Savings from A Psychological Perspective: Influencing Factors and Research Prospects

Yang Wenjing; Teng Fei; Huang Xishan; Li Wen; Xu Xiaoqian

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230618

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2023, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (6) : 1417-1424. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230618

Social，Personality & Organizational Psychology

Savings from A Psychological Perspective: Influencing Factors and Research Prospects

Yang Wenjing, Teng Fei, Huang Xishan, Li Wen, Xu Xiaoqian

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Abstract

As a daily economic decision-making behavior, saving refers to postpone the consumption of current income. Saving has profound and long-lasting effects on individuals and society. In this review, in line with prior research, we conceptualized saving as the behaviors and inclination to put part or all of one’s current income on storage rather than using it for consumption or investment. Therefore, purchasing low price goods and services or withholding from consumption can also be regarded as saving.

We reviewed the theories focusing on explaining the reasons why people save, such as the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Behavioral Life-Cycle Theory, to name a few. Among them, behavioral life cycle theory incorporates self-control, mental accounting and framing into the life cycle theory, which has stronger explanatory power for savings. In addition, we summarized the measurements and research methods of savings in previous studies. The psychological research of savings mainly adopts self-report methods, which can be divided into three types: (a) Traditional measurement of savings, which directly examines the attitude toward saving, intention and habit through self-report; (b) Based on the relation between savings and consumption, savings were assessed by investigating people’s daily financial decisions and strategies and consumption expenditure; (c) Savings were indexed by delayed gratification. Furthermore, we reviewed and summarized the factors that affect individuals’ saving behaviors. To illustrate, there are demographic variables, personality and other individual traits at the internal individual level and economic environment, family education, regional sex ratio, culture at the external situational level.

From the perspective of social psychology, we focused on theories of savings, its psychological mechanisms and potential interventions. We elaborated on psychological mechanisms that drive savings behaviors, which involve three components: cognition, emotion and will. For cognition, time-related cognition, such as time perspective, time horizon and future orientation can exert significant effects on savings. For emotion, positive and negative emotions have different effects on savings. For will, self-control and delayed gratification have a positive impact on savings. Moreover, from the perspective of practical application, we discuss and suggest some methods to promote savings, such as nudging, the default option, framing effect, reminding and “use of funds as ear-marked”, etc., which are proven ways to increase savings.

The psychology of savings warrants further investigation. Firstly, future research should continue to explore the influence of personality traits on savings as well as the effects of savings on people’s subjective well-being and interpersonal relationships. Secondly, more research should be devoted to developing effective measurement means to facilitate the further investigation, including the attitude of subdividing savings. It is of great importance to develop indigenous measurement tools to facilitate cultural comparisons. Moreover, future research should be based on the perspective of psychology and constantly improve the theory of savings in order to accommodate the extension of the concept of savings.

In sum, the continuous attention and in-depth investigation of savings from a psychological perspective would be beneficial for the society to formulate reasonable economic policies and for individuals to better understand financial concepts and make wise economic decisions.

Key words

saving / money / time perspective

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Yang Wenjing, Teng Fei, Huang Xishan, Li Wen, Xu Xiaoqian. Savings from A Psychological Perspective: Influencing Factors and Research Prospects[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2023, 46(6): 1417-1424 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20230618

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