“…This study sought additional evidence of the causal role of an economic schema in the relationship between the presence of photos of close others and financial transgressions by directly manipulating economic schema salience. Although researchers often investigate the mechanism responsible for an effect by measuring the proposed intervening variable and running statistical tests of mediation (as in Study 3), experiments that manipulate a proposed psychological process also can provide evidence of a causal mechanism (Bullock, Green, & Ha, 2010;Sigall & Mills, 1998;Schroeder, Risen, Gino, & Norton, 2019;Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005). In the current context, we expected that participating in an initial task that emphasized rather than diminished the salience of economic considerations would increase financial transgressions on an unrelated expense report task.…”