confederate was casually dressed. She walked
with a crutch in one hand and a bottle of water and a packet of candies in the other hand.
She wore a large leg brace. The first pedestrian aged 30 to 60 who walked alone from the
opposite direction and who had just been seen coming out of a luxury store was selected
as the first participant. When the participant was approximately 5 m away, the confederate
 Luxury stores and helping behavior   133

“accidentally” dropped her packet of candies and bottle of water and tried to pick them up.
Helping was defined as offering to help and picking up the dropped items, or picking them
up without asking. If helped, the confederate thanked the participant and said goodbye.
Then, the confederate recorded the participant’s sex, estimated age, whether they helped to
pick up the bottle and candies, and the name of the brand store the participant was leaving.
The confederate was instructed to change place after testing each participant, i.e., to walk
from one luxury store to another. After testing four participants, the confederate walked to
a street that had been chosen for its immediate proximity to the luxury stores and the fact
that it was lined with apartment buildings but with no shops. On this street, the confederate
tested four passersby successively and then tested two other sets of four with, respectively,
clients of luxury stores and mere passersby. In addition, the confederate was instructed to
test an equal number of male and female passersby in each experimental condition.

Results
There was no statistical difference among the data of the five confederates, so their data
were collapsed. Among clients of a luxury store, 35.0% (14/40) of the participants gave
help to the confederate, whereas 77.5% (31/40) gave help in the control “mere passerby
– ordinary street” condition. This difference was statistically significant (χ2 (1, N = 80) =
14.68, p = .0001, r = .43). Among male participants, 55.0% (22/40) gave help, whereas 57.5%
(23/40) of female participants gave help. This difference was not significant (χ2 (1, N = 80)
= .05, p = .82, r = .02).
These results confirm that customers coming out of a luxury store were less helpful than
passersby in an ordinary street. Participants in Study 1 were exposed a few minutes to cues
related to the brand and to pricy goods, including their price. Moreover, it could be stated
that entering a luxury store implies some form of commitment to the brand and to the
outlet store. It is also possible that customers of a luxury store are more materialistic than
mere passersby in the same area. Therefore, the results we found in Study 1 may reflect
the fact that participants belonged to two different populations, rather than to the effect of
exposure to luxury goods. In order to rule out this possibility, Study 2 compared passersby
primed with reminders of luxury goods to passersby in the same area but who were not
exposed to cues of luxury. Study 2 was designed to confirm that brief exposure to a luxury
brand’s name by participants who displayed no sign of commitment to the brand, would
be associated with decreased helpfulness.

Experiment 2
Method
Participants
The participants were 112 pedestrians (56 men and 56 women) who appeared to be between
30 and 60 years old, and who were walking alone in Paris’ 2nd district.

Procedure
Eight 18- to 19-year-old female undergraduate students acted as confederates in this
study. They volunteered to participate in a study of helping behavior but were blind to
134    L. Lamy et al.

the hypothesis. The study was conducted by four pairs of confederates. In each pair, one
confederate was seated in a wheelchair while the other confederate pushed the wheelchair.
In the luxury store condition, the confederates were on the place Vendôme in Paris. This
square is famous for its very exclusive jewelry and watch stores (e.g., Van Cleef & Arpels®,
Boucheron®, Dior®). The confederate who pushed the wheelchair was instructed to address
the first passerby seemingly aged 30 to 60 who walked alone and passed by the confederates,
and say, “Excuse me Sir/Madam, I believe I forgot my mobile in a café a little further up
the street, could you please stay close to my friend a few minutes while I go and see if it’s
still there? She can’t stand to be alone, it will only take a few minutes.” The confederate was
instructed to say this in an emotional tone, like someone who is anxious to know if they will
be able to find an object they care for. When the passerby agreed to stay with the confederate
in the wheelchair, the other confederate thanked them and walked away hastily. When she
was approximately 5 meters away, she stopped and felt one of her pockets, from which she
pulled out a mobile phone. She then came back to the passerby staying near the second
confederate, and said with a large smile, “I just found it! I thought I forgot it there! Thank
you so much. Good bye.” After leaving the participant, the two confederates continued their
way while the one seated in the wheelchair recorded the participant’s estimated age, sex,
whether he or she agreed to the request, and the name of the luxury store in front of which
the confederates approached the participant. The confederates then approached the next
passerby aged 30 to 60 who passed near them, who served as the second participant. Each
pair of confederates was instructed to do a set of 28 tests, of which 14 on place Vendôme
and 14 in a street that was chosen for its proximity (approximately 300 m) to place Vendôme
and where there were only apartment buildings with no shops. Each pair of confederates
was instructed to change place after testing three passersby, and to test an equal number
of men and women.

Results
When data from the four pairs of confederates were compared, no statistical difference was
found, so their data were collapsed. Among participants asked for help near a luxury store,
23.2% (13/56) of the participants gave help to the confederates, whereas 82.1% (46/56) gave
help in the control, “ordinary street” condition. This difference was statistically significant
(χ2 (1, N = 112) = 39.0, p < .001, r = .59). No significant difference was found between male
and female participants. Among male participants, 60.7% (34/56) gave help, whereas 44.6%
(25/56) of female participants gave help (χ2 (1, N = 112) = 2.90, p = .09, r = .16).
These results support the view that passersby near a luxury store are less helpful than
those in a control group in an ordinary street. This finding is in line with previous research
(Lamy et al., 2015) showing that helpfulness may vary according to the immediate prox-
imity of a shop or a building. However, in this study we had no indication as to whether
the passersby asked for help on place Vendôme were customers of luxury stores or mere
passersby, except the fact that none of these participants had been seen coming out of one
of these stores. It could be argued that the stores on place Vendôme, being highly exclusive,
the vast majority of participants were not customers of these stores. In addition, the test
area (place Vendôme) was very close to the control area and hence should be comprised
of similar individuals, either going to an appointment, sight-seeing or walking to a close
and more affordable shopping area. Thus, contrary to Study 1, it seems unlikely that the
 Luxury stores and helping behavior   135

results we found in this study were based on a difference in dispositional materialism in

the experimental versus control condition. Another important point relates to the fact
that place Vendôme is very homogeneous, being surrounded only by very exclusive outlets
corresponding to famous brands, including the five-star hotel, the Ritz. Therefore, the pas-
serby’s attention can be drawn only to cues relating to luxury and money. In most other
commercial areas in Paris, it is more difficult to state that a single cue will be activated
when passing by a shop, because shops are not isolated. They are usually contiguous, thus
cuing a mix of famous and ordinary signs and brands with unrelated utility (e.g., post office,
jewelry, bookshop). Despite the findings of Study 1 and 2, it remains unclear if participants’
decreased helpfulness should be interpreted as reflecting a shopper mindset or a luxury
shopper mindset. It is possible that cues related to non-luxury shopping would be sufficient
to inhibit benevolence and helpfulness. Study 3 was designed to check for this possibility.

Experiment 3
Method
Participants
The participants were 360 pedestrians (180 men and 180 women) who appeared to be
between 30 and 60 years of age. As in Experiment 1, the participants were walking alone
in the prestigious Paris Triangle d’Or which includes the streets avenue des Champs-Elysées
and avenue Montaigne. The avenue Montaigne is comparable to the place Vendôme where
Experiment 2 took place in the sense that it displays a very homogeneous set of exclusive
stores (e.g., Prada®, Versace®, Dior®, Chanel®), mostly in the fashion world. As fashion is
stereotypically associated with women, women walking down this avenue could feel more
concerned by fashion than men, in a good mood and more inclined to helpfulness. On the
other hand, women could feel frustrated as they can’t afford the pricy goods they see in
store windows, and thus be inclined to less helpfulness. Therefore, in this study we decided
to pay attention to possible interaction effects between experimental condition and gender.
Despite being more famous than the avenue Montaigne, the avenue des Champs-Elysées offers
a more mixed view with six luxury stores (e.g., Guerlain®, Louis Vuitton®, Tiffany & Co®)
and dozens of midrange stores such as shoe stores, clothing stores, big chain megastores,
cinemas, restaurants, and fast food restaurants. None of the luxury stores on the Champs-
Elysées are situated on the lower part of the avenue.
Among the 360 passersby in this experiment, 120 (luxury store condition) were walk-
ing down the avenue Montaigne which is lined only by highly exclusive luxury stores; 120
(non-luxury store condition) were walking down the lower part of the Champs-Elysées and
were between 150 m and 350 m from the closest luxury store; 120 (control condition) were
mere passersby in the rue de Marignan, an ordinary street with apartment buildings but no
stores. The rue de Marignan is a street 300 m long situated between the two other places in
this experiment, i.e., Champs-Elysées and avenue Montaigne. The whole experiment took
place within a range of approximately 800 m. The participants in the control condition were
walking in a street that connects those of the two experimental conditions (luxury stores
and non-luxury stores). Thus, participants in the control condition had been walking a few
minutes before in either of the two experimental conditions. In addition, in the two exper-
imental conditions, none of the participants had been seen coming out of a store, i.e., they
136    L. Lamy et al.

were mere passersby on the avenue des Champs-Elysées or avenue Montaigne. In this way,
we tried to maximize the similarity between the participants in the three conditions. In the
non-luxury store condition, participants were at least 150 m from the closest luxury store
on the Champs-Elysées (Tiffany & Co®). Thus, they did not have in their field of view any
luxury store; moreover, after passing Tiffany & Co® they would have passed many ordinary
stores before being asked for help by the confederate.

Procedure
Three 18- to 19-year-old female undergraduate students were used as confederates in this
study. They volunteered to participate in a study of helping behavior but were blind to the
hypothesis. The confederate was instructed to address the first passerby seemingly aged 30
to 60 who walked alone and passed by the confederate, and to say while showing her mobile
phone, “Excuse me Sir/Madam, my phone is running out of battery, could you please lend
me yours? I must call my mother to speak to her.” When the request was accepted by the
participant, the confederate was instructed to take the mobile, look at the time displayed on
its screen, and say, “Ah … She told me not to call before (here she mentions a time which is
approximately the current time plus half an hour); I need to call her later. Thank you very
much.” Then, the confederate gave back the mobile and said goodbye. When the passerby
did not agree to lend their mobile, the confederate also thanked and said goodbye. After
leaving the participant, the confederate continued her way and recorded the participant’s
sex, whether he or she agreed to the request, and the place where the participant was
approached. The confederate then approached the next passerby aged 30 to 60 who passed
near her, who served as the second participant. Each confederate was instructed to do a set
of 40 tests in each experimental location (avenue Montaigne, avenue des Champs-Elysées,
rue de Marignan), to change place after testing five passersby, and to test an equal number
of men and women.

Results
Results from the three confederates did not differ significantly, so their data were collapsed.
The number of participants who agreed to lend their mobile after hearing the verbal request
is shown in Table 1.
A 3 (experimental condition) × 2 (participant gender) log-linear analysis was performed,
with the frequency of participants who agreed to lend their mobile as the dependent var-
iable. The main effect of the experimental condition was statistically significant (χ2 (2,
N  =  360)  =  31.75, p  <  .001, r  =  .18). Further analysis reported a significant difference
between the luxury store and control condition (χ2 (1, N = 240) = 27.28, p < .001, r = .33),
between the luxury store and midrange store condition (χ2 (1, N = 240) = 12.17, p < .001,
r = .22), but not between the midrange store and control condition ((χ2 (1, N = 240) = 3.28,
p = .07, r = .11). The main effect of gender was statistically significant (χ2 (1, N = 360) =

Table 1. Frequency of participants who complied with the request for help.
  Control Midrange store Luxury store
Male participants 80% (48/60) 63.3% (38/60) 51.6% (31/60)
Female participants 68.3% (41/60) 63.3% (38/60) 30% (18/60)
Total 74.1% 63.3% 40.8%
 Luxury stores and helping behavior   137

4.54, p < .05, r = .11), but the interaction effect between experimental condition and gender
was not statistically significant (p = .23).
These results support the view that reminders of luxury shopping are more powerful in
decreasing helpfulness than reminders of non-luxury shopping. However, we did not find
the other predicted effect, i.e., increased helpfulness in a no shopping condition as compared
to a non-luxury shopping condition. Regarding this effect, the results were in the predicted
direction but were only marginally significant, thus calling for further research. However, the
main conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that reminders of luxury shopping are
more detrimental to helpfulness than reminders of non-luxury shopping. Another finding
was that men were more helpful to female confederates than women. This result is in line
with previous research on chivalrous helping (e.g., Lamy, Fischer-Lokou, & Guéguen, 2009).
Women, and especially young women, are sometimes helped by men for no other reason
than the fact they are women and that a helping norm influences men to provide help to
a supposedly helpless woman. Experiment 2 already showed that female confederates are
helped more frequently by men than by women. However, this effect was only marginally
significant. One possible reason for this might be that the sample size in Experiment 2 was
more than three times smaller than in Experiment 3.

Discussion
The results of these three experiments are in line with previous research showing that
participants exposed to cues related to materialistic values were less helpful than partici-
pants in a control condition (Bauer et al., 2012; Guéguen & Jacob, 2013; Maio et al., 2009;
Vohs et al., 2006, 2008). In our studies customers primed with cues related to possession,
luxury and prestige were less helpful than participants in a control group. It appeared,
however, that this effect is not limited to customers in a luxury store but can be expanded
to passersby asked for help in immediate proximity to a luxury store. From a theoretical
point of view, our results are compatible with Schwartz’s (1992) circumplex model of
values and with the view that materialistic values are positively associated with self-en-
hancement values and negatively associated with self-transcendence values (Burroughs
& Rindfleisch, 2002). Our findings also confirm that environmental cues of materialism
(Bauer et al., 2012) can alter helping behavior. Materialistic reminders may have increased
self-enhancement and competitive values, which in turn would decrease trusting and
benevolent behavior, and a sense of being concerned about and connected to other people.
Materialism and conspicuous consumption may also be intrinsically linked with narcis-
sism and selfishness (Griskevicius et al., 2007; Richins & Dawson, 1992). Our studies also
confirmed that luxury and non-luxury stores cannot be conceived of as having a similar
potential to deactivate self-transcendence values. Our results suggest that luxury brands
have a greater potential than ordinary brands to deactivate these values. It must also be
noted that reminders of luxury on place Vendôme and avenue Montaigne had similar
effects, while the brand types in these two places are different. The place Vendôme concen-
trates mostly on watch and jewelry brands, whereas the avenue Montaigne is dedicated to
fashion. Taken together, these results suggest that whatever the brand type, reminders of
luxury would inhibit helpfulness more readily than reminders of non-luxury shopping.
One possible interpretation is that buying items of basic necessity conveys no sense of
materialistic or selfish values, and therefore can hardly deactivate the opposite values of
138    L. Lamy et al.

benevolence and helpfulness. When the purpose for purchasing a pricy good is not to use
it but rather to advertise its purchase, consumption is its own end and can easily activate
a materialistic mindset.
One of the main limitations of this research, however, is the absence of measurement of
materialistic values. We can only speculate that the proximity of a luxury store activated
self-enhancement, materialistic values. Despite this, our findings support the view that
the opposite values of self-transcendence, including benevolence and helpfulness, were
deactivated. Near a luxury store, participants were less likely to offer help. An important
point that would merit further attention is whether this decrease in helpfulness could
also be observed if those asking for help were individuals with high status, high income
or high prestige. Our results could be explained by the fact that the undergraduates who
served as confederates did not appear as belonging to “the same world” as the customers
of place Vendôme and avenue Montaigne. Conspicuous consumption implies that one’s
status and wealth is communicated to the self-reference group (Chen et al., 2008), and it is
very unlikely that customers of luxury stores had humble undergraduate students as their
reference group. Nevertheless, Study 2 and Study 3 did not utilize customers of luxury
stores but mere passersby near luxury stores. In this case, with undergraduate students
being casually dressed, the perceived discrepancy between the confederate and the passerby
would not have been as obvious as in Study 1, between the confederate and the customer
of a luxury store. Thus, it seems unlikely that the only reason for the observed decrease in
helping behavior would be the possible negative appraisal of the confederate by the partici-
pant. However, it would be interesting in further research to investigate the possibility that
materialistic reminders are not detrimental to helpfulness when the requester is believed
to belong to the upper class. If this is the case, it would mean that in our research, not only
the place for requesting help was wrong when near a luxury store, but the person asking
was wrong too. Thus, congruence between the requester, the place and the person solicited
would need to be investigated.
Future research would also need to check for a possible link between emotion and
reminders of materialism. This link however, if there is one, might be very tenuous. Vohs
et al. (2008) found that reminders of money have no effect on participants’ emotional
states. Despite this, it could be argued that customers of a luxury store, being surrounded
with highly valued goods and reminders of prestige, could be induced to a positive mood,
which in turn would increase helpfulness (Salovey, Mayer, & Rosenhan, 1991). But it is also
possible that customers coming out of such a prestige outlet would be induced to feel a bad
mood because of the awareness and frustration relative to high prices, i.e., because of the
impossibility of buying everything they may find tempting. It must also be noted that, if
participants in our studies had been induced to a good mood when exposed to reminders
of pricy possessions, it would likely have resulted in an increase in helpfulness, which would
have lessened the discrepancy between the results in our experimental and control group.
Despite these limitations, our research is the first field study, to our knowledge, to document
the detrimental effects of luxury cues on helpfulness.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
 Luxury stores and helping behavior   139

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