单选题 Money corrupts, they say, and now there's a study that shows why people get so sneaky when it comes to making a profit. The research, which was published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, revealed that people doubled the number of lies they told in order to earn extra cash if they were first prompted to think about money.
The study involved more than 300 business students who participated in several experiments, all of which showed that cuing people to consider money increased either unethical intentions or actions. "Our research suggests that we may be vulnerable to some influences that we're not aware of," says study co-author Kristen Smith-Crowe, "Our moral behavior may be affected by things in the environment that we have no idea are affecting us." "The main point is a 'wow' finding-that small and unnoticeable reminders of money can produce lying, cheating, and essentially stealing 10 minutes later. That is really fascinating," says Kathleen Vohs, professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota, who has conducted similar research but was not associated with this study.
Why would thoughts of money increase misbehavior? "Money cues trigger this business decision frame like seeing the world only through a cost/benefit analysis and the significance is that we're not considering other things like moral issues," says Smith-Crowe.
The research adds to prior work connecting wealth, greed and unethical behavior; one series of studies found that those who were rich were more likely to engage in sketchy actions, ranging from shoplifting, cutting people off in their cars to lying to job seekers to giving less to charity proportionally than those who were less well off.
In one study, this connection was explained almost entirely by the more common belief among the wealthy that greed—or love of money-was good, and an admirable quality, rather than by class itself. When the research was published, author Paul Piff of the University of California in Berkeley remarked, "We're not arguing that rich people are bad at all, but that psychological features of wealth have these natural effects."
That may explain why money is so often seen as corrupting and having a negative influence on people's behavior. That doesn't bode well for a population living in an increasingly uncertain and highly unequal economy, where more relationships have become transactional and the "just business" strategy, rather than a morally driven one, seems to make more sense. "A lot of the socialization involves ideas like maximizing profits and shareholder wealth," says Smith-Crowe, "We want to ask the question, and we're just starting on research in this: Can people's concepts of business be changed so we can extend them to include moral considerations?"

单选题 Which of the following statements is true of the research?

A. There are some people who just won't bow before money.
B. People will misbehave more when driven by thoughts of money.
C. The research finding is mostly applicable among the dishonest.
D. People are more likely to deceive when lured with more money.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 第一段最后一句话“如果在考虑问题时将金钱放在首位，那么为了赚取更多的金钱人们撒谎的次数会翻倍(doubled the number of lies)”，即脑中有金钱想法的时候会出现更多的行为不端，而且文章第三段开头“为什么金钱的想法会增加行为不端？”再次印证B项的正确性。 A项与全文的意思正好相反，文章研究的内容就是为什么很多人会向金钱低头，当人们被提到金钱暗示的时候总是会翻倍他们的说谎次数，A错误。C项混淆了研究对象和研究结论，本文的研究对象是300名商业学生，得出的结论是广泛性的，而非主要是不诚实的人。D项“面对更多的金钱人就更容易撒谎”看似正确，deceive对应原文中的lies，more likely对应原文中的double，但是lured with more money这个条件与原文不符，原文并未提及更多金钱的情况，所以排除。

单选题 Kathleen Vohs' opinion of the research finding can be described as ______.

A. impressed.
B. skeptical.
C. shocked.
D. overwhelmed.

单选题 We know from the text that money cues ______.

A. often interfere with moral issues in society.
B. seldom have an effect on the poor population.
C. can help people make right business decisions.
D. may boost unethical behaviors like cheating.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 文章第二段第1句提到了cuing people...，该句表明暗示人们考虑金钱会增加不道德的意图或行为(increased either unethical intentions or actions)，可见D项正确。 A项中的moral issues在文中虽有提及，但是money cues是否经常interfere with(干预、干涉)moral issues，我们不得而知。B项故意将研究对象分为穷人和富人，而研究只是研究金钱暗示对人的影响，不分穷人和富人。C项是对第三段money cues trigger this business decision frame...这句话的错误理解，这句话意思是“金钱暗示会诱发只从成本/收益分析的角度来看待世界的商业决策模式”，而并非帮助人们做出正确的商业决定。

单选题 According to the text, the wealthy are often characterized by being ______.

A. illegal.
B. greedy.
C. unethical.
D. vicious.

单选题 Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A. Greed: An Admirable Quality
B. Money: Source of Al1 Evils
C. How Money Makes You Lie and Cheat
D. Why Money Is Regarded as Corrupting

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 文章从金钱会导致不道德行为增加的现象入题，将实验描述之后，第三段引出金钱导致行为不端的背后原因，第四、五段将此研究与先前的研究做比较，得出了支持性的结论，因此整篇文章讨论的焦点在于“金钱是怎样是你撒谎和欺骗的”。 A项过于狭隘和片面，仅仅在文章第五段提到，原文说的是有钱人当中有一种普遍的想法，认为贪婪是令人欣赏的品质。B项和D项的标题讨论的都是金钱本身是腐化或罪恶的，而全文讨论的是金钱暗示和人类行为之间的关系，因此不选。