Financial distress and money attitudes.

Abstract

Due to third party rights in the data, we are unable to place the data in an open repository. However, access to the data may be requested from the first author. Registration: This paper was not pre-registered with the journal Ethics: This was sought and obtained from the Open University's Human Ethics Research Committee, decision number HREC/3764/Fenton-O'Creevy Conflict of interest: in the interests of transparency, Mark Fenton-O'Creevy declares that he received the sum of £5000 for advice on the initial design of the survey on which this paper is based, from a financial services client, who has relied on the survey in producing an online tool for their clients. He received no payment for the analysis of the data for this paper or its preparation and is free of any pressure to report particular findings. The data were collected by an independent market research agency and were fully available (excepting identifying data of participants) to the authors, who conducted all analyses.

Spenders and savers, tightwads and spendthrifts: Individual correlates of personal ratings of being a spender or a saver.

“…They associated money more with Love and Freedom and seemed less interested in personal money affairs as well as less confident in their ability to manage them. It is likely therefore that spenders have more financial difficulty and problems than savers (Fenton-O’Creevy & Furnham, 2021).…”

“…It would have been particularly desirable to have much more detailed financial information about everyone such as their income, how much they had actually saved and their pattern of spending and saving. It would also have been most informative to have more information on their financial literacy (Fenton-O’Creevy & Furnham, 2021).…”

“…We assume that overall that being a saver is “psychologically healthier” than being a spender and that the former would have more positive self-ratings. Indeed there is an extensive literature on problematic impulsive spending (Fenton-O’Creevy & Furnham, 2020a, 2020b, 2021).…”

Financial literacy is better than income to predict happiness.

“…Specifically, the greater the gap between income aspirations and actual income level, the lower the sense of happiness (Brown et al, 2009; McBride, 2010). Additionally, previous literature also argued that the most important effects of financial literacy are not on income but on money management and spending (Fenton-O’Creevy & Furnham, 2021; von Stumm et al, 2013). Thus, the role of money management and spending between financial literacy and happiness can be explored in future studies.…”

“…Nevertheless, individuals involved in financial activities not only attempt to maximize their own self-interests but also have to follow social morality rules so as to respect others and public interests (Fehr & Gintis, 2007). Consequently, some researchers realized the importance of attitudes or values toward a financial activity and its results, like money and wealth (Fenton-O’Creevy & Furnham, 2021; von Stumm et al, 2013), and its relationship with social norms (Oganization of Economic Corporation and Development, 2012; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987), because individuals’ financial values steer their selection of financial behaviors and determine the occurrence of financial activities (Z. Q. Xin et al, 2018).…”