Financial literacy and the role of numeracy–How individuals’ attitude and affinity with numbers influence financial literacy

Skagerlund, Kenny; Lind, Thérèse; Strömbäck, Camilla; Tinghög, Gustav; Västfjäll, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.socec.2018.03.004

Cited by 202 publications

(165 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Given that a major theory of math anxiety suggests that math anxiety overwhelms the working memory system during math problem solving, leading to decreased math performance (Ashcraft, 2002;Eysenck et al, 2007), future work should include this important measure. Together, our results suggest that the importance of math anxiety does not end when one leaves school (Skagerlund et al, 2018), especially as the current adult population is faced with increasing demands for technological skills. Thus, it is important to understand the nature of math anxiety in adults, and here we show that adults are experiencing, on average, moderate math anxiety that negatively relates to math performance, and differentially affects women.…”

Section: The Nature Of Math Anxiety 134mentioning

confidence: 73%

The nature of math anxiety in adults: Prevalence and correlates

Hart

Ganley

2019

J. Numer. Cogn.

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It is important to understand the nature of math anxiety in the general adult population, as the importance of math skills does not end when one leaves school. To this end, we present a well-powered, preregistered study of English-speaking U.S. adults describing the nature of math anxiety in this population. 1000 participants were recruited online. Math anxiety was approximately normally distributed, with the mean between “some” and “moderate”. Math anxiety was significantly negatively correlated with probability knowledge and math fluency, and significantly positively correlated with general anxiety and test anxiety. Women reported higher math anxiety than did men. Participants who had completed graduate school or had a STEM career had significantly lower levels of math anxiety than did those with less education, or non-STEM careers. Thus, we see evidence for math anxiety in U.S. adults and that it correlates with factors also reported in previous studies using younger and student populations.

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Section: The Nature Of Math Anxiety 134mentioning

confidence: 73%

The nature of math anxiety in adults: Prevalence and correlates

Hart

Ganley

2019

J. Numer. Cogn.

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“…Most studies of the role of financial knowledge in financial behavior have, however, neither considered aggregate measures of financial behaviors nor controlled for related cognitive abilities such as numeric ability and cognitive reflection. 1 Thus, it is unclear if financial knowledge or numeric processing is the key driver of financial behavior (Skagerlund et al 2018). Indeed, previous research has shown that both numeric processing and the ability to inhibit impulses are predictive of financial behaviors (Cheung et al 2014;Corgnet et al 2015;Gerardi et al 2013;Ghazal et al 2014;Oechssler et al 2009;Strömbäck et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competence, Confidence, and Gender: The Role of Objective and Subjective Financial Knowledge in Household Finance

et al. 2020

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We studied the association of individual differences in objective financial knowledge (i.e. competence), subjective financial knowledge (i.e. confidence), numeric ability, and cognitive reflection on a broad set of financial behaviors and feelings towards financial matters. We used a large diverse sample (N = 2063) of the adult Swedish population. We found that both objective and subjective financial knowledge predicted frequent engagement in sound financial practices, while numeric ability and cognitive reflection could not be linked to the considered financial behaviors when controlling for other relevant cognitive abilities. In addition, both objective and subjective financial knowledge served as a buffer against financial anxiety, while we did not detect similar buffering effects of numeric ability and cognitive reflection. Subjective financial knowledge was found to be a stronger predictor of sound financial behavior and subjective wellbeing than objective financial knowledge. Women reported a lower level of subjective financial wellbeing even though they reported a more prudent financial behavior than men, when controlling for sociodemographics and cognitive abilities. Our findings help to understand heterogeneity in people's propensity to engage in sound financial behaviors and have implications for important policy issues related to financial education.

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“…They argue that attitudes may serve as a motivator for financial knowledge‐seeking behaviour, thus supporting knowledge acquisition. Indeed, Skagerlund, Lind, Strömbäck, Tinghög, and Västfjäll () provide recent evidence that emotional attitudes towards numbers (math anxiety) predicted financial literacy in a representative sample of Swedish adults. However, in the current study, cross‐sectional data were used; therefore, no causal relationships could be tested.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consumer debt attitudes: The role of gender, debt knowledge and skills

Białowolski

Cwynar

et al. 2020

Int J Consumer Studies

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The link between financial attitudes and consumer financial market behaviour is well documented. However, little is known about the role of financial knowledge and skills—the main components of the financial literacy construct—in shaping debt attitudes. This link is especially absent from the gender perspective. This study focuses on consumer debt literacy and debt attitudes. A representative sample of adult Poles (N = 1,004) was participated in a computer‐assisted telephone interview. Latent class analysis was employed to reveal their debt attitudes, and subsequently, links between debt literacy and debt attitudes were studied with multinomial regression models. The results show that respondents in Poland can be grouped into five classes exhibiting different attitude profiles. The structure of debt attitudes is complex and differs from a simple unidimensional pro‐debt/ anti‐debt construct. Although this study did not find significant gender differences either in the conceptualization of debt attitudes or in their drivers, the results showed that in all but one class, consumer attitudes are strongly linked to either debt knowledge or debt skills or to both. Debt skills were revealed to be a particularly strong predictor of consumer debt attitudes.

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Financial literacy and the role of numeracy–How individuals’ attitude and affinity with numbers influence financial literacy

Cited by 202 publications

References 33 publications

The nature of math anxiety in adults: Prevalence and correlates

The nature of math anxiety in adults: Prevalence and correlates

Competence, Confidence, and Gender: The Role of Objective and Subjective Financial Knowledge in Household Finance

Consumer debt attitudes: The role of gender, debt knowledge and skills

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