ABSTRACT. Financial well-being (FWB) has recently attracted a lot of attention from governments, employers, and financial institutions (e.g., Bank of America, 2021; CFPB, 2015; Sun Life Financial, 2020), due to its documented benefits for various indicators of positive functioning. Despite raising awareness among public authorities and the business community, FWB research still lags behind on a number of critical elements (Kaur & Singh, 2022). For instance, despite the recognition of the multidimensional nature of FWB (Sorgente & Lanz, 2019), no research has sought to identify the configurations, or profiles, of FWB most frequently observed among the adult population. Current knowledge of FWB still relies exclusively on a variable-centred approach, focusing on associations between specific FWB components and other variables (e.g., Netemeyer et al., 2018). This approach fails to address the combined impact of these components. Person-centered approaches address this limitation by identifying the most commonly occurring configurations, referred to as profiles among a given population (Morin et al., 2018). To address this gap, we rely on a person-centered approach to identify the different configurations, or profiles, of FWB observed among a large sample of adults, as well as the generalizability of these profiles across subsamples of adults who rely, or not, financial budgeting practices. We also assess how these profiles relate to a series of personal and financial predictors (sex, income, savings, perceived financial efficacy, neuroticism, and financial knowledge), as well as to outcomes related to psychological health (life satisfaction, perceived stress, psychological distress).

Method

French-Canadian participants (from the province of Québec) were recruited through social media advertising and snowballing and asked to complete an online questionnaire on FWB. A total of 2,235 participants (18 to 43 years old, Mage = 36.0; 63.9% women) voluntarily completed an online questionnaire. Most of them (69.7%) had completed university studies, but only a minority (24.3%) were still enrolled in some form of education program. FWB was assessed using Aubrey et al. (2022) optimized French version of Sorgente and Lanz’s (2019) Multidimensional Subjective Financial Well-Being Scale (MSFWBS-O).

Results

Our results revealed five primary FWB profiles (see figure 1), that were fully replicated across subsamples of participants relying, or not, on financial budgeting practices, although the relative frequency of occurrence of these profiles showed some variations across subsamples. This evidence of generalizability supports the idea that profiles capture central psychological mechanisms (Morin et al., 2016) that are primarily independent from budgetary practices, despite the fact that such practices remain strongly encouraged as potential drivers of FWB (e.g., ACFC, 2022). However, perceived financial efficacy, savings and emotional stability were all associated with greater likelihood of membership into the most favorable profile (Normative-Comfortable), suggesting the value of at least some financial variables as possible drivers of FWB. Finally, the identified profiles shared well differentiated associations with key indicators of psychological well-being, with the more favorable outcome levels associated with the Normative-Comfortable profile, whereas the least favorable ones were observed in the Very Low FWB with Concerns about the Future profile and the Very Low FWB with Confidence about Current and Future Money Availability profile. Interestingly, associations involving predictors and outcomes also fully generalized to participants relying, or not, on financial budgeting practices.

Discussion

Although research on psychological health and well-being (Morin et al., 2017) led us to expect a large normative profile of participants reporting comfortable levels of FWB, we left as an open research question whether optimal FWB would be a matter of comfort or of thriving (e.g., Csikszentmihaly, 1999). By revealing that over 75% of the sample displayed a Normative-Comfortable profile, which was also the one displaying the highest global levels of FWB, our results clearly support the first of those possibilities, thereby suggesting that more extreme states of thriving and flourishing may not be relevant to FWB.

The number, structure, and dispersion of these profiles, as well as their associations with predictors and outcomes, were perfectly replicated across subsamples of participants relying, or not, on financial budgeting practices. Beyond evidence of generalizability and robustness, this last observation is intriguing given the widespread popular belief in the value of these practices (e.g., ACFC, 2022). Our results point to promising avenues of future research and intervention, which could involve various players from educational, governmental or banking spheres, in order to increase individuals' FWB and overall functioning in life.

References

ACFC [Agence de la Consommation Financière du Canada]. (2022). Faire un budget. https://www.canada.ca/fr/agence-consommation-matiere-financiere/services/faire-budget.html

Aubrey, M., Morin, A.J.S., Fernet, C., & Carbonneau, N. (2022). Financial well-being: Capturing an elusive construct with an optimized measure. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 935284. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.935284

Bank of America. (2021). 2021 Workplace benefits report. https://fa.ml.com/south-carolina/mountpleasant/svgroup/mediahandler/media/media/407546/2021%20Workplace%20Benefits%20Report%20_%20ADA.pdf

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). If we are so rich, why aren't we happy? American Psychologist, 54, 821–827. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.10.821

CFPB [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau]. (2015). Financial well-being: The goal of financial education. https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201501_cfpb_report_financial-well-being.pdf Kaur, G., & Singh, M. (2022). Pathways to individual financial well-being: Conceptual framework and future research agenda. FIIB Business Review, 13, 27-41. https://doi.org/10.1177/23197145221105947

Morin, A.J.S., Boudrias, J.-S., Marsh, H.W., McInerney, D.M., Dagenais-Desmarais, V., Madore, I., & Litalien, D. (2017). Complementary variable- and person-centered approaches to the dimensionality of psychometric constructs: Application to psychological wellbeing at work. Journal of Business and Psychology, 32, 395-419. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-016-9448-7

Morin, A.J.S., Bujacz, A., & Gagné, M. (2018). Person-centered methodologies in the organizational sciences. Organizational Research Methods, 21, 803-813. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428118773856

Morin, A.J.S., Meyer, J.P., Creusier, J., & Biétry, F. (2016). Multiple-group analysis of similarity in latent profile solutions. Organizational Research Methods, 19, 231-254. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428115621148

Netemeyer, R.G., Warmath, D.E.E., Fernandes, D., & Lynch Jr, J.G. (2018). How am I doing? Perceived financial well-being, its potential antecedents, and its relation to overall well-being. Journal of Consumer Research, 45, 68-89. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucx109

Sorgente, A., & Lanz, M. (2019). The multidimensional subjective financial well-being scale for emerging adults: Development and validation studies. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 43, 466-478. https://doi-org.biblioproxy.uqtr.ca/10.1177/0165025419851859

Sun Life Financial. (2020). Donner aux employés les moyens d’améliorer leur mieux-être financier. https://www.sunlife.ca/content/dam/sunlife/regional/canada/documents/grs/Bright_Paper_Donner_Aux_Employes_Les_Moyens_D_ameliorer_Leur_Mieux_Etre_Financier.pdf

ABSTRACT. Financial well-being (FWB) is a positive financial condition with both objective and subjective components. Objective FWB includes material resources such as income, savings, and assets, while subjective financial well-being (SFWB) reflects an individual’s emotional and cognitive evaluation of their financial situation (Sorgente & Lanz, 2017). Although both components are important, recent literature has increasingly focused on the subjective dimension. This emphasis is likely because SFWB provides “a more holistic view of financial well-being by capturing the perceived feelings of individuals about their financial situation” (Bashir & Qureshi, 2023, p. 41). Despite growing interest, measuring SFWB remains an open question. Early studies conceptualized (e.g., Shim et al., 2009) and assessed (e.g., Prawitz et al., 2006) SFWB as a unidimensional construct. However, contemporary definitions and measurement tools recognize its complexity, capturing various dimensions. A literature review by Aubrey et al. (2022) identified numerous proposed dimensions of SFWB across conceptualizations and highlighted the Multidimensional Subjective Financial Well-Being Scale (MSFWBS; Sorgente & Lanz, 2019) as the most comprehensive instrument. Similarly, a recent review of validated instruments for assessing FWB concluded that the MSFWB is "the most complete instrument" for assessing this construct (de Oliveira Cardoso et al., 2023, p. 2913). This scale, comprising 25 items, assesses five distinct dimensions of SFWB. The MSFWBS was initially developed in Italy to measure SFWB among emerging adults (18-29 years old) and address the limitations of existing scales, which were often unidimensional or U.S.-centric (e.g., Norvilitis et al., 2003). Since its development, the MSFWBS has gained international recognition and has been translated and validated in Austria, Canada, Finland, India, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, and Turkey (Sorgente et al., 2024). Its five-factor structure has been confirmed in all these countries except India. Researchers speculated that India’s distinct cultural and economic context might explain this divergence. As Mahendru et al. (2022) emphasized, the concept of FWB in developing countries can be context-specific. For example, in developing countries, people may evaluate their FWB by considering how much their quality of life is improving because in these countries there are very large differences in quality of economic life among citizens. In contrast, in developed countries in which the quality of life among citizens is generally sufficient, it is harder to obtain differences in objective financial circumstances that strongly affect subjective evaluations of one’s quality of life. Supporting this perspective, Vieira et al. (2023) developed the Perceived Financial Well-Being Scale (PFWBS) specifically for developing countries “where a large part of the population has high levels of indebtedness such as in Brazil” (Vieira et al., 2023; p. 180). However, the hypothesis that the MSFWBS might be unsuitable for developing countries was recently challenged when its five-factor model was confirmed in Brazil (de Oliveira Cardoso et al., 2024). To determine whether the MSFWBS’s five-factor conceptualization is applicable across both developed and developing countries, further evidence is needed. Specifically, new data from India and other developing nations are crucial to evaluate the scale’s generalizability. To this end, Sorgente and colleagues are currently collecting data in various developing countries. This study focuses on testing the validity of the MSFWBS among Iranian emerging adults. In particular, we tested with Iranian data the same validity evidence that were collected in the original validation study of the MSFWBS: score structure, reliability, generalizability, convergent, and criterion evidence.

Method Data were collected from 365 Iranian emerging adults (68.5% female), aged 18 to 29 (M = 23.18, SD = 2.96). Participants completed an online survey including a Persian translation of the MSFWBS (Sorgente & Lanz, 2019) and other scales to assess convergent validity (Satisfaction With Life Scale; Diener et al., 1985) and criterion validity (personal income).

Results Score Structure Validity: A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the five-factor model fit the Iranian data well [χ²(265) = 459.471, RMSEA = .045 (90% CI: 0.038–0.052), p(RMSEA ≤ .05) = .861; CFI = .950; TLI = .943; SRMR = .043]. Reliability Evidence: Internal consistency was sufficient (ω > .70) for all dimensions of the scale: General Financial Well-being (ω = .919), Money Management (ω = .820), Peer Comparison (ω = .789), Having Money (ω = .813), and Financial Future (ω = .848). Generalizability Evidence: The scale’s structure was invariant across gender (male vs. female), age (under 25 vs. 25 and older), occupational status (employed vs. unemployed), and living arrangements (living with vs. without parents). Convergent and Criterion Validity: Significant correlations were found between MSFWBS dimensions and personal income (convergent validity) as well as life satisfaction (criterion validity). The only exception was the “financial future” dimension, which did not significantly correlate with life satisfaction (β = 0.095, p = .276). This discrepancy likely arises from the different temporal perspectives of the two measures.

Discussion The findings suggest that the MSFWBS performs well in Iran, supporting its validity in another developing country. Combined with evidence from Brazil (de Oliveira Cardoso et al., 2024), these results reinforce the applicability of the MSFWBS in diverse cultural and economic contexts. The data imply that a universal model of SFWB may be feasible, which has significant implications for future research and policy development aimed at cross-national comparisons of SFWB. However, the lack of model fit in India (Sorgente et al., 2024) remains an open question. The hypothesis that this discrepancy stems from India’s status as a developing country is no longer tenable. Future studies should re-examine the MSFWBS in India to verify whether the misfit is replicable. If so, researchers must identify the underlying causes and develop alternative approaches to assessing SFWB in the Indian context. To address these issues, Sorgente and colleagues are currently collecting data in India and other developing countries (e.g., Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan, and the Philippines). This project aims to administer both the MSFWBS and the PFWBS (Vieira et al., 2023) to determine whether a universal SFWB model is achievable or if distinct approaches are necessary for specific cultural and economic settings.

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION Financial resilience could be defined as individuals’ ability to successfully overcome financial shocks and navigate periods of financial adversity. However, to date, literature on the topic tends to adopt a simplistic and narrow view of the construct, as financial resilience is generally measured solely by the ease of accessing emergency funds (Salignac et al., 2022). This conceptualization is limited because it does not recognize financial resilience as a multidimensional phenomenon, which depends on factors that are either internal or external to the individual. Indeed, in addition to individuals’ own economic resources, financial resilience might also be influenced by contextual or social factors, which can also play a role in shaping how individuals deal with financial challenges. Furthermore, by focusing solely on financial aspects, this conceptualization gives no space to those psychological characteristics that may enhance individuals’ ability to cope with financial adversity. Building on the limitations of the literature, the present work aims to test a theoretical model of financial resilience, developed by integrating Salignac et al. (2022)’s multidimensional conceptualization of the construct with the Multi-System Model of Resilience (MSMR; Liu et al., 2017). According to MSMR, three dimensions of resilience dynamically interact to determine individuals’ coping strategies in the face of adversity. Specifically, the model suggests that different systems (i.e., individual, interpersonal, and contextual factors) would be interconnected, jointly influencing how people adapt to difficult situations. Therefore, we developed a multidimensional model of financial resilience, challenging the common view of the construct as merely an objective measure of access to emergency funds. Instead, we propose a systemic conceptualization of financial resilience.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK A conceptual model was developed by considering psychological, interpersonal and contextual factors. Specifically, within the individual domain, ego-resiliency, ego-depletion, worry tendencies, and financial literacy were considered. Ego-resiliency refers to a psychological trait reflecting individuals’ ability to adapt to challenging situations, while ego-depletion indicates the emotional exhaustion or fatigue that occurs after exerting significant effort to regulate emotions, such as during times of hardship. Worry tendencies describe a consistent pattern of recurring or excessive concern about potential future threats, difficulties, or negative outcomes. Finally, financial literacy refers to knowledge and skills related to financial matters. Concerning social factors, perceived social support and trust towards institutions were included in the model. The former refers to an individual’s belief that people in their life would be available to provide emotional or instrumental support when needed. The latter indicates instead the extent to which individuals trust different types of institutions. As for the contextual domain, we focused on individuals’ socio-economic situation. First, we measured financial resources access, which refers to the ease of accessing emergency funds in times of need. Then, we also considered whether individuals had difficulty making ends meet during the previous year. To examine how these three systems affect individuals’ adaptation to financial shocks or adversities, we investigated the role of these domains in preventing financial worry and enhancing psychological well-being. For research purposes, a Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was performed to explore how dynamic interactions and configurations of the three systems can differently influence financial worries and psychological well-being.

MEASURES AND METHODS To identify individuals in a potentially fragile financial situation, the study included German households with a monthly net income below 3,000 €. A quota sample of 999 German households (48.5% females; Mage=48.22 years, SDage=10.50) was then obtained. Ego-resiliency (CR=.857), ego-depletion (CR=.911), worry tendencies (CR=.932), financial literacy, perceived social support (CR=.762), institutional trust (CR=.897), financial resources access, and difficulties making ends meet were included in the LPA as indicators. Subsequently, once the profiles (i.e., different configurations of the indicators) were identified, a multivariate general linear model (GLM) was run to identify which profile(s) reported higher financial worry (CR=.884) and psychological well-being (CR=.876). Socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, age, education, and income) were also included in the GLM as control variables.

RESULTS Four clusters were identified through the LPA, representing four different configurations of the indicators considered in the analysis. Profile 1 (named “lacking financial resources”; 38.6%) was characterized by low levels of financial resources access and high levels of difficulties making ends meet. Profile 2 (named “no resources”; 21%) exhibited high worry tendencies and ego-depletion, combined with the greatest difficulties making ends meet and low levels of ego-resiliency, financial resources access, and perceived social support. Individuals in Profile 3 (named “resilient”; 25.9%) displayed strong ego-resiliency, access to financial resources, and perceived support by significant others, along with low levels of ego-depletion and worry tendencies. Finally, Profile 4 (“no personal strenght and high financial resources”; 14.5%) showed low ego-resiliency, higher worry tendencies and ego-depletion despite having high financial resources. The results from the GLM indicated significant differences among profiles for both financial worry [F(12, 986)=32.580; p<.001; partial η2=0.284] and psychological well-being [F(12, 986)=40.869; p<.001; partial η2=0.332]. The partial eta squared (η²) values indicated a large effect size for both outcomes. Furthermore, post-hoc analyses revealed that the four subgroups were significantly different from each other. Specifically, both Profile 1 and Profile 2 reported higher levels of financial worry, possibly due to their lower access to financial resources and greater difficulties making ends meet. However, Profile 2, which showed higher worry tendencies and ego-depletion, along with lower ego-resiliency and perceived social support, reported higher levels of financial worry compared to Profile 1. Regarding psychological well-being, the profiles (i.e., profile 2 and 4) that exhibited stronger worry tendencies and ego-depletion, combined with low ego-resiliency, had the lowest levels of psychological well-being, regardless of their levels of financial resources access and reported financial hardship (i.e., difficulties making ends meet). Our results suggest that financial resilience is not solely a matter of households’ financial situation. Other factors, such as psychological characteristics and perceived social support, also play a crucial role in shaping perceived financial worry and psychological well-being, despite one’s own financial resources or hardship. These findings underscore the importance of adopting a broader conceptualization of financial resilience, one that accounts for the dynamic interplay of different systems in shaping how individuals navigate financial adversities.

ABSTRACT. In recent years there has been a groundswell of research into financial well-being (FWB; or financial health), despite no common understanding of how to define, conceptualise, operationalise nor improve it (Riitsalu et al., 2023). To date, very little is known about the relationship between subjective FWB and objective financial data. There is one academic study that collected subjective FWB and objective financial data in a bank, but it focused on the scale development and validation (Comerton-Forde et al., 2022). There are studies using bank data to explore nuances of financial decision-making (e.g. Carvalho et al., 2024), and research that uses data from financial planners and other such apps (e.g. Olafsson & Pagel, 2018) for analysing particular financial behaviours.

We contribute to FWB literature by developing a three-dimensional human-centric conceptualisation and operationalisation of FWB and conducting the first in-depth analysis of the relationship between subjective FWB and objective financial behaviour and situation. Furthermore, we do it in longitudinal data that allows the assessment of change in FWB and analysis of the predictors of the elements of FWB and their changes over time.

In the previous stage, 630 semi-structured interviews were conducted in 7 Central and Eastern European Countries, and we used thematic analyses of transcripts which revealed that FWB is a triad of security, freedom and pleasure. Then, we developed a three-dimensional FWB scale, with three statements for each component, assessed its semantic validity in qualitative testing (n=26), and tested its reliability and validity in two online panels (n=562 and n=500). Based on these, the wording of the nine statements was refined. The final measure was used for data collection in a large sample (n=6,182) of customers of a major bank in Czechia in January – February 2024. We assessed the reliability of our 3 constructs, conducted confirmatory factor analysis and assessed construct validity using structural equation modelling with 3 latent constructs and observed variable stress. The results support the reliability of the three-dimensional measure and show satisfactory construct validity.

The bank shared pseudonymised data of those 6,182 respondents who had given informed consent to participate in the study, and the balances and transactional data from all of their accounts in that bank for 14 months. In September 2024, 1,704 respondents agreed to fill in the second survey, which, in addition to the FWB scale, asked for more details about their background. For the analysis, we used several methods, algorithms and models (random forest, LASSO, GAM), and we achieved the best results with LightGBM (a gradient-boosting framework that uses tree-based learning algorithms). For an easily readable model, we also conducted regression analysis.

The first key finding is that security is vital - one cannot have high freedom or higher pleasure without having average or higher security. The relationship between freedom and pleasure is more nuanced. The average assessment of freedom is lower than the average of security and pleasure in our sample - the respondents perceive the most significant shortages to be in their freedom to change course in life without having to worry about money.

The second important fact is that men rate their financial well-being to be higher than women when they hold the same amount of assets (money on accounts, savings and investments) or liabilities, except for pleasure in the small group of the very wealthy where women have the higher average response. The third discovery is that assets have a bigger role than liabilities in FWB assessment, even when mortgages are excluded from the latter. Those with more assets have higher FWB, although the effect is not linear. From a certain amount, every extra euro brings only a little improvement of FWB.

The fourth key finding is that the antecedents of the three elements of FWB differ. The main correlates of all three elements of FWB in our regression analysis are self-assessed changes in financial situation, age and gender. In addition, freedom is correlated with household income, current account balance, spending on clothing and footwear, donations and transport. In security, using digital financial planners has a positive correlation, also spending on food and drink, furniture and household equipment, and in gas stations has a significant role. For pleasure, spending on recreation and culture and in restaurants matters. Regional differences emerge in freedom and pleasure. However, these models describe around 27% of the scores, highlighting that the vast majority of factors affecting FWB remain outside the indicators we could use in the analysis. Sadly, the non-financial changes and a few psychological characteristics were excluded from the survey, which might have explained the assessment of FWB more.

Assessing the changes in FWB over 6 months shows a slight improvement of FWB in the group that participated in both survey waves. Also, stress caused by money matters has reduced for them. However, those who filled out the second survey assessed their FWB to be slightly higher than the rest in the first wave of data collection. Therefore, it may be that those who were doing well were more likely to respond than those whose FWB assessment had not improved.

The key factors correlated with changes in the FWB assessment are the self-assessed changes in financial situation, and spending on clothing and footwear. Most indicators explain one or two of the dimensions of FWB. For example, age correlates with changes in only freedom, region predicts changes in freedom and pleasure, household size is significantly related only with changes in pleasure. These models explain about 32% of the changes, emphasizing the role of factors outside our data.

To conclude, we confirm that FWB is multi-dimensional and multifaceted, and our three-dimensional conceptualisation and operationalisation of FWB is suitable for such analysis. Our study is the first to observe the gender difference in assessing the elements of subjective FWB while controlling for objective financial data.

ABSTRACT. According to existing research, a plant-based diet would reduce CO2 in the atmosphere by 14.5 % (Gerber et al., 2013). Promoting meat substitutes could help to accelerate the decrease of CO2. Therefore, the current research addresses the question, what are the factors that could motivate consumers to change their food choices. Specifically, it asks which behavioral beliefs are related to food choices on meat vs. plant-based alternatives using the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985) as theoretical basis to explore this relation.

In the last decade several plant-based alternatives to meat were invented; they aim to foster a healthy and carbon-friendly lifestyle. These plant-based alternatives are designed to persuade consumers that they are eating a piece of natural meat, while in fact consuming a plant-based alternative. The design usually includes the taste, the texture, and the color of natural meat (Van Vliet et al., 2020) so that the plant-based alternative should not differ in these characteristics from the original product.

In principle a diet with a low portion of red meat is beneficial for consumers health; it reduces the probability of diseases like cancer (Larsson & Wolk, 2006; Ranabhat et al., 2020), and heart diseases (Al-Shaar et al., 2020). Substituting red meat with plant-based protein adds fiber to the diet and protects consumers from severe diseases (Al-Shaar et al., 2020). Although plant-based alternatives have their merits, they can also include more salt and lead to a deficiency of micronutrients such as iron and B12. Thus, substituting meat with plant-based alternatives fully might be harmful in the long-run.

Consumers also consider animal welfare when purchasing plant-based meat alternatives. Livestock farming, the slaughter of farm animals, and their transportation to slaughterhouses have been under critique for quite a long time, because they stress animals out (Grandin, 2014). Substituting meat with plant-based alternatives is therefore a genuine vehicle to promote animal welfare.

Consumers also consider that substituting meat with plant-based alternatives has positive effects on the natural environment. Abstaining from eating meat is reducing green house gases (Gerber et al., 2013) but also decreases the use of resources such as soil, energy and water, and reduces environmental pollution (Westhoek et al., 2014). Thus, consuming plant-based alternatives is also perceived as an act of environmental protection.

The theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985) specifically proposes that different beliefs trigger specific attitudes, and these again lead to behavioral intention and in the end to a certain behavior. For instance, beliefs on health benefits through the consumption of plant-based alternatives support the formation of an attitude toward the choice of plant-based alternatives. Thus, consumers intend to select plant-based alternatives and in the end decide for plant-based alternatives. Besides the impact of attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control regarding the respective behavior have an impact on intention and behavior. For instance, subjective norms _ what significant others such as families and friends think about plant-based alternatives, have an impact on the intention to select the alternatives.

Additionally, consumers’ perceived behavioral control to choose plant-based alternatives in a nearby supermarket or having sufficient means to purchase the rather expensive alternatives is impacting not only the intention for the selection but also the actual selection behavior. As the theory of planned behavior offers a theoretical framework to study beliefs, the current research bases its research model on this theory focusing on beliefs regarding health, animal welfare, environmental protection, and sensory perception of plant-based alternatives.

After the preregistered study (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/U6CWY) was approved by an university ethics committee, 276 meat-eating participants from German speaking countries (66% female, 33 male, 1% divers; Mage = 36.6 years, SD = 15.4) filled in an online questionnaire in Spring 2023. The questionnaire comprised the scales belief on environmental protection (8 items, alpha = .94), belief on animal welfare (8 items, alpha = .85), belief on health (9 items, alpha = .94), believe on sensory perception (4 items, alpha = .90), attitudes (14 items, alpha = .82), subjective norms (4 items, alpha = .90), perceived behavioral control (4 items, alpha = .81), intention (4 items, alpha = .97), choice behavior (selection of a prize of either a meat or plant-based food product), and sociodemographic variables (age, gender, nationality, income, experience with plant-based alternatives, etc.).

The collected data was analysed with a structural equation model. Unfortunately, probably due to the interrelation of all four different beliefs, the model cannot explain the data sufficiently (Chi2(21) = 13.28, p < .001, CFI = 0.92, FMSEA = .14). As the model is very complex in another analysis the main question how the beliefs are related to the attitudes towards plant-based alternatives is analysed solely (R = .73, p < .001). Results reveal that beliefs on environmental protection (beta = .23***), on animal welfare (beta = 17***), on health (beta = .28***), and on sensory perception (beta = .26***) are related to attitudes towards plant-based alternatives. Thus, suggesting that beliefs have an impact on attitudes when consumers decide whether to consume meat or plant-based alternatives.

These results show that beliefs such as on environmental protection, on animal welfare, on health, and on sensory perception regarding the choice of plant-based alternatives should have an impact on food choice. From a practical point of view, putting specific beliefs in the focus of the promotion of plant-based alternatives could not only support a diet change but also account for the reduction of CO2.

ABSTRACT. Introduction Western consumers’ overconsumption of red meat contributes to negative health consequences and substantial demands on the environment due to demand for land, water, and the release of large amounts of methane and other greenhouse gas emissions during livestock production (Auclair & Burgos, 2021; Topcu et al., 2022; Veeramani et al., 2016, 2017). According to recent modelling and empirical studies, environmental sustainability and health could be improved with population dietary shifts towards lower red meat consumption in high meat consuming countries, including Canada (Jarmul et al., 2020). However, Canadians’ consumption of meat remains very high. Institutional food services are promising settings in which plant-based ingredients can be incorporated into a large number of dishes and served to many people. Given that relatively few Canadians are ready to completely give up meat consumption, serving “plant-forward” dishes by partially or fully substituting for meat in familiar mixed dishes in institutional food service contexts is a promising approach to promoting the use and consumption of pulses (Spencer et al., 2018). However, it remains unknown as to how much environmental impacts are mitigated when plant-forward dishes are offered in place of similar meat-based dishes in institutional food contexts. If the mitigation is not substantial, such substitution is a misguided effort. We aim to address this gap in this study research by collaborating with member operators of the Canadian College and University Food Service Association. Research Questions As the sustainability of food systems becomes increasingly critical in the face of climate change, campus food must not only prioritize health and nutrition but also incorporate sustainability into practices. As such, universities across Canada are implementing climate mitigation and sustainability goals within their mission, and reporting on progress. In this context, some campus food services have started to address sustainability by reducing meat in their menus or replacing it with substitutes, increasingly known as ‘plant-forward’ eating. However, there is limited information on the environmental and nutritional impacts of such transitions. Understanding these impacts is essential for developing strategies to promote sustainable food choices and for informing young adults who are in a transition period of forming new eating habits. This interdisciplinary research quantified the nutritional content and life cycle environmental impacts of plant-forward meals created for several university campuses across Canada, compared them to conventional meat-based counterparts, and explored the trade-offs between environmental sustainability and nutritional adequacy. Methods Life cycle assessment (LCA) was applied to quantify the farm-to-fork environmental impacts of 37 recipes provided by five partner universities across Canada. Two functional units were used: 1000 kcal for energy provision and the NRF 9.3 (Drewnowski, 2009) that assesses nutritional quality. The NRF (Nutrient-Rich Food) index was calculated using nutrient data generated by ESHA Genesis R&D Foods (ESHA Research, Beaverton, Oregon). The system boundaries included production, processing, distribution, retail, cooking, and accounted for food waste and loss throughout the food supply chain and during consumer preparation. Material and energy inputs for the life cycle inventory were obtained from recipes provided by partner universities. Environmental impacts were assessed using TRACI 2.1 for global warming potential (GWP) and Eutrophication (EU), and Boulay et al. (2011) for blue water scarcity. A Canadianized agriculture and food life cycle inventory (LCI) developed within the ecoinvent© database within openLCA was applied. This comprehensive approach integrated environmental sustainability and nutritional adequacy for a holistic assessment. Results and discussion This study analyzed nine recipe pairs (six complete meat-to-plant substitutions and three partial meat substitutions) and 19 single recipes to assess environmental and nutritional impacts. Plant-forward recipes consistently had lower GWP per 1000 kcal compared to meat-based counterparts. Complete substitutions achieved reductions ranging from 67.5% (fish tacos at 3.44 kg CO₂ eq reduced to 1.12 kg CO₂ eq for jackfruit tacos) to 94.2% (beef burger at 11.80 kg CO₂ eq reduced to 0.69 kg CO₂ eq for falafel/veggie burger). Partial substitutions achieved more modest reductions ranging from 12.4% (stir-fry beef meatballs at 8.81 kg CO₂ eq reduced to 7.72 kg CO₂ eq for kimchi beef and rice meatballs) to 31.0% (Swedish chicken meatballs at 2.90 kg CO₂ eq reduced to 2.00 kg CO₂ eq for chicken and lentil cutlet with mushroom sauce), highlighting the need for more reductions in meat to achieve significant benefits. EU followed similar trends, with complete substitutions reducing EU by up to 96.3% (beef burger at 0.176 kg N eq reduced to 0.007 kg CO₂ eq for falafel/veggie burger), compared to a maximum of 33.2% (Swedish chicken meatballs at 0.027 kg N eq reduced to 0.018 kg N eq for chicken and lentil cutlet with mushroom sauce) for partial substitutions. However, water scarcity impacts often showed higher values for plant-forward recipes due to water-intensive ingredients like vegetables. For example, the falafel/veggie burger had a higher water scarcity value (0.185 m³) than the beef burger (0.135 m³), emphasizing the need for strategic ingredient selection to balance trade-offs. While plant-forward recipes generally had lower GWP per Nutrient Rich Food 9.3 (NRF 9.3), certain substitutions, like jackfruit tacos, had higher GWP per NRF 9.3 due to lower protein and essential nutrient contents compared to fish tacos. These results underscore the importance of balancing nutritional adequacy and environmental sustainability in recipe design. This study provides a valuable quantitative analysis of the environmental and nutritional impacts of plant-forward versus animal-based recipes in Canadian campus food services, an underexplored area. By integrating nutritional adequacy metrics (NRF 9.3) into LCA, it bridges the gap between sustainability and nutrition, offering actionable insights for food service operators to design balanced, sustainable recipes that maintain nutritional adequacy. Conclusions Complete substitutions, especially replacing beef, offer the greatest climate benefits, but trade-offs can occur, such as reduced GWP but increased water scarcity and variations in GWP per NRF 9.3. Thus, it is critical to balance taste, nutrition, and sustainability. These findings guide the development of sustainable, nutritionally adequate menus for Canadian campus food services. Acknowledgements We acknowledge the funding from the Guelph Institute of Environmental Research as well as from the Social Science & Humanities Research Council’s Partnership Engagement Grant.

ABSTRACT. Introduction Post-secondary campus food services are one of the best contexts for trying new ideas for promoting plant-forward foods for health and sustainability as they have dual mandates of serving healthy food to a large number of customers while maintaining profit (. Two main approaches can be discerned in the literature: increasing offerings of meat-free plant-based dishes and either fully or partially substituting plant-based ingredients (e.g., legumes) for meat in existing meat-based dishes. Building on anecdotal reports, it is now timely to determine what proportion of menu offerings offered in post-secondary institutions across Canada are plant-forward dishes. Research Questions The main objective of the present study was to document the range and percentage of plant-forward dishes being offered, the types of plant-forward dishes being offered, and the timing of adoption of more plant-forward dishes to the menus across Canada. To guide future work on wider adoption, we assessed a set of facilitators and barriers to the adoption of plant-forward menu options as perceived by respondents using Damschroder et al.’s (2022) Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). We specifically focused on the inner setting domains (i.e., academic institution and food service unit), outer setting domain and implementation process domain. Exploratory subgroup analysis was also undertaken to examine associations between the degree of adoption of plant forward entrees and the facilitators and barriers derived from the CFIR model. Methods We used the 85 members of the Canadian College and University Food Service Association (CCUFSA) as the sampling frame. The online survey consisted of three sections. Section 1 had general questions about the characteristics of the academic institution and the campus food service unit. In Section 2, participants were asked to report the percentage of plant-forward main dishes in their menu offered in the 2018-2020 academic years (immediately prior to the Covid-19 pandemic) as well as the percentage of such dishes offered in the 2023-2024 academic year. We also asked whether the campus food service unit has started to actively implement more plant-forward dishes on the menu (yes, no), and if yes, when the implementation started. Lastly, participants were asked which of the 10 categories of typical plant-forward dishes (See Figure 1) they offered in the 2023-2024 academic year (yes, no). In Section 3, we assessed x elements of the inner setting domains (i.e., academic institution and food service unit), y outer setting domain items and z items from implementation process domains relevant to the innovation adoption on a 5-point scale (1= strongly disagree; 5= strongly agree). Results About 40% of the CCUFSA membership completed the survey (n=34). While 21.2% of the institutions (n=8) did not offer any meal plan for their students, the others reported a widely varying number of students with meal plans. Most of those not offering meal plans were two-year colleges located in urban locations that mainly offer lunch and mostly comprise commuting students. Responses relevant to plant-forward dish offerings Regarding the % of plant-forward dish offerings in the 2018-2020 academic years, the median was 17% . In comparison, % of plant-forward dish offerings in the menu offered in the 2023-2024 academic year doubled , with a median of 35%. Meat-free variants of plant-based dishes were available in 70-90% of food services in our sample, whereas relatively fewer food services reported currently serving partial meat substitution versions of the same dishes overall. 88.2% of respondents indicated that their food service unit has started to actively implement more plant-forward dishes on the menu. Given that the % of plant-forward dish offerings in the menu currently offered was aligned with whether meal plans were available to students or not and how recently food services started the implementation of adding plant-forward main dishes, we created three subgroups : the “no-meal-plan” group (n=8), late adopters that started the implementation 1-4 years ago (n=13) and early adopters that did so +5 years ago (n=12). One food service did not fit into this categorization. The appropriateness of using the grouping variable in our data analysis was checked by regressing the % of plant-forward entrees in the menu on the grouping variable. The regression coefficient of the grouping variable was significant (b= 15.5, t= 3.76, p= .001) with R-square being .30. No further significant improvement in R-square was observed by entering additional variables as predictors. Comparison of three groups derived from hybrid clustering The three groups were compared on the following variables using one-way ANOVA. First, % of plant-based meal offerings in the menu in the 2023-2024 academic year significantly differed across the three groups (F (2,28) = 7.08, p =.003). The percentage was 45.8%, 33.9% and 14.3% for early adopters, late adopters and the no-meal-plan group. We assessed how the three groups differed in offering each of the 10 plant-forward dish categories currently on offer. Findings from Chi-square tests are not reported here. As shown in Figure (A) versus (B), the majority of early adopters were offering the partial meat substitution dishes whereas relatively few late adopters and no-meal-plan group were doing so. The overall pattern of responses on the CFIR model, showed responses by late adopters lay between the no-meal-plan group and early adopters for most variables in the inner setting domain and outer setting domain, with 10 comparisons being significant. In contrast, the pattern was quite different for variables in the implementation process domain. Compared with early adopters, late adopters rated barriers to adding more plant-forward dishes on concerns about increased preparation time and increased ingredient and labour costs. Conclusion Our findings indicate that many campus food services have started to actively add more plant-forward dishes, with a great deal of heterogeneity not only in the % of plant-forward dishes in menu offerings but also in categories of which dishes are offered. The three groups we proposed, namely, the no-meal-plan group, late adopters and early adopters, offer a pragmatic tool for not only understanding how key groups currently differ in such offerings but also suggesting strategies for further promotion in groups at different stages of adoption. (We ask you to view pdf file)

ABSTRACT. The food sector is a primary contributor to climate and environmental change (Willet et al., 2019). In 2019, the global food system accounted for nearly half of the total emissions (FAO, 2023). To meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to below 2°C by 2100, food-related emissions must be significantly reduced (Willet et al., 2023). Therefore, comprehensive, multi-sectoral strategies are essential to mitigate emissions from food production.

Consumers play a crucial role in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of the food system–a fact underscored by the European Union’s ‘Farm-to-Fork’ strategy (EC, 2020). This strategy proposes a framework for sustainable food labeling aimed at supporting consumer decision-making by increasing transparency regarding carbon footprints (CF). Research indicates that sustainability labels can guide consumers toward food products with lower carbon footprints, reflecting a preference for eco-friendly choices (e.g. Aprile & Punzo, 2022). However, in daily life consumers are often overwhelmed by a myriad of factors influencing their purchasing decisions, ranging from price and convenience to taste and availability, often leaving little room for prioritizing sustainability. Food swap recommendations offer a promising solution by simplifying the decision-making process: by proactively suggesting more sustainable alternatives at the point of purchase, food swaps can help bridge the gap between consumers' environmental intentions and their actual shopping behaviors, making it easier to integrate sustainable choices into everyday routines. Food swaps provide consumers with the opportunity to replace their initially chosen food items with more sustainable alternatives while receiving additional product information. Although previous research has shown that food swap recommendations effectively encourage healthier food choices (e.g. Schruff-Lim et al., 2024), their potential in promoting eco-friendly food purchasing decisions remains to be explored.

This study examines the effect of food swap recommendations on the CF of food items selected in an online grocery shopping experiment. Specifically, this research aims to address the following key questions: (1) How effective are food swap recommendations in reducing the CF of food choices, and how do the relative price levels of the recommended products and consumers’ environmental attitudes influence this effectiveness? (2) How do price levels of food swap recommendations impact consumer acceptance–both directly and through perceived usefulness of the food swap–and what role does price consciousness play in shaping acceptance?

To address these research questions, we conducted an experimental online study within a simulated supermarket environment. The online supermarket was built using the Gorilla Shop Builder (Gorilla, n.d.) and included various product categories such as cereals, dairy, spreads and meats. Products were displayed with images, prices, and Climate-Score labels–a categorical five-level scale (A-E) with a traffic-light color gradient indicating the CF of a product.

This study employed a two-armed between-subjects design, comparing low-price and high-price food swap recommendations. Ethical approval was obtained, and the study was pre-registered on AsPredicted. The online supermarket contained 92 food and beverage products across seven categories. Food swap recommendations appeared as pop-up messages when participants added a food product with a higher CF (level C, D, or E) to their cart. The recommended alternative came from the same product category and had a lower CF. For categories containing both animal-based and plant-based products, plant-based alternatives were suggested as greener options. Recommendations maintained consistency in production methods (organic vs. conventional) and were manipulated to be either cheaper or more expensive based on brand type (manufacturer vs. retailer brand).

The sample size was determined a priori using a power analysis (G*Power). Oversampling served to account for potential dropouts and ineligible participants, resulting in a target sample size of 562 datasets. Recruitment was conducted by a market research agency that invited German-speaking food shoppers from their panel. A pilot test with 50 participants preceded the main data collection, which took place between October 29, 2024, and November 4, 2024. Exclusion criteria included failing attention checks, unrealistic response behavior, and selecting improbable shopping baskets. Participants who did not receive a food swap recommendation were excluded from the analysis concerning swap acceptance rates.

Preliminary analyses were conducted to examine the impact of food swaps on CF reduction and food swap acceptance rates. Results showed that, on average, participants purchased products resulting in 3.63 kg of CO2eqs per shopping trip with food swap recommendations not significantly reducing the CF of the online shopping basket. Furthermore, environmental attitudes did not moderate the relationship between food swaps and CF reduction. Regarding swap acceptance, both perceived usefulness and price consciousness played significant roles. Participants were more likely to accept food swaps when they found the recommendations valuable and if the food swap aligned with their price sensitivity. Additionally, the high ratings for the online supermarket’s realism and ease of use suggest that the experimental setup effectively simulated an authentic shopping experience. Our preliminary findings indicate that while food swap recommendations may not significantly reduce the CF of food purchases, consumer attitudes toward price and perceived usefulness of the recommendations influence swap acceptance. A more in-depth analyses will be conducted in the coming weeks, which the detailed results to be presented upon acceptance.

References: Aprile, M. C., & Punzo, G. (2022). How environmental sustainability labels affect food choices: Assessing consumer preferences in southern Italy. Journal of Cleaner Production, 332, Article 130046. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JCLEPRO.2021.130046

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2023). Land statistics and indicators 2000-2021. Global, regional and country trends. FAOSTAT Analytical Brief 71. https://www.fao.org/3/cc6907en/cc6907en.pdf

Schruff-Lim, E.-M., Van Loo, E. J., van der Lans, I. A., & van Trijp, H. C. M. (2024). Impact of food swap recommendations on dietary choices in an online supermarket: A randomized controlled trial. Appetite, 194, Article 107158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2023.107158

Willett, W., Rockström, J., Loken, B., Springmann, M., Lang, T., Vermeulen, S., Garnett, T., Tilman, D., DeClerck, F., Wood, A., Jonell, M., Clark, M., Gordon, L. J., Fanzo, J., Hawkes, C., Zurayk, R., Rivera, J. A., De Vries, W., Majele Sibanda, L., … Murray, C. J. L. (2019). Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet, 393, 447–492. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4

ABSTRACT. Bargaining over losses in groups is a common economic interaction with a set of unique characteristics and the subject of this paper. To shed light on such scenarios, we conducted an experimental game with 272 participants in which groups of four agents each start with either 5, 10, 15 or 20 Euros as initial endowment. The agents then have to bargain over how a loss of 10 Euros, that the group would have to bear, should be distributed. Any distribution needs to be accepted unanimously within a group. The initial endowments are assigned to the players either via a random mechanism (luck) or, in a different treatment, according to the individual success in a real-effort task (merit). Both treatments were run in two variants, one with a veil of ignorance and one without. In the luck treatment, participants are either not informed about their initial status before the bargaining process begins or they are. In the treatment with the real-effort task, the agents’ relative success either remains undisclosed or is made known to them. Among other things, we find that players with the highest endowment contribute significantly less under effort than under luck, while the opposite holds for agents with the lowest endowment. Without a veil, the latter is primarily driven by the choices of agents with the lowest endowment. We find virtually no differences between unanimously accepted distributions with and without a veil, indicating the normative appeal of the distributions.

ABSTRACT. Standard random utility models can account for stochastic choice. However, a common implication is that the realized utilities are equal with probability zero. This knife-edge aspect implies that indifference is thin because arbitrarily small changes in utility will break indifference. Semiorders can represent preferences where indifference is thick, however, choice is not random. We design an incentivized binary line length judgment experiment to better understand how indifference can be both thick and random. In the 2-choice treatment, subjects select one of the lines. In the 3-choice treatment, subjects select one of the lines or can express indifference, which directs the computer to "flip a coin" to decide. In every trial, there is a longer line and subjects were told this fact. For each of our line pairs, subjects make 5 decisions in the 2-choice treatment and 5 decisions in the 3-choice treatment. In the line pair with the smallest length difference, 49.7% of 2-choice treatment trials are optimal. For this line pair in the 3-choice treatment, only 1 out of 113 subjects selected indifference on all 5 available trials. In the 3-choice treatment, we find that indifference choices have longer response times than suboptimal choices. We find that indifference choices are associated with risk aversion and a measure of the beliefs of the favorability of the coin flip. We hope that the results of our experiment can help inform models of choice where indifference is both thick and random.

ABSTRACT. 1. Motivation

People regularly decide how much risk they want to take in different areas, such as career choices, health, and investment decisions. For this reason, risk preferences profoundly impact various socioeconomic outcomes. Prominent examples are the persistent gender gaps in wages, earnings, and social positions, which have been (partly) attributed to gender differences in risk preferences. In textbook economics, a standard assumption is that risk preferences are stable over time. However, empirical evidence seems to contradict this assumption. Risk preferences are typically found to evolve early in life, during the first stages of education, are transmitted across generations, and are affected by contextual factors. Thus, the evolution of the gender gap in risk-taking should be rooted in early childhood development and adolescence. Säve-Söderbergh & Sjögren Lindquist (2017) and Andreoni et al. (2020) find that girls (not boys) become more risk-averse when they grow older.

Following on from this, in this study, we try to further understand what impacts the gender gap in risk attitudes. Specifically, we examine how positive feedback in a competitive setting shapes gender differences in risk tolerance from early years on. We use data from professional diving, a ‘real life, real risk’ environment where the notion of risk is very intuitive and associated with the height of the dive. Tracking careers in US diving from early years on, we analyse how winning a (low-risk) springboard contest (1 and 3 metres) affects the willingness of girls and boys to compete in (high-risk) platform competitions (5, 7.5, and 10 metres). Openness to all disciplines improves career prospects in the profession. Building on the work of Bandura (1977), we expect the mastery experiences and social persuasion gained from the first win to increase a diver’s self-efficacy and, eventually, his or her willingness to take risks. This is because believing in one’s superiority can make risks seem more controllable (Klein & Kunda 1994), so self-efficacy may work as a mediator between positive feedback and risk-taking. This nexus could be different for the genders; for instance, a recent study by Dohmen et al. (2023) suggests that men and women differ in their disposition to focus on positive or negative outcomes.

2. Methods

Our data was collected from the official TEAM USA / USA Diving website. It gives us a complete history of (mostly national) competitions between the years 2004 and 2021 including rankings and points. Moreover, we add data from international diving competitions listed on the international federation’s official website. After restricting to individuals aged 10 to 18 with at least 20 contests, our final sample consists of 41,788 diver-contest observations.

Our empirical approach aims to explain a diver’s tendency to participate in a high-risk (platform) contest after winning a low-risk (springboard) contest. Since divers have their first win at different points in time, we opt for a two-way fixed effect model with staggered treatment. The model includes twelve event-time dummies capturing five quarters before and seven quarters after the treatment, as well as diver and time (year-quarter) fixed effects. We define divers to be treated after their first win in a springboard contest without a platform contest win before that. Platform contest participation, however, is allowed. For the control group, platform wins are not excluded but very rare. Standard errors are clustered on the diver level.

3. Results

While individuals of both genders increase their general activity level after the treatment and are more willing to participate in platform competitions, the change in risk preference differs in magnitude: treated male divers are substantially more engaged in platform competitions, both on the extensive and intensive margin. Evaluated at the sample mean, males are, for instance, 37.2% more likely to dive from greater heights in a contest after the treatment (fourth column). For females in our sample, the effect size is 9.88%.

In a heterogeneity analysis, we provide evidence that positive feedback works by encouraging individuals who previously shy away from high-risk contests and for whom success is less expected. Moreover, for females, the intensity of the 'quasi-treatment' matters as the effect is entirely driven by the group of divers with below-median prior success, underlining the importance of success in low-risk contests for gaining confidence. Moreover, also in line with the concept of self-efficacy, we find supportive evidence in favour of a moderating role in the social environment. Finally, although (high-risk) platform diving cannot be seen as a promotion, we find that increasing the risk pays off: Athletes who add platform diving to their portfolios are more likely to be among the national or international top divers.

ABSTRACT. A large body of evidence shows that peer pressure can increase risky behaviour, with more limited evidence indicating that peer pressure can also reduce risky behaviour. However, whether robots can extract similar influence is an open and important question. To study this problem, 172 participants completed the balloon analogue risk task (BART) under three conditions: Control (no robot present), the presence of an encouraging robot, and the presence of a discouraging robot. Participants also completed a self-report measure evaluating their risk attitude and a self-measure designed to assess attitudes toward robots. Our data revealed that participants in the robot-discouraging condition exhibited significantly reduced risky behaviours compared to those in the robot-encouraging and control conditions. They pumped significantly fewer times, experienced significantly fewer balloon explosions, and earned significantly less money compared to the control or encouraged condition. However, we did not find a significant effect between encouraging and the control conditions. Moreover, a more positive impression of the robot moderated the effect of the robot's discouraging statements on risk-taking. The results of our study open new possibilities for the employment of robots in preventive programs designed to reduce or alter risky behaviour.

ABSTRACT. Driven by lessons from COVID-19, the RIVM Behaviour & Health Unit is enhancing the preparedness of social and behavioural sciences for future pandemics. Using the socio-ecological model and emergency management cycle, we propose a conceptual framework for a behavioural perspective on pandemic preparedness. The multilevel (individual, community, organisational, national, supra-national), time-dependent (cold, acute, recovery) structure helps clarify who must act when. To understand what different actors need before or during a pandemic, we propose an adapted COM-B model (Michie et al., 2011), including determinants related to motivation, capabilities, and opportunities. Based on these frameworks, various monitoring tools are developed. Here we present the first results of the Pandemic Preparedness and Behaviour (PPb) survey, which monitors coldphase behaviours (hygiene, social activity, preparedness) and their determinants at an individual level. Collecting data in four European countries, the survey provides baseline measurements ahead of a future pandemic and helps develop appropriate tools for the hot phase. Additionally, insights into cold-phase determinants can identify where communities, organisations, and governments can provide support to improve preparedness. This presentation will discuss the conceptual framework, initial PPb survey findings, and their relevance for strengthening social and behavioural science preparedness.

ABSTRACT. The use of behavioral insights (BI) in public policy has become a cornerstone of evidence-based governance, offering innovative approaches to complex challenges in consumer protection. The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority (DCCA) has been at the forefront of this movement, harnessing behavioral science and experimentation to improve consumer outcomes since 2013. This presentation provides an in-depth exploration of how BI can drive impactful policy and the complex road to implementation with a focus on practical experience in Denmark. In recent years, the DCCA has utilized a variety of BI tools including randomized experiments and survey methods to tackle pressing consumer issues. This session will focus on how BI is used in practice and include one-two cases of projects that exemplify the complex journey from behavioral insights to policy impact. The cases will include work on topics such as empowering young consumers using social media, and how BI tools can help leveling the playing field for consumers making complex financial decisions. Both cases underline the importance of translating behavioral insights into actionable, scalable, and evidence-based policy interventions. They also highlight the challenges and opportunities of embedding BI within the policymaking process, from stakeholder collaboration to ethical considerations. This presentation will provide attendees with a detailed understanding of the methodologies and frameworks used in these projects, as well as insights into how BI can be integrated into policy design to achieve real-world impact. We will also discuss the broader role of BI in Denmark’s consumer protection strategy and share lessons learned for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners working at the intersection of behavioral science and public policy.

ABSTRACT. Behavioural Insights (BI) have gained traction in policymaking, yet their application remains largely confined to individual-level interventions, often as ‘nudges’ that leave broader policy design untouched. This limited scope fails to harness BI’s full potential for shaping policies that align with human behaviour at a systemic level. This position paper sets the stage for unlocking the full potential of BI. It begins by debunking common misconceptions policymakers may have about BI. It then highlights the various policy scopes where BI can contribute, drawing primarily on examples from the Joint Research Centre. Finally, it explores how BI can achieve greater systemic impact, advocating for more interdisciplinary collaboration with systems analysts and others, as well as the early integration of BI into the policy cycle. Many misconceptions persist about the role and scope of BI in policymaking. One common misunderstanding is that BI can solely focus on influencing individual behaviour, when in reality, it can also contribute to systemic changes. Another misconception equates BI with behavioural interventions, particularly nudges, overlooking its capacity to inform traditional policies. Aligned with this, BI is often viewed as a mere ‘plug-in’ rather than a foundational element that should be embedded throughout the policy process, from anticipation to implementation. Additionally, BI is often mistakenly perceived as being limited to ‘soft’ interventions, despite its proven ability to enhance a broad spectrum of policy instruments, including coercive measures. Finally, the impact of BI is frequently underestimated, due to the assumption that its influence is marginal, largely based on studies of nudging. BI can inform a wide range of policies, as well as their interconnections within and across policy areas. Behavioural interventions, mostly targeted at individuals, can also trigger systemic changes through cascade effects, whereby small individual behavioural changes can lead to broader societal shifts. However, what those effects will be is uncertain. Early inclusion of BI can guide the choice and development of both behavioural interventions and traditional policy instruments, ensuring that they are grounded in a thorough understanding of human behaviour. Beyond individual policies, BI can enhance policy mixes, ensuring that different instruments work cohesively rather than in conflict. Many policies are designed in silos, leading to unintended behavioural consequences when multiple interventions send conflicting signals. BI can help identify synergies, streamline interventions, and avoid friction between measures aimed at the same policy goals. Policymakers should move from viewing BI as an ‘add-on’ to recognising it as a key tool in crafting well-aligned policy mixes. Another underexplored area is policy interconnection—the way policies across different domains interact and influence behaviour. Behavioural science has traditionally focused on individual policy areas, but in reality, citizens and businesses navigate multiple overlapping policies daily. BI can offer a framework for analysing these interdependencies, ensuring that policies do not produce counterproductive effects when viewed collectively. BI can finally help to address complex societal challenges, contributing to the system. It can do so by mapping stakeholder interactions, identifying leverage points, and designing policy tools that work within existing systems rather than independently. Systemic change is fundamentally rooted in human behaviour: while structural, political, economic, or technological factors may set the stage, it is the decisions and actions of individuals that ultimately drive change. Identifying and leveraging the right behavioural pathways can shift the trajectory of systemic challenges, paving the way for transformative outcomes. To achieve this, integrating BI with systems analysis (e.g. design for policy, strategic foresight) holds significant potential. If BI is to contribute meaningfully to policymaking, it must be embedded throughout the policy process—informing not only behavioural interventions but also traditional policy instruments, policy mixes, policy interconnections, and systemic change. For BI to realise its full potential, several challenges must be addressed. Interdisciplinary collaboration is crucial—BI cannot operate in isolation but must be integrated with other disciplines such as systems innovation (including foresight, design for policy and many others) and natural sciences when relevant. Early integration of BI into policymaking is also fundamental. This can be fostered by training policymakers on BI (raising awareness), building long-term and stable collaborations with them (building trust) and being able to quickly collect reliable experimental data (complying with policy process deadlines).

ABSTRACT. The EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) entered into force in February 2025. It aims to reduce packaging waste, improve recycling rates, and support the circular economy. To this end, the European Commission mandates harmonised waste sorting labels (WSLs) on packaging and waste receptacles across all Member States. Currently, Member States employ diverse waste collection systems, colour codes, and labelling practices, with many lacking labels on product packaging. This project, led by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), seeks to design a harmonised WSL system that is salient, well-understood, and actionable for all EU citizens. Inspired by the Nordic pictogram system, the labels will be placed on both packaging and waste receptacles to guide proper waste disposal, aiming for consistent design on packaging to avoid internal market fragmentation. The project adopts an interdisciplinary approach, integrating behavioural insights with participatory design to create evidencebased, user-friendly WSLs. We combine a literature review, large-scale surveys of about 17,000 EU citizens in 21 different Member States, participatory workshops with diverse stakeholders—including packaging producers, waste managers, consumers, and people with visual impairments—, stakeholder consultations, online behavioural experiments including almost 10,000 EU citizens from 11 Member States, and graphical design. This comprehensive methodology investigates how label design elements (e.g., colours, pictograms, text) influence attention, understanding, appreciation, and sorting accuracy. Eventually, we empirically test the effectiveness of WSLs in improving sorting behaviour. Our research reveals tensions between industry preferences for flexible, space-efficient labels and consumers’ need for clarity and actionable information. Through iterative prototyping and behavioural testing, we develop a WSL system designed to enhance sorting behaviours while being feasible for industry implementation. This project will directly inform the implementing act related to the PPWR. Our findings highlight the critical role of behavioural science in addressing environmental challenges, offering insights into how design, capability, opportunity and motivation intersect to influence everyday waste-sorting decisions.

ABSTRACT. Several countries have incorporated the term “well-being” into their policy-making processes, since macro-economic statistics, such as GDP, do not give the best overview of actual quality of life. One of the best examples of this approach is the Gross National Happiness Index used in Bhutan that aims to analyse the happiness and well-being of the Bhutanese population by both objective and subjective (data collected by surveys) indicators and use these results in national policy-making processes. There are also other countries who have created well-being frameworks, such as New Zealand and Australia. However, the field of well-being is still emerging and there is no clear framework how to incorporate the concept of well-being into national policies and what are the best indicators for measuring well-being. For academics and policy-makers alike, it is important to understand the idea of well-being and its components. Financial well-being has been often described as one of these components of overall well-being and, therefore, should be taken into account when analysing well-being. The aim of this article is to better define the concepts of well-being and financial well-being and to propose an alternative relationship between these two, arguing that financial well-being should not be seen as a separate component of overall well-being but rather it is intricately linked to all other parts of well-being. In order to redefine the concepts of overall well-being and financial well-being and to reassess the relationship between these two, a qualitative analysis was carried out in seven countries: Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. There were 90 interviews per country and the interviewees were sampled by four criteria: 1) age 2) comparative income level 3) employment status 4) identity by gender and other characteristics. The qualitative nature of the analysis allowed the researchers to go into depth when discussing the subjective understandings of overall well-being and financial well-being. The data was analysed using the principles of thematic analysis. The code tree was built upon the Global Flourishing Study framework that consists of six domains: (1) happiness and life satisfaction (2) mental and physical health (3) meaning and purpose (4) character and virtue (5) close social relationships (6) financial and material stability. The authors of the study decided to add one additional domain about work because working was a topic that was often talked about in the interviews. The investigation into the relationship between financial well-being (FWB) and general well-being highlighted the interconnected influences that shape individual and collective experiences of life satisfaction. Drawing from a fresh look at the interview data, this analysis underscores the multifaceted ways in which FWB is intricately linked to various aspects of subjective well-being (SWB), as framed by the Global Flourishing Study's six domains: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and financial and material stability. Central to the findings is the nuanced recognition that while financial resources alone do not equate to happiness, they are indispensable for facilitating the experiences and conditions—such as health, security, and leisure—that contribute significantly to life satisfaction. This perspective is reinforced by participants' reflections that underscore the essential role of financial means in enabling a life that is not only free from want but enriched with opportunities for personal growth and enjoyment. For instance, participants frequently highlighted the importance of financial security in affording them the freedom to engage in fulfilling activities and pursue meaningful goals, thus linking economic stability directly to the domain of meaning and purpose. This analysis articulates a complex picture of how financial well-being is fundamentally entwined with general well-being across all domains of life. Financial stability is not just a means to an end but a pivotal foundation that supports a wide array of well-being outcomes, from enhancing personal and community health to enabling the pursuit of fulfilling and meaningful lives. This comprehensive analysis highlights the need for policies and personal strategies that consider financial well-being as central to promoting overall life satisfaction and flourishing.

ABSTRACT. Financial well-being (FWB) is a multifaceted and subjective construct that extends beyond financial security to include the dimensions of freedom and pleasure. These three elements form an interdependent triad that is balanced rather than summed to reflect an individual’s financial well-being comprehensively. Despite the increasing recognition of this complexity, existing FWB assessment tools have predominantly focused on security, often using single-score outputs that fail to account for the broader and subjective dimensions of freedom and pleasure. This study responds to these limitations by designing and developing a novel Financial Well-being Self-assessment Tool through a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology (Peffers et al. 2007; Lapão, da Silva, and Gregório 2017). This methodology supports the creation of practical artefacts while advancing theoretical understanding, allowing for iterative development informed by user engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration. The design process began with a comprehensive review of 18 existing FWB assessment tools. This analysis revealed a predominant emphasis on budgeting, planning, saving, and borrowing—factors primarily associated with security. Other dimensions, such as freedom and pleasure, received minimal attention, highlighting a significant gap in the current landscape of self-assessment tools. Furthermore, many tools used static survey methods that failed to engage users or provide actionable insights. The few tools that attempted innovation, such as Halixia’s image-based prompts or NatWest’s hybrid survey and advisory model, lacked sufficient depth or applicability to diverse user experiences. This review underscored the need for a holistic, user-centred tool that integrates all three dimensions of FWB while fostering engagement and reflection. Guided by DSR principles (Iivari and Venable 2009; Reubens 2016) the development process comprised six iterative stages: problem identification, objective definition, artefact design, demonstration, evaluation, and communication. Qualitative research findings and workshops with interdisciplinary teams informed the early design phases, resulting in the conceptualisation of an interactive “wheel of topics.” This innovative mechanism organises 14 topics—such as health, education, social connections, and financial management—into four high-level categories: personal life, social life, daily life, and financial life. These topics reflect FWB's complex and interconnected nature, offering users a comprehensive framework for self-assessment. The tool employs a five-point Likert scale (ranging from -2 to +2) to encourage reflection on how these topics influence users’ financial well-being across the triad dimensions. The tool’s user journey was carefully designed to ensure accessibility, engagement, and educational value. Users progress through seven stages, beginning with an introduction to build trust and concluding with a personalised summary and goal-setting exercise. The assessment order was intentionally structured to address security first, followed by freedom and pleasure, based on user feedback indicating that security was the most intuitive entry point for reflection. Outputs include a descriptive summary of users’ perceptions across the triad, avoiding reductive single scores. This approach aligns with the findings of the initial review, which highlighted the risks of oversimplification in existing tools. Iterative prototyping and user testing played a central role in refining the tool. Early testing sessions, conducted with diverse participants, identified key areas for improvement, including interface navigation, clarity of communication, and the framing of pleasure-related questions. A formal user-testing session at the University of Tartu revealed that some users found the pleasure dimension less intuitive to assess, prompting adjustments to the assessment order and revisions to guiding texts. These refinements ensured that the tool remained both accessible and thought-provoking, encouraging users to engage with the more abstract dimensions of FWB. A practical intervention at the European Forum Alpbach further validated the tool’s effectiveness and provided additional insights for refinement. During the workshop, participants used the tool to assess their FWB and engaged in group activities to identify behavioural strategies for improvement. Guided by the Behavioural Insights Team’s EAST framework (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely), participants proposed interventions to address challenges in pleasure, freedom, and security. These included strategies such as mindful spending, skill diversification, and structured savings habits, demonstrating the tool’s potential to inspire actionable change. The FWB Self-assessment Tool contributes to both academic research and practical applications in financial well-being. It advances the theoretical understanding of FWB by operationalising its triadic framework and addressing the interdependence of security, freedom, and pleasure. Simultaneously, it offers a user-centred, interactive solution that fosters reflection, education, and possibly behavioural change. The tool is designed to remain accessible for ongoing development and use, ensuring it can support further refinements, incorporate personalised recommendations, and achieve deeper integration with advisory services in the future. This research underscores the importance of a holistic, user-centred approach to assessing financial well-being. It moves beyond static, security-focused tools to create an engaging, reflective, and educational experience. By addressing the limitations of existing assessments and integrating insights from DSR and behavioural science, this study offers a novel contribution to the field of financial well-being. It lays the groundwork for further innovation in self-assessment methodologies.

ABSTRACT. Financial well-being, which focuses on the financial and material aspects of an individual or a group is tied to general well-being of a person. Therefore, finding ways to understand financial well-being better and link it to behaviours can set up future interventions to improve well-being. Here, we seek to improve financial well-being measurement model and link it to personality traits. Personality is a widely researched angle of psychology. It consists of relatively stable attributes of an individual’s identity that impact their behaviour, dispositions, attitudes, and other psychological aspects pertaining to one's life (Lazarus, 1963). One of the most prominent and commonly used conceptualisations of personality is The Big Five personality traits. It consists of five dimensions of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness (John & Naumann, 2008). Previous research has indicated that financial well-being is linked to personality, such as neuroticism and conscientiousness (Donnelly et al., 2012; Ng et al., 2019). However, past studies have often examined subjective financial well-being as a monolithic construct. In this research, the framework was utilised to examine the connections between the different sub-sections of financial well-being (security, freedom, pleasure) and personality (Big Five personality traits). The security component aims to measure financial stability through assessing spending habits; freedom measures financial autonomy and flexibility and pleasure focuses on financial enjoyment. Based on previous research, the following hypotheses were proposed in the current study: neuroticism associates with all three components of financial well-being; conscientiousness has a positive association with security and a negative one with pleasure; agreeableness has negative ties with freedom; extraversion has a positive association with pleasure; openness influences freedom and pleasure. To test these hypotheses, in April 2024, the web-based survey was done in Estonia. The sample consists of 1007 Estonian adults aged 18-74. To represent adult population best, the sample was formed according to quotas for different socio-demographic indicators that were created in line with Estonian population statistics. The data was collected through an online questionnaire that was redistributed by the survey company Norstat in the form of a panel study. Questions related to personality are part of a more extensive 198-item personality questionnaire previously used in personality research, developed to research links between personality traits and genetics. A previously tested 20-item version was used in this study (Vaht 2024). In addition, nine items measuring the three dimensions of financial well-being were used. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was chosen as the primary method of statistical analysis to find answers to the hypotheses presented earlier. To perform the SEM analysis answers to individual questions pertaining to different aspects of financial wellbeing or personality were divided into respective subgroups creating 3 latent variables for financial well-being and 5 for personality traits. Based on our data, neuroticism influences all aspects of financial well-being we surveyed. That was rather expected when viewing prior research since neuroticism tends to have strong negative correlations with subjective well-being. However, there are slight differences in the level of surveyed sub-groups: there is no influence inside respondents with high-income level; in lowincome groups and inside women, freedom is not influenced by neuroticism. What differs between the findings of this research and several prior studies is the lack of influence of conscientiousness on any financial well-being components, except for some weak associations among low-income respondents. In the classic Big Five personality inventory, neuroticism and conscientiousness have a relatively high negative correlation, meaning that the connection between conscientiousness and financial well-being might be a by-product of the correlations between neuroticism and conscientiousness. Concerning negative influence of agreeableness on freedom, we did not find such an influence. In our SEM models, agreeableness did not have any connections with financial well-being components. There was also a meaning that extraversion positively influences pleasure. With very weak significance we can speak about such an influence inside the high-income respondents’ group. Generally, extraversion has no impact on the components of financial wellbeing except for the positive influence on all of them in the SEM models, where covariations between personality factors were not considered. According to these models, relationships with security are weaker than with other financial well-being components. Lastly, we argued that openness has ties to freedom and pleasure. In our analysis, openness slightly differentiated across the three components of financial well-being, with security and freedom having statistically more significantly influenced positively. However, pleasure is also tied to openness, but this relationship is relatively weak in the general model. In the 40-64 age group, the influence of openness to financial well-being components were completely statistically insignificant. Also in some other subgroups, like women, youngest and oldest respondents, and respondents with low or moderate income, the influence of openness to any of the financial well-being components is missing. To summarise the research shows, that the multi-dimensional measuring tool for financial well-being produces results that support the differentiation of the subgroups of financial well-being. The findings support previous research on how neuroticism negatively correlates with financial well-being. The results differ across different socio-economic groups and genders, but the results are somewhat ambiguous inthat aspect. The findings don’t align with previous research when it comes to finding a correlation between financial well-being and conscientiousness. Openness had some positive correlations with the dimensions of freedom and security. Contrary to assumptions, extraversion had no significant effect on financial well-being in our research. One of the main limitations of this study is the novelty of the tool used to measure financial well-being. Although thoroughly tested and applied in different countries and used to measure different populations, the measuring tool is still new, and further investigation is required to be able to compare the results and reach more concrete conclusions. Considering some interesting and novel findings hopefully this research can be used to create a stronger theoretical network for the topic at hand and help with future research.

ABSTRACT. Emerging evidence suggests that financial well-being (FWB) is significantly associated with mental health attributes. There is also some evidence that good things (health and finances) can come in pairs , but not yet of the effects of using mental health interventions for improving FWB. We contribute to that by conducting an online experiment using the Headspace app and related TED Talks and studying their effects on psychological and financial stress and well-being. Furthermore, we use the same design in a second online experiment that tests the effects of personal finance app and related TED Talks on FWB and financial self-efficacy. Both experiments have been pre-registered and approved by the University of Tartu Research Ethics Committee. We rely on the three-dimensional conceptualisation and operationalisation of FWB – security, freedom, and pleasure. Research has shown that practising mindfulness can have a positive effect on people’s well-being and that even short-term use of Headspace (a mindfulness-based mental health app), i.e. practising mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques, helps to reduce stress and symptoms of depression. Building on that, we designed a randomised controlled trial (RCT) where the participants were randomly assigned to test and control group. The sample consisted of working adults living in Estonia, recruited via Facebook. In total, 68 people (92.6% females) completed the experiment in the test group and 100 people (96.0% females) in the control group. Those in the test group were asked to download and use the Headspace app, while those in the control group listened to selected TED Talks on mental health topics. Participants were instructed to complete daily tasks over a consecutive 10-day period. All participants completed two questionnaires – perceived stress and FWB scales – three times: before the experiment (1st measure, baseline), right after the end of the 10-day period (2nd measure), and 30 days after that (3rd measure). The key finding is that there was a significant effect (p&lt;.05) of the Headspace intervention on the total FWB score and on each of its dimensions (security, freedom and pleasure). In the control group, there was also a significant change in FWB, but not across all of its dimensions. The second finding is that both treatments demonstrated significant immediate and longer-time effects on FWB, except for the security dimension, for which there was no significant effect in the control group, and for the pleasure dimension, which did not show a statistically significant longer-term effect in either group. The third finding is that perceived overall (psychological) stress and financial stress decreased in both groups by the end of the 10-day intervention. This suggests that the intervention had a positive effect on both mental health and FWB. However, financial stress had increased again in 30 days after the intervention, although the scores for the 3rd measure remained lower than those at baseline. Importantly, the positive effects observed in both groups suggest that mere exposure to mental health topics may help to improve psychological and financial stress. The second RCT applied the same experiment design to analyse the impact of acquiring financial planning techniques on FWB. People with better financial planning skills are more likely to be more satisfied with their lives and less financially vulnerable. Therefore, it could be that people who obtain better financial planning skills also show changes in their FWB scores, similar to the ability to self-regulate financial decisions. The design closely followed the design of the Headspace experiment, with two critical differences. First, instead of Headspace, the intervention group participants used MyFinancier, a financial planning application. Secondly, we measured financial self-efficacy (FSE) instead of perceived stress levels. The measurement intervals were similar to the Headspace experiment. The sample included 25–50-year-olds recruited via Facebook, with 423 participants (204 in the treatment and 218 in the control group). Randomisation checks were successful. Full-factorial repeated measures general linear models show that there were statistically significant changes within the sample. Specifically, in the FWB security (p=.06) and FWB freedom domains (p&lt;.01), but not in the FWB pleasure category (p=.96). Changes in financial stress or FSE were not statistically significant. There were no group differences between the control and the treatment group. However, comparing time effects from before the intervention to 30 days after the intervention, we detected significant differences between linear changes in the FWB security category (p=.04) and for FWB freedom (p=.01), but not for other variables. Therefore, engaging with one's finances through watching personal finance videos or using a financial planning app both contribute to an increase in FWB. We demonstrate that stress reduction techniques have a positive effect on both financial and psychological well-being by decreasing stress levels, confirming that good things can indeed come in pairs. Second, our findings from both RCT-s indicate that watching TED Talks has a similar effect to using the app-based intervention. This implies that apps may not be as influential as often assumed, as any kind of engaging, high-quality, and relevant intervention appears to have a positive effect. Third, the positive effects on stress levels compared to baseline remained significant even some time after the intervention (although a slight decline was observed), giving hints of possible long-term effects. Surprisingly, financial self-efficacy decreased in both treatment arms of the second experiment. It may be that the participants became more self-aware of their shortcomings in financial planning. The main limitations of our study are the relatively small sample sizes and non-representativeness of the sample. Ideally, both experiments would have spanned a longer time period and included an additional control group that did not receive any intervention or related content. Further research can contribute to that. However, evidence from our experiments provides valuable insights for the promoters of FWB and highlights that the tools for improving FWB can go far beyond finances. While so far the negative effects of (lower) FWB on mental health have been highlighted, especially in policy, we turned the approach around and showed how mental health intervention can be used for improving FWB, as well as financial planning applications.

ABSTRACT. Trust is seen as the key to both communal and market interactions. It is defined as the acceptance of vulnerability based on positive expectations regarding the intentions and behavior of others and reliance on their actions despite uncertainty and lack of control over the situation (Rousseau et al., 1998). There is no doubt that trust is an essential component of social and economic life. It shapes all human interactions and determines how people will or will not interact with others. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence the decision to trust or not to trust others is crucial to the entire spectrum of social interaction. Without trust, no one would reveal personal secrets or ask for help in times of need, and people would not form long-term, close communal relationships (Rempel et al., 1985). Similarly, without trust, no one would accept worthless pieces of metal or paper in exchange for goods and services, or show up for work in exchange for the promise of deferred compensation — in short, market transactions would not function effectively (Alós-Ferrer & Farolfi, 2019). In this project, we investigated how control, an instrument for coping with uncertainty in relationships, influences trust in different relationship contexts. We draw on Fiske's (1992) theory of relational modes, focusing on the relationship between communal sharing and market prices. In communal sharing relationships (CS), people trust that their partners or friends will not cheat them and will not take advantage of their vulnerability, either now or in the distant future. With market pricing relationships (MP), on the other hand, people trust that others will do their jobs competently and on time, receive fair compensation for their work, or simply trust that the other party will honor the terms of the contract and the formalities involved. We assume that trust plays a different role in communal sharing (CS) and market prices (MP): In MP relationships, trust is extremely useful but not indispensable, while there is no CS relationship without trust. Therefore, the lack of trust in MP relationships can be compensated by formal control instances without harming the relationship itself. In CS relationships, trust is indispensable and cannot be replaced by a formal contract or other forms of control. To investigate this, we conducted five preregistered experiments using three pre-tested pairs of scenario (CS vs. MP). Given the nested design (scenarios within participants), we used multilevel analyses to examine the results. n Experiment 1 with N = 211 individuals (105 women, 107 men, Mage = 37.33, SD = 11.80), we manipulated the type of relationships and found that participants considered control more appropriate in MP situations than in CS situations. In Experiment 2a (N = 562; 274 women, 282 men, 6 other/no response, Mage = 40.01, SD = 17.79), we manipulated whether or not the instances of control were introduced in the MP and CS relationship and tested how participants perceived a particular relationship. We found that the introduction of the instances of control (vs. not) changed the perception of communal situations as less communal and more market-like. However, introducing control had no effect on perceptions of MP situations. In Experiment 2b (N = 566 individuals (271 females, 286 males, 9 other/no response, Mage = 40.12, SD = 13.24), we wanted to test the same concern from the perspective of the second party, i.e., from the perspective of a person who is controlled. We replicated the results of our previous study concerning the CS scenarios. Moreover, as in Experiment 2a, the control instances had no significant influence on the market-like perception in the MP scenarios, but they reduced the communal perception of such scenarios. In Experiment 3, we manipulated mindset (communal vs. market), instance of control (present vs. not), and perspective (actor vs. agent of actor) and measured trust. As we had suggested, with the sample of N = 1171 individuals (599 women, 564 men, 8 other/no response, Mage = 46.11, SD = 15.46), we were able to show that the introduction of control (as opposed to no control) impairs trust more in CS relationships than in MP relationships, and that these detrimental effects were particularly pronounced from the second party's perspective. In other words, participants who took the actor's perspective declared lower levels of trust than those who took an actor's perspective. In Experiment 4 (N = 826 individuals; 399 women, 424 men, 3 other/no response, Mage = 29.91, SD = 13.43), we sought to conceptually replicate the results of Experiment 1 in a more collectivist country, namely South Africa, and compare it to the WEIRD samples used in previous studies. Another change in this experiment is that we explicitly manipulated the level of pre-existing trust in CS and MP relations and again measured whether people would accept and be willing to accept the introduction of control in three different situations, just as in the previous experiments. We also wanted to show that when initial trust levels are low, people are more willing to introduce control in MP relationships than in CS relationships, whereas this willingness to introduce control decreases when initial trust is high. We found that the introduction of control is viewed more positively in low-trust situations and is more favored in MP relationships. However, such means of control were also less accepted in MP situations when initial trust was high vs when it was low. In our final study, we intend to corroborate these assumptions with a real-life behavioral experiment, an adapted version of the "Cheap Talk" game. All in all, we conclude that people do not accept the introduction of control in CS relationships and that when it is imposed, it decreases rather than increases trust. In MP relationships, on the other hand, people are more willing to replace vulnerability with the introduction of various control mechanisms.

ABSTRACT. Slavery, as an exploitative institution, continues to influence modern development. Nunn and Wantchekon (2011) have shown that mistrust in modern Africa can be attributed to the historical slave trade. Their findings are based on the history that “The fact that slaves often were taken or tricked into slavery by individuals close to them suggests that the slave trade may have eroded trust even in the most intimate social relationships.” Meanwhile, modern slavery, including forced labor and forced sexual exploitation, seriously violates human rights. Human trafficking, often regarded as a contemporary form of the slave trade, imposes substantial social costs as well. However, the impact of modern slavery on human behavior remains underexplored, although it is also facilitated by deception and coercion. While past research on human trafficking has primarily focused on its driving factors, this study examines the effect of modern slavery on interpersonal trust, revealing the unnoticed consequences of human rights violation crime. This study combines the regional human trafficking data and the individual-level structured survey of Romania and India, two countries that have severe human trafficking issues. The dependent variable is interpersonal trust on different group of people, such as family, friends or neighbors. The interested independent variable is the average human trafficking victims per thousand inhabitants by each region before the time of structured survey. Our identification strategy controls the previous regional trust, and other confounders such as property and violent crime rates and institutional quality, to reflect the causal impact. Demographic variables are also included in our regression to increase the precision of our estimation. We show that human trafficking has a robust and significant negative impact on interpersonal trust in Romania and India. In Romania, where we have better data availability, human trafficking negatively influences the trust in acquaintances and trust in outgroup people. The finding in Romania is also robust to each respondent’s new consumption habits. In addition, limited by the data quality in India, we could only show such negative impact on general trust. We demonstrate immediate behavioral adjustment among individuals exposed to modern slavery. Similar to the slave trade history mentioned in Nunn & Wantchekon (2011), modern slave trade is also facilitated by deception and coercion, but more on deception or fraud. According to The Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative, only 12% of the role of perpetrators in modern slavery were labeled as Control Abuse Kidnap. In modern slavery, a high proportion of perpetrators are also individuals that are close to victims, for instance, in our Romania case, 50% of perpetrators are friends or acquaintances of the victims. Therefore, we argue that human trafficking or modern slavery could shift people’s trust in others and causes further social cost. Meanwhile, the possible underlying mechanism does not rely on culture or culture evolution. Human rights crime like human trafficking does not need to exists for centuries like slave trade for eroding interpersonal trust. We also provide empirical support for arguments regarding the social costs of crime in criminology theories. Our findings address the complex interactions between human trafficking and interpersonal trust. Low trust in society might cause more human trafficking, and the human rights violations inherent in modern slavery rapidly alter social norms, resulting in widespread social costs that demand urgent attention from policymakers.

ABSTRACT. The objective of this study is to examine whether the implementation of transparency laws enacted in Colombia in 2016, Mexico in 2014, and Chile in 2016 has impacted the perception of corruption within institutions and increased public trust in them. The analysis is based on the Latinobarómetro 2020 & 2023 survey, which involved approximately 19,205 face-to-face interviews across 18 Latin American countries, representing over 600 million inhabitants. Conducted between February and April 2023, this survey utilized a representative sample of individuals aged 18 and older, with a margin of error of 3.0% for national samples.

The survey includes questions related to corruption, such as whether respondents believe that corruption has increased in the past year and if they have personally encountered bribery when accessing public services. In the latest findings, 62% of respondents indicated that corruption had risen, and 29% reported having to pay a bribe for public services. This data reveals significant distrust in governmental institutions, with many citizens feeling that their governments are failing to effectively address corruption.

To analyze the data, a multiple regression model was employed to determine if the implementation of transparency laws, along with other indicators such as city size, impacts levels of institutional corruption. Comparisons among Mexico, Colombia, and Chile—each with established transparency laws—are based not only on corruption indicators but also on the differing levels of trust in their institutions. In contrast, countries like Venezuela and Bolivia, which lack clear transparency laws directed at combating corruption, exhibit some of the lowest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scores in the region—Venezuela at 13 and Bolivia at 36—reflecting severe issues of impunity and lack of institutional trust. Mexico has the lowest CPI score among the three studied countries at 26, despite its legal framework. Colombia has a CPI of 39, indicating notable dissatisfaction with democracy and governance. Chile stands out with a CPI of 63 but still faces challenges in maintaining public trust. Overall, the Latinobarómetro underscores the urgent need for stronger institutions and accountability mechanisms to restore confidence in democracy and effectively combat corruption across Latin America.

ABSTRACT. Cheap talk and signaling are well-studied, canonical communication types in Economics. We posit there is a third category of communication relevant to games: small talk. Small talk is costless, non-binding communication that takes place between agents who do not know they will play a game. Since they do not know they will play a game, they cannot deliberately discuss issues of payoff relevance. Small talk is ubiquitous in and around contracting in the real world, but has received little scholarly attention. Does talking outside the context of a game affect play even when it happens before learning that a game will be played? We show experimentally that a very brief face-to-face talk with a potential trading partner even before knowing a game will be played has a contracting function. We posit that building shared context during small talk enables better handling of unforeseen contingencies, enhancing trust and strengthening cooperation.

Cheap talk is costless, non-binding, and unverifiable communication like banter over a poker game, and signaling is the burning of resources for the purpose of sending a message, such as showing success in business to a potential partner by wearing a remarkably expensive watch. Cheap talk is in practice nearly always conceived of as part of a game, and signaling is by definition so. Small talk is like cheap talk, but outside the context of a game: a face-to-face meeting in which no issues of payoff relevance can be deliberately discussed, since the parties do not know they will have an economic interaction. In our experimental paradigm small talk is operationalized as an unconstrained three-minute video chat with the other party. Participants are randomized to this three-minute video chat or no chat before they learn they will be playing a game with each other.

In this work, we examine two games: The first experiment is based on a simultaneous move “Hold Up” game: One player, the “Investor”, decides whether to invest and if he does, another player, the “Operator”, chooses between theft and cooperation. The Operator’s choice reflects the power of cooperative norms, whereas the Investor’s decision is an indicator of his trust that the Operator will adhere to these norms. While the efficient outcome is not an equilibrium in the standard sense, our hypothesis here is that Investor-Operator pairs are more likely to reach Invest/Operate if they have a chance to engage in small talk before the game. Among 1,090 CloudResearch participants in the Investor-Operator game, we see that those who engage in the no-knowledge video chat prior to playing display notably increased trust, cooperation, and efficiency. Most importantly, 38% of Small Talk pairs reached the Invest/Operate state vs. 27% in the No Contact condition (chi sq.=7.52, p = 0.006). There was also more investment and less stealing, with 60% of Investors in the Small Talk condition choosing to invest, vs. 50% in the No Contact condition (chi sq.=5.15, p = 0.023), and 61% of Operators in the Small Talk condition choosing to operate vs. 53% in No Contact (chi sq.=2.78, p = 0.09).

In the second experiment, we look at a twice-repeated Stag Hunt game where participants do not know the second game will occur when playing the first game. Before learning a second game will occur, participants are randomized to three minutes of small talk or no contact between rounds. We show that pairs who engage in small talk between rounds are much more likely to play the efficient (but risk dominated) equilibrium in the second game. Among 290 CloudResearch participants in these twice-repeated Stag Hunt games, participants much more frequently ended up in the efficient equilibrium in the second game (STAG,STAG) when engaging in small talk between the games--even though they were unaware another game was coming (41% of pairs reach STAG, STAG with small talk vs. 18% without, chi sq.=7.59, p = 0.006).

This evidence is consistent with agents developing shared context with each other via small talk by default, in our case before even learning they will play a(nother) game. In particular, it seems they learn enough about each other to more accurately predict the other's actions in future, unforeseen scenarios. This suggests that small talk can alleviate contractual incompleteness, but also points towards a broader set of phenomena that can be explained by the general utility of developing shared context with an interlocutor--such as efficiency gains in communication and more effective virtual bargaining.

ABSTRACT. Trust facilitates nearly all interactions between people, especially financial interactions. Betrayals of financial trust, such as the embezzlement perpetrated in Bernie Madoff’s massively costly and long-lasting Ponzi scheme, naturally create public outrage and do lasting damage to the reputations of the firms and industries involved. Misconduct and unreliability impose both direct costs on customers and indirect costs on the financial system by weakening the trust that supports investment, eases market dynamics, encourages stock market participation, promotes information sharing, and enables the overall efficient functioning of markets. While past studies of the relation between trust and financial decisions have provided valuable insights, most have relied on observational data and focused on generally trusting dispositions or cultures. Here we extend findings from earlier studies in two ways. First, we focus on the trust- worthiness of specific organizations ( such as asset management fi rms) that individuals may readily encounter while making financial decisions. Second, we experimentally manipulate trust in a controlled setting to clearly identify its effects. By sharpening the focus from general concepts of trust to trust in a particular organization, we can better understand how trust affects investment decisions. In particular, we explore how individual investors choose among, and form expectations of, funds where some are offered by asset management organizations that vary by their perceived trust- worthiness. Organizational trust is the perception that a firm i s dependable: that it demonstrates not only competence, but also benevolence (a genuine concern for stakeholders), and integrity (adherence to moral and ethical standards). Trust that a firm is dependable and reliable shapes expectations of the firm’s future behavior. To shed light on this question, we conducted an incentivized survey experiment administered through the Understanding America Study (UAS), testing whether portfolio allocations and expectations are affected by trust in organizations. Survey respondents performed two experimental tasks related to an account in a hypothetical retirement plan. First, the respondents allocated their retirement savings among mutual funds offered by the hypothetical plan, then the respondents used a distribution builder to represent their expectations of investment payoffs for a subset of the funds. Organizational trust enters the experiment through variation in the names of the funds. Respondents were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions that systematically varied mutual fund names. To help us measure respondents’ organizational trust, every condition offered them the chance to allocate savings to a benchmark in the form of "white label" mutual funds. White label funds are generically-named investment options that are not associated with a particular asset management firm (e.g., "U.S. Large Cap Equity fund") and are sometimes labeled with the name of the employer sponsoring the retirement plan. In Condition 1, respondents chose between white label funds and identical funds carrying a highly-trusted asset manager’s name; in Condition 2, they chose between white label funds and identical funds carrying a less-trusted asset manager’s name. Condition 3 was a control condition where respondents chose only among white label funds; respondents in Condition 4 chose between white label funds that included the name of their employer and other white label funds with no associated organization name. In Conditions 1 and 2, respondents selected between financially identical pairs of funds within the same asset class, differing only by their labeling as either white label or organization-labeled (i.e., the choice is between "Asset Manager #1 U.S. Large Cap Equity fund" and "U.S. Large Cap Equity fund"). Importantly, the hypothetical mutual funds in this experiment are index funds, where the fees are waived, and the funds follow the same index within each asset class. Rational respondents in the experiment should be indifferent between funds within any asset class that differ only by label. Therefore, observing statistically significant differences between allocations or expected payoffs to otherwise identical white label funds and those associated with either the high- trust or low-trust asset manager indicates that organizational trust affects decision-making We find that organizational trust has a significant impact on portfolio allocations. Respondents whose choice sets contained the high-trust organization’s funds allocated a substantially higher pro- portion of their savings to the high-trust organization options than to the white label options – 64% in the high-trust organization’s funds versus 36% in the white label options. Conversely, respondents in the low-trust condition eschewed the low-trust organization and allocated an average of 58% of their savings to the white label investment options. This pattern is consistent across all five of the asset classes offered in respondents’ choice sets. The experiment also sheds light on why respondents in different conditions make different al- locations. We find that respondents’ expected payoffs to investments in index funds offered by the high-trust organization are significantly different from expected payoffs to index funds offered by low-trust organization. Respondents judge the low-trust organization’s index funds to be riskier and to simultaneously offer a lower return than the high-trust organization’s index funds. On average, the respondents who predicted payoffs to the low-trust organization’s index funds place a 5 to 7 per- centage point higher probability on the funds losing money compared with respondents who predicted payoffs to the high-trust organization’s comparable funds. Simultaneously, expected returns are 2 to 3 percentage points higher for the index funds offered by the high-trust than the low-trust organization. We show that expected payoffs are significant determinants of portfolio allocations. The differences in expected payoffs to high and low trust organizations’ funds are generally larger for respondents with lower financial literacy. We support past findings that people with lower financial literacy are likely to rely more on trust (delegate choice) when making investment decisions, which raises concerns about their susceptibility to misguided trust leading to financial mistakes. Allocations to funds offered by the high-trust organization are significantly higher than to funds offered by the low-trust organization even after conditioning on expected payoffs. In other words, we find that organizational trust affects portfolio allocations indirectly (via expectations) and directly. Our findings add variation in organizational trust to factors such as differences in familiarity and changes in risk perception affecting financial decision-making.

ABSTRACT. With the advent of social media, information transmission in financial markets nowadays happens quickly, making them highly susceptible to the propagation of rumours. This is mainly because there is a strongly connected communication network among investors. Secondly, time constraints or the “fear of missing out” on a potentially lucrative trading opportunity could prevent investors from verifying the accuracy of the information transmitted by some other investor. The last decade has also seen the rise of “finfluencers”, who use social media to provide financial advice, amassing many followers. As noted by the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), these financial influencers do not operate under the same regulations as licensed financial professionals. Several investors provide stock tips on social trading platforms like eToro and other websites like Reddit, which operate under pseudonyms, thereby masking their true identity. This is concerning because, with massive followers and mostly young investors who are more likely to engage in riskier investment behaviours, these influencers have incentives to manipulate them to trade in a certain direction, which may not necessarily be aligned with the fundamental value of the underlying stock. What types of investors are more likely to engage in rumourmongering and spreading fake news? In the absence of reputation concerns, recent theoretical advancements propose a channel for the credibility of messages from an investor based on the interplay between her investment horizon and subsequent information arrivals. In our research, we design an experiment to analyse to what extent the investment horizon of the sender of a cheap talk message predicts credible information sharing. Subsequently, when does communication among investors move asset prices? The markets in our experiments comprise a “leader” who is privately informed about a stock's fundamental value and can communicate to a set of “followers”. The communication takes the form of a binary “cheap talk” message. The message is meant to mimic the financial advice from certain investors in the form of stock tips on social media, like “Buy”or “Sell”or simply comments. These messages have the ability to move prices. For example, research studies have found that the tone of comments on SeekingAlpha.com has the ability to predict future stock returns and earnings surprises and that aggregate opinion from individual tweets on Twitter successfully predicts a firm's forthcoming quarterly earnings and announcement returns. Often, these messages cannot be verified at the time of the communication. Therefore, the recipients must either act upon the message if they believe it is informative or ignore the communication. Before trading, some followers also obtain information about the fundamental value from additional sources, so that information gradually becomes available over time. Other uninformed traders also exist in the market. This setup closely follows the theoretical model, which shows that information transmission is strategic, where the sender has an incentive to misreport, depending on her investment horizon. If the leader is short-term, she must liquidate her position before the stock dividend is realised. In this case, sending a truthful message is dominant because subsequent information arrivals confirm her message, maximising the short-term price impact. On the other hand, a long-term leader has an incentive to lie because she can successfully manipulate the market price to induce a price reversal when the true dividend is revealed at the end, although the ability to manipulate the price is limited by the fraction of followers who also get information prior to trading. She can trade on and profit from this predictable reversal as her investment horizon is long, i.e., she can liquidate her position at the end of the period. Confirming recent theoretical predictions, we find that a short investment horizon facilitates information sharing among investors. As a result, followers respond to short term leaders' communication even though it is unverifiable: they exhibit selling (buying) propensity if a short-term leader's message is bearish (bullish). On the other hand, followers ignore messages originating from long-term leaders. Consequently, with a large fraction of followers trading in the direction of the short-term leader's message, communication in the form of cheap talk from such senders generates a significant price impact. However, long-term leaders fail to move prices. The difference in truth-telling rates between short and long investment horizons is increasing in the transparency of the market institution. The followers' response to a short-term leader's communication is stronger, and the subsequent price impact is larger when the markets are organised as a continuous double auction with an open order book than when trading occurs through a call market. Credible information sharing is more likely under a more transparent trading mechanism (e.g., the continuous double auction) because uninformed followers can obtain additional information from the market activity of other investors. Even though short-term leaders have a higher propensity to disclose truthful information, resulting in a more significant influence over prices in the market, we find no effect of investment horizon on the informational efficiency of prices. In contrast to theoretical arguments, short-term leaders do not always tell the truth. As followers strongly rely on these short-term leaders, the latter's advice can result in significant price deviations in instances of false messages. This is enough to counterbalance the enhanced price efficiency originating from truth-telling.

ABSTRACT. In this presentation, I analyze psychology students’ (N=260) reasoning in two classic judgment problems by Kahneman and Tversky (1984, problems 8-11) regarding theatre and lottery tickets. These problems have often led to framing effects where respondents make different judgments depending on how the economic information has been presented. I present a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) of students’ free-text justifications for the choice they had made, focusing on the interplay of the script as presented in the problem text, and the respondents’ own experience in similar situations. In the theatre ticket situation, the respondents often (a) reinterpreted the situation (e.g., it is not possible to lose a ticket because everyone uses electronic tickets these days), (b) presented formally similar emotional arguments in favour of „yes” and „no” decisions (e.g., not buying the ticket as a form of self-punishment for having been careless, or buying the ticket to avoid a double punishment), and (c) presented conjectural arguments (e.g., I had decided to see the performance, so I will). Weighing „for” and „against” arguments was relatively rare, and in most of these cases, emotional arguments were compared to economic counterarguments. In lottery ticket problem, there was no framing effect in our data, and the decisions were often grounded in values and attitudes. Many respondents argued that they never participate in lotteries or gambles because, e.g., „the house always wins”, without even considering the prospect of the gamble/lottery given in the problem. Another group of respondents presented an emotional argument for participating in the gamble, referring to the feelings of risk and excitement. Finally, a minority of the respondents based their decision on the prospect of the gamble. It is argued that such qualitative analysis helps pinpoint the cognitive processes in judgment problems, and that seemingly economic dilemmas are often „solved” referring to emotions or generalized attitudes, ignoring the economic content of the problem. I argue that rather than being based on pre-existing heuristics and biases, the cognitive processes resulting in framing effects in these and similar problems can be modelled as autocommunication (Lotman, 1990). In interpreting the problem, respondents often actively deny or ignore a part of the given information, resulting in a suboptimal (in economic sense) decision. In justifying their decision, respondents often juxtapose different self-positions: their current and anticipated feelings, personal values, beliefs and experiences, as well as anticipated reactions of others (not mentioned in the problem). Reflecting this internal dialogue, the resulting decision is often ambiguous or conditional, whereas only a minority of respondents arrive at a decision by calculating the prospects of different decisions. Finally, I argue that methods typically used in analyzing literary texts can shed light on cognitive processes in solving judgment problems, and, possibly, everyday reasoning.

References Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1984). Choices, values, and frames. American Psychologist, 39(4), 341–350. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.39.4.341 Lotman, Y. M. 1990. Autocommunication: ‘I’ and ‘Other’ as addressees. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. (Shukman, Ann trans.; Eco, Umberto, intr.), Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 20–35.

ABSTRACT. Classical asset allocation theory suggests that it is recommended for individuals or households to invest at least some proportion of their money in equities because of positive equity premium. However, many household investors do not hold equities or hold relatively small proportions of their wealth in the stock market. Recently, joint decision making has been considered as a factor in household financial investment behaviors of married couples. This study investigates the effect of women’s bargaining power on household stock investment. The collective model of household behavior posits that the demand of the household depends on the preferences of both spouses and the distribution of bargaining power between them. We use education differences between the spouses to measure women’s bargaining power. On one hand, a higher relative education level brings women better job opportunities and higher wage income. On the other hand, the ability of women to understand complex information related to important family affairs and to weigh benefits and costs when making complex financial decisions increases with their higher education level. We use data from 6,965 households included in the 2019 wave of the China Household Finance Survey. About 9% of these households invested in stock. The average stock asset proportion of household total financial assets was about 1%. We find that women’s bargaining power within the household was positively related to household stock investment. Specifically, we explored the mediating effects of financial information attention and the moderating effects of risk preference and financial literacy on the relationship between women’s bargaining power and household stock investment. The results show that women’s bargaining power improved household stock investment indirectly by increasing the spouses’ attention to economic and financial information, explaining 13%, resp. 25% of the total effects on stock investment and the proportion of risky assets. We also find that wives’ risk preference and financial literacy moderated the positive effect of women’s bargaining power on household stock investment. The positive relationship between women’s bargaining power and household stock investment was stronger for below-median wealth households. In addition, the effect of women’s bargaining power on household stock investment intensified with the increasing age of the wives. A discussion of the results and implications for policy making are included.

ABSTRACT. Many practitioners in the public and private sector are increasingly realizing the value of applying behavioral sciences for solving real-world problems. However, it can be daunting to navigate the plethora of different recommended frameworks, guidelines, and methods. There are subtle differences between recommendations stemming from epidemiology, economics, psychology, anthropology, design and other behavioral sciences. In many ways this diversity is a source of strength as different disciplines illuminate slightly different aspects of complex human behavior. But the proliferation of seemingly competing recommendations can also be discouraging for time-pressured practitioners and a fodder for bad-faith criticisms of behavioral sciences as immature for application.

To alleviate this problem, a group of Estonian researchers recently developed a cross-discplinary Applied Behavioral Science (ABS) framework (Karolin et al., 2023). The framework links three kinds of behavioral scientific practices to three kinds of goals practitioners need to accomplish when developing effective solutions such as regulations, services, and programs to tackle problems with a behavioral component.

The three goals are a) to understand the problem at hand, b) to craft solutions, and c) to assess their impact. The three practices are investigative practices that help to understand problems and assess impacts; modelling practices that help map the causes of problems and mechanisms of potential solutions; and finally, experimentation practices that help develop solutions through prototyping and evaluate them in effectiveness studies.

Combing the three aims with the three practices yields a 6-step cycle: 1) investigate experiences, 2) map the problem, 3) map solutions, 4) design prototypes, 5) design experiments, and 6) investigate outcomes. The steps form only a loose sequence. Each successive step builds on the previous ones, but can also generate insights that help refine an earlier step.

Step 1: Investigating experiences involves learning about the problem at hand and potential solutions from past experience captured in research literature as well as from people with relevant lived experience. The investigative practices most useful here include “desk research” such as synthesizing literature and “field research” such as qualitative interviewing. Combining desk and field research can help situate broad insights into a specific context.

Step 2: Mapping the problem involves constructing an actionable model of the (often complex) systems that underlie the problem. The problem map links the distal outcomes of the problem that usually motivate action (e.g., economic or social costs) to the more proximal behaviors of specific target groups and also identifies the main factors that shape these behaviors. Problem maps can be drawn on existing frameworks and theories as well as be unique to the problem at hand.

Step 3: Mapping of solutions involves identifying ways to interfere with the system depicted on the problem map. Candidate solutions can be gleaned from Step 1 investigations or brainstormed using the Step 2 problem map. Promising solutions can be found by considering their expected feasibility (i.e., costs and challenges) and impacts (i.e., effects and side-effects). The solutions map could be structured using the problem map or existing solution-oriented frameworks.

Step 4: Designing prototypes involves iteratively implementing scaled-down versions of promising solutions to identify parameters of a successful implementation in a given context. Prototypes are usually easier, cheaper, faster, and safer than full-scale solutions, e.g., tabletop exercises, mock-ups, and pilot studies.

Step 5. Designing experiments involves finding a way to compare the consequences of implementing a solution to the consequences of not implementing it. This could involve comparing people who experience a solution to those who do not, assuming sufficiently similar groups can be created through random assignment of large samples or careful matching of smaller ones. Experiments could also involve comparing the same people before and after experiencing a solution, assuming the solution does not produce sustained effects. Often, it is advisable to combine both approaches.

Step 6. Investigating outcomes involves assessing variables that represent desired outcomes, potential side effects, and, if possible, the mechanisms of change. Here, the emphasis is on using reliable and generalizable measures.

The framework was developed as part of a broader initiative to encourage evidence-based policymaking in the Estonian public sector, led by the Estonian Government Office’s Innovation Team. This initiative has used the framework to procure an online guidebook as well as design and conduct training and co-creation sessions that help officials apply the framework to their practical problems. This process has highlighted the importance of reducing disciplinary jargon and focus on core scientific practices.

This framework is not the first or last set of guidelines for applying behavioral science (Conrad et al., 1999; Fernandez et al., 2019; Hardeman et al., 2005; Moullin et al., 2015; Powell et al., 2021). Its uniqueness lies in its cross-disciplinary and simplicity, allowing it to be used across different contexts and by practitioners with different disciplinary backgrounds. As such, ABS is not intended to be an exhaustive blueprint but rather a roadmap that can use to guide their actions and procure help from specialized service providers as needed.

ABSTRACT. Tax systems are often described as complex and policy makers often propose simplifying tax systems to improve compliance (de Clerq, 2019; Pope, 2005; Baer and Silvani, 1997; Skinner and Slemrod, 1985). However, the effect of tax complexity on the tax compliance behaviour of individuals remains unclear. On the one hand complexity in tax systems assure the equity of tax systems by providing provisions for heterogenous populations (Kaplow:1996, 1998). On the other hand, complexity results in compliance cost in terms of time and money spent on complying as well as administration costs for tax administrations (Hite and McGill, 1992; Christian, Gupta, and Lin 1993, Eichfelder et al. 2012, Krause, 2000; MacDonald 1993). We use an incentivized experimental design to identify a causal effect of tax complexity on the compliance behaviour of individuals using a representative German sample.

Differing definitions and measures of both tax complexity and tax compliance exist making it difficult to understand the causal mechanism behind tax complexity and its effect on tax compliance. Additionally, tax complexity is either thought of in terms of tax system characteristics or taxpayer characteristics and experimental studies usually address either one or the other. De Neve et al. (2019) and Bellemare et al. (2019), for example, look at tax system characteristics by conducting experiments using complex tax correspondence and complex tax forms respectively. Eriksen and Fallen (1996), on the other hand, look at taxpayer characteristics by looking at how tax knowledge effects of perceptions of fairness.

However, tax system characteristics and taxpayer characteristics interact to affect the compliance behaviour of individuals. Salmon and Schniderman (2019), for example, find that self-reported earnings increase when ambiguity averse individuals are faced with uncertain audit probabilities. In a similar vein, this study combines both taxpayer and tax system characteristics into our design. We apply a factorial design using vignettes describing different hypothetical tax systems varying in complexity in terms of the number of rules as well as the extent to which the meaning of these rules is certain or not. Participants are asked to complete a real effort task for which they earn an income. Thereafter, they are shown a description of a tax system and asked to declare their income in a tax evasion game with multiple rounds. Compliance is measured by the declared income. The experiment is made incentive compatible by making the clarity of the rule dependent on the amount of effort the participant is willing to spend on understanding it

ABSTRACT. Dark patterns are online platform designs which use insights from behavioural psychology to influence consumer behaviour away from their best interests, and towards those of the platform designer. In recent years, dark patterns have been identified in areas such as data privacy, online shopping and social media (Mathur et al., 2019; Nouwens et al., 2020; Schaffner et al., 2022), drawing the attention of international regulatory bodies (Competition and Markets Authority, 2022; European Union, 2022; Federal Trade Commission, 2022).

In the online gambling space, government bodies have indicated their awareness of manipulative platform designs (Department for Culture, Media & Sport, 2023), but note a paucity of evidence as the reason behind regulatory inaction. As more users move towards online gambling platforms, and as these platforms become more sophisticated in their behaviourally-informed designs, regulators are presented with significant challenges in keeping pace with these advancements (Wardle et al., 2024). Understanding how dark patterns influence behaviour across key demographics is necessary to inform these regulatory bodies, facilitating effective policy and harm prevention practices. The present review therefore aims to provide a comprehensive overview of dark patterns in online gambling, synthesise knowledge in the field by mapping existing research to a transdisciplinary framework, and to identify directions for future research.

In total, thirteen articles published on the topic of dark patterns in online gambling were identified, consisting of seven grey-literature reports, and six academic articles published in peer-reviewed journals. Across the literature records, dark patterns were referred to by a variety of terms, reflecting semantic ambiguity. Dark patterns are found to be evident across the user experience on online gambling platforms, however the lack of consistent terminology to describe the design of these platforms creates unnecessary complexity. In the present review, the dark patterns identified in the online gambling literature records were categorised according to the (Gray et al., 2024) framework, namely into the strategies of; sneaking, obstruction, interface interference, forced action, and social engineering.

Sneaking strategies on online gambling platforms take the form of platform designs which hide information, particularly with regard to safer gambling tools, warning labels, and gameplay information. Gambling management pages are difficult to find, with evidence of small fonts and dark colours which could prevent users from finding such tools (Behavioural Insights Team, 2018, 2022, 2024) Similarly, warning labels during gameplay are displayed in small fonts with the lowest possible text boldness (Newall et al., 2022).

Obstruction strategies are evident in the form of unnecessary steps required to complete user actions, for example in setting up deposit limits, potentially dissuading users from implementing protective measures (Behavioural Insights Team, 2024). Immortal accounts are also implemented as a common obstructive practice by gambling platforms. Specifically, on several platforms, users have to contact customer support in order to close their account, it is difficult to find information on how to close an account, and accounts can be easily re-opened (Behavioural Insights Team, 2022; Citizens Advice, 2021; European Commission, 2022)

Interface interference is the most documented form of dark patterns in online gambling, with sub-optimal defaults being particularly prevalent. These defaults exploit the anchoring effect, through the suggestion of extremely high deposit limits (up to £10 million in drop-down text boxes) or offering “no limit” as the default option (Behavioural Insights Team, 2018, 2024; Citizens Advice, 2021). Quick deposit and stake default amounts often exceed the minimum required, and on several platforms bet slips are auto-filled with previously staked amounts (Behavioural Insights Team, 2018, 2022). Forced action and social engineering strategies are less commonly documented within the literature, with examples identified such as immediate prompts to bet again after placing a bet, with the presence of countdown clocks potentially inducing a perceived sense of urgency, and time limited offers in marketing communications similarly employing urgency and scarcity claims (Behavioural Insights Team, 2022).

In the sole field trial in the literature to date, variations of deposit limit designs are tested, with researchers finding that current designs lead to deposit limits set by customers at higher levels than they would otherwise be, and that by redesigning the deposit limit tool to remove high anchors and include a free-text box, deposit limits were reduced by 45% (Behavioural Insights Team, 2021). Despite these findings, the recommended design changes have yet to be implemented by any online gambling platform. The reluctance of operators to implement this safer design is echoed in their hesitancy to collaborate with researchers in sharing data to test such designs, an issue noted across several of the included literature records. The sharing of proprietary data between operators and research would allow for high-quality, externally valid research to take place, but will likely only occur through mandates requiring operators to do so.

Without the cooperation of gambling operators, future research testing the influence of dark patterns on consumer behaviour must stem from independent lab experiments, taking the form of experimental designs which as closely as possible mirror real-life gambling platforms. In particular, susceptibility to dark patterns across vulnerable demographics, such as digital literacy, age, sociodemographic status, and self-reported gambling severity score should be analysed to identify at-risk groups, around whom interventions and harm reduction strategies can be designed and implemented. Such research can fill the considerable gap of quantitative evidence in the field, informing regulatory bodies who can take action, should it been found that current platform designs exhibit dark patterns which lead to unnecessary harms among vulnerable consumers.

In this presentation, I intend to outline the findings of the present review according to the key themes of this work; ambiguous terminology used across dark patterns literature, difficulty in accessing operator data, and the results of the categorisation of dark patterns in online gambling under a transdisciplinary framework, the first to do so in this field.

ABSTRACT. Sludge is one of the most important yet underappreciated problems in modern society. Examples of sludge include unnecessarily complex paperwork requirements, difficulties in cancelling memberships, long waiting periods, and unfriendly staff interactions. Sludge is often argued to have disproportionate effects on vulnerable groups, as they are more likely to encounter and to struggle with such friction. This paper uses a survey to investigate whether certain people are more vulnerable to sludge than others. Participants saw ten different types of sludge required to complete a “task” in a random order using the wording described in Table 1. Participants then indicated how vulnerable they were to each type of sludge using items such as “It would be difficult for me to carry out this task”, with answer options on a 5-point Likert scale from “Strongly disagree 1” to “Strongly agree 5”. Participants also answered several questions about psychological variables and demographics. Drawing on data from a nationally representative survey with 1,591 participants in Ireland, the paper shows that people with lower levels of mental and physical health are more vulnerability to sludge (see Table 2). Self-reported administrative literacy emerges as a protective factor, while the tendency to procrastinate and a lack of time and mental energy predict vulnerability to sludge. Administrative literacy, procrastination, and time and energy scarcity fully mediate the association between mental health and vulnerability to sludge. The data also show that certain forms of sludge are particularly problematic, such as outdated websites with broken links, unfriendly staff interactions, complex documents laden with jargon, and hard-to-navigate websites (see Table 1). Moderation analyses reveal that administrative literacy is especially critical when navigating jargon-heavy documents but is less relevant when dealing with requests to provide personal information such as religious beliefs and sexual orientation (see Figure 1). We discuss implications for behavioural public policy design as well as user experience optimisation.

ABSTRACT. The political science literature on polarization is large. In fact, political polarization has become one of the most discussed challenges for modern democracies. There is no agreement on the causes of political polarization. There is, however, agreement that political polarization has been rising across the globe, in some countries sharply.

Political polarization has two components: (i) intragroup homogeneity and (ii) intergroup heterogeneity. Rising intragroup (or within group) homogeneity manifests as rising agreement and rising ideological alignment within that group. Rising intergroup heterogeneity increases hostility between groups. This hostility is also called partisan animus or affective polarization.

What are the macroeconomic consequences of political polarization? So far, the economics literature has focused on its effects on public policy, mainly fiscal policy, where polarization leads to larger swings in policy from one administration to the next. These swings in policy directly affect economic activity but the volatility in policy also increases uncertainty in the economy which decreases domestic and foreign investment.

We focus on consumers. In this context, polarization affects economic activity because it impacts consumers' beliefs. Consumers with access to the same economic information but with differing political views may hold very different beliefs. Existing literature demonstrates that partisan affiliation is the main driver of support for or opposition to various economic policies, such as progressive income taxation or social security. In the expectations literature, a series of papers has demonstrated the presence of a partisan bias in consumers expectations. Consumers are persistently more optimistic if they are supporters of the government than if they are supporters of the opposition.

We demonstrate that polarization can affect the efficacy of fiscal policy. We also demonstrate that each aspect of political polarization has a distinct impact on consumer beliefs. Both are new results for economics (and political science).

We measure both aspects of polarization using monthly data since 1995 from an Australian population level survey where respondents can be separated by political partisanship. This unique dataset also includes a question on the effect of the latest government budget on family finances as well as a range of questions on economic expectations. We use an existing measure of intragroup polarization and propose a novel measure of intergroup polarization that can be easily applied to other economies. This new measure is the difference between estimated densities of responses of opposing voters. We apply ordered logit to the effects of the latest government budget on family finances and include the two polarization measures as well as macroeconomic and respondent specific controls in the estimations.

We find that the effects of intergroup polarization are significant and uniform across voters of different political parties. A rise in intergroup polarization negatively impacts all voters' perceived effects of fiscal policy. Put simply, rising intergroup polarization makes consumers more pessimistic about the impact of fiscal policy on their family finances irrespective of their partisan affiliation. The uniformly negative impact of intergroup polarization is in contrast to the impact of intragroup polarization. Consumers partisan with the government are more optimistic about the impact of fiscal policy while consumers partisan with the opposition are more pessimistic.

We repeat the empirical analysis on a range of economic expectations: economic conditions, family finances, unemployment and inflation as well as spending intentions for durable goods (readiness to spend). During periods of high intergroup polarization, consumers are universally pessimistic but are universally optimistic during periods of low intergroup polarization. In contrast, supporters of the government are optimistic but supporters of the opposition are pessimistic.

We use unit record data of 348 waves of the Australian Consumer Attitudes, Sentiment and Expectations survey (CASiE) leading to 426,200 observations. CASiE is the Australian equivalent of the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers (MSC). Both surveys contain information on respondents' partisanship and have been used to demonstrate intragroup polarization. We employ CASiE because the survey has been collecting consistent monthly information on political partisanship since January 1995, giving a consistent monthly time series of almost 30 years. The MSC survey collected information on partisanship sporadically between 1980 and 1985 and between 2006 and 2016 and consistently since February 2017.

Our paper makes several contributions to economics (and political science). First, we demonstrate two distinct economic effects of intergroup political polarization and of intragroup polarization. Intergroup polarization has a universally negative impact on consumer beliefs of all voters. Intragroup polarization has a positive impact on the beliefs of government partisans but a negative impact on the beliefs of opposition partisans. Second, political polarization can affect the efficacy of economic policy. Intergroup polarization leads all voters to expect less improvements in family finances following fiscal policy changes. This is an important result, as it demonstrates that political polarization can alter the effectiveness of economic policy. Third, political polarization affects consumer spending and saving decisions. In a high polarization regime, intergroup polarization puts downward pressure on consumer expectations and buying intentions of all voters, pointing to potentially important business cycle implications of our results. Fourth, when intragroup polarization is high, so is intergroup polarization. As people align more ideologically with their party, hostility towards supporters of the other party rises. Fifth, our results show that political polarization is low in times of crisis, confirming evidence from the political science literature. People look to their governments and political leadership, at least temporarily, in periods of crisis leading to a rise in trust and a decline in polarization. Finally, existing research finds rising intragroup polarization in the US but finds no impact on household spending. The opposite effects of intergroup and intragroup polarization demonstrated here is likely a factor explaining these finding. If Republican voters' intragroup optimism is large enough, it can offset the universally negative impact (i.e., not only for Republican voters but all voters) of intergroup polarization.

ABSTRACT. Laws prescribe formal sanctions in order to deter rule violations. Early economic analyses of the law assumed that the expected cost of such formal sanctions needed to outweigh the benefits of breaking the law to be deterrent (Becker, 1968). However, laws also have an ‘expressive’ function, signalling or establishing social norms about what is considered appropriate and what is not (Bénabou & Tirole, 2011, Sunstein, 1996). Consequently, even laws prescribing weak or infrequent formal sanctions may reduce noncompliance by signalling social norms (Lane et al., 2023). Conversely, sanctioning institutions may fail to signal, or even undermine, social norms if they are perceived as biased (Nosenzo et al., 2024). We specifically focus on the effects of institutional bias in how rule violations are monitored. Such cases are common: for example, a widely-noted study of the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) finds that Black taxpayers are substantially more likely to be audited than non-Black taxpayers (Elzayn et al., 2025). This case is notable because it involves accusations of bias in monitoring whether a rule violation had taken place rather than unequal penalties for the same rule violation. However, despite the evident significance of this form of bias, we know of few systematic studies of its effects on rule compliance.

In this study we examine the causal effects of institutional rules and biased rule enforcement on compliance and cooperation in heterogeneous groups. Our experimental design is based on the standard public goods game. We introduce heterogeneity by establishing minimal group identities, that is, we randomly assign players to either ‘red’ or ‘blue’ subgroups. We then vary the presence of a contribution rule and its enforcement, and observe the effects on costly contributions to the public good, rule compliance, and both personal and social norms. First, we introduce a non-binding rule prescribing public good contributions of at least 50% of each player's endowment. Comparing treatments with and without this rule allows us to estimate the expressive function of non-binding rules. Second, we introduce non-deterrent sanctions for rule violations. In the fair audit treatment, all players are audited with the same probability and fined if found in violation of the rule. This allows us to distinguish the effect of sanctions from the expressive effect of the rule itself. Finally, in the biased audit treatment, ‘red’ players are three times more likely to be audited than ‘blue’ players, though all players face the same fine if found in violation of the rule. Comparing treatments with fair and biased audits then allows us to estimate the effect of biases in rule enforcement on rule compliance and contributions to the public good.

Our main contribution is to the literature on institutional bias in rule enforcement. Corrupt institutions – which apply rules arbitrarily or not at all – are associated with decreased rule compliance and trust (Gächter & Schultz, 2016; Spadaro et al., 2023). The evidence from laboratory experiments on biased rule enforcement is less clear. Riedel and Schildberg-Hörisch (2013) study a public goods game with unequal minimum contribution rules and find that players comply with the given rule, even if it is unequal. In contrast, Kogler et al. (2023) find that different penalty rates for high- and low-endowment players reduce the richer players' compliance when they were aware that poorer players faced a lower penalty rate and van Prooijen et al. (2008) show that when some players are immune from punishment, cooperation declines significantly. Our study adds to the existing literature in that we vary the audit rate between subgroups, but assess the same fine if rule violations are detected, which allows us to capture the pure effect of biased audits when the same rules apply to all members of the group.

We conduct a large, incentivised online experiment (N = 1,254). We find that the presence of a minimum contribution rule is associated with a substantial increase in contributions to the public good. Moreover, the presence of a rule has a strong and positive effect on personal and social norms – consistent with the expressive function of rules – sustaining contributions over time. Introducing sanctions for rule violations further increases compliance, but does not carry over into an increase in average contribution levels. Instead, the positive effect of rule enforcement on the compliance of free-riders is almost perfectly offset by a reduction in contributions above the level stipulated by the rule. Finally, biased audits initially decrease compliance relative to fair audits, but this difference diminishes over time. Thus, our results suggest that the expressive function of rules is remarkably robust to biases in how rules are enforced.

References Becker, G.S., 1968. Crime and punishment: An economic approach. Journal of Political Economy 76, 169–217. Benabou, R., Tirole, J., 2011. Laws and norms. NBER Working Paper, No. 17579. Elzayn, H., Smith, E., Hertz, T., Ramesh, A., Fisher, R., Ho, D.E., Goldin, J., 2025. Measuring and mitigating racial disparities in tax audits. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 140, 113–163. Gächter, S., Schulz, J.F., 2016. Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies. Nature 531, 496–499. Kogler, C., Olsen, J., Osman, M., Zeelenberg, M., 2023. The effect of transparent unequal penalty rates on safety compliance for different-sized businesses. Behavioural Public Policy [online first]. Lane, T., Nosenzo, D., Sonderegger, S., 2023. Law and norms: Empirical evidence. American Economic Review 113, 1255–1293. Nosenzo, D., Xiao, E., & Xue, N. (2024). The motive matters: Experimental evidence on the expressive function of punishment. Games and Economic Behavior 148, 44-67. Riedel, N., Schildberg-Hörisch, H., 2013. Asymmetric obligations. Journal of Economic Psychology 35, 67–80. Spadaro, G., Molho, C., Van Prooijen, J.W., Romano, A., Mosso, C.O., Van Lange, P.A. M, 2023. Corrupt third parties undermine trust and prosocial behaviour between people. Nature Human Behaviour 7, 46–54. Sunstein, C.R., 1996. On the expressive function of law. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 144, 2021–2053. van Prooijen, J.W., Gallucci, M., Toeset, G., 2008. Procedural justice in punishment systems: Inconsistent punishment procedures have detrimental effects on cooperation. British Journal of Social Psychology 47, 311–324.

ABSTRACT. In a growing number of societies disadvantaged, marginalized, and often discriminated groups are struggling with unfair access to resources. Since these vulnerable, underserved, and marginalized groups are more exposed to social injustice, it is crucial to explore ways to change and improve the overall societal situation of the disadvantaged to promote collective and sustainable prosperity. Several scientific organizations also argue that social inequality has become one of the increasingly pressing global problems. Hence, social sciences can inevitably contribute to favorable social changes by investigating the predictors of group solidarity and collective actions, i.e., actions aimed at improving the status and situation of a group and preventing social injustice (e.g., volunteerism, charitable giving, mobilization, participation in social movements, protest). These actions can be executed not only by the members of disadvantaged groups (ingroups), but also by outgroup members as allies. However, collective actions are costly, both instrumentally and socially, because these actions require a considerable amount of personal effort and sometimes resistance to established social norms. Previous studies have identified the dynamics and key predictors of collective action (e.g., group identification, emotions such as anger evoked by perceived injustice, perceived group efficacy of actions to achieve social change – for a review see, e.g., van Zomeren & Iyer, 2009). We propose that the accumulation of predictors can still be broadened by investigating the personal sense of social responsibility as a proximal predictor of collective action.

Although the personal sense of social responsibility is a long-ago suggested and relevant issue in potentially influencing collective welfare (e.g., Berkowitz & Lutterman, 1968; Starrett, 1996), it is still an understudied motivational factor that can increase people’s engagement in collective actions. Based on previous, but sometimes overly multi-faceted apprehensions and consequently long measures of social responsibility and similar concepts (e.g., philanthropy), we propose a concise, 8-item measure of the construct. The scale development was aimed at capturing the personal preferences for improving society, monitoring and shaping public affairs, and helping societal groups in need.

Given the previously identified, but typically weak-to-moderate relationships between collective action and various social beliefs (e.g., support for economic inequality, social dominance orientation), in Study 1 we examined the strength of the connection between social beliefs and social responsibility on one hand, and between this sense of responsibility and collective action on the other. The study was conducted on a Hungarian sample (N = 870) that was representative in terms of age, gender, and type of residence. We used our measure of social responsibility and – among other things – we measured different social and political beliefs, i.e., support for economic inequality, rationalization of inequality, social dominance orientation, and system justification. Participants also reported their socioeconomic status and collective actions they performed during the last months. Collective actions were defined broadly in our study, ranging from charitable giving or volunteerism to signing petitions or protesting. According to our results, the social responsibility scale showed a good internal consistency. Our findings also confirmed the negative and weak relationships between the measured social beliefs and collective action. Social responsibility scores were significantly and negatively related to all social beliefs measured in the study. In addition, social responsibility was positively associated with the reported level of collective actions. Analyses of mediation also confirmed that the negative associations between all the previously mentioned social beliefs and collective action was fully mediated by the personal sense of social responsibility.

Relying on the findings of Study 1, in Study 2 we wanted to check whether a frequently studied predictor of collective action, namely perceived group efficacy of actions in driving social change, has an indirect effect on collective action through the personal sense of social responsibility, and this time both past collective actions and future intentions to engage in collective actions were measured. Results from an again representative Hungarian sample (N = 1001) showed that perceived group efficacy in improving the situation of the disadvantaged positively predicted not only past helping, but also future collective action intentions, and these relationships were partially mediated by social responsibility.

In Study 3 (N = 680, Hungarian participants) we experimentally examined whether social responsibility can be increased by a simple writing task (adapted from Piff et al., 2020) making external (systemic) causes of being disadvantaged more accessible. Compared to participants in the control condition, those writing situational attributions for marginalization showed a higher level of social responsibility. In addition, an elevated level of social responsibility was significantly and positively associated with collective action intentions toward the presented disadvantaged groups (e.g., Roma people, the poor). We also found a partial mediation of social responsibility between the experimental shift of situational attributions and collective action intentions.

In sum, the presented studies suggest that the personal sense of social responsibility is a detectable, considerable, and even boostable predictor of collective actions. Thus, our findings imply that social change in favor of the disadvantaged can be achieved by increasing individuals’ sense of social responsibility. Limitations of our studies, practical implications of the results, and questions for future research will also be discussed in the presentation.

References Berkowitz, L., & Lutterman, K. G. (1968). The traditional socially responsible personality. Public Opinion Quarterly, 32(2), 169-185. https://doi.org/10.1086/267597 Piff, P. K., Wiwad, D., Robinson, A. R., Aknin, L. B., Mercier, B., & Shariff, A. (2020). Shifting attributions for poverty motivates opposition to inequality and enhances egalitarianism. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(5), 496-505. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0835-8 Starrett, R. H. (1996). Assessment of global social responsibility. Psychological Reports, 78(2), 535-554. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1996.78.2.535 van Zomeren, M., & Iyer, A. (2009). Introduction to the social and psychological dynamics of collective action. Journal of Social Issues, 65(4), 645-660. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2009.01618.x

ABSTRACT. Introduction Philanthropy is vital for sustaining the cultural sector, yet increasing financial contributions to this domain remains a complex challenge. While research has examined charitable giving extensively (e.g., Bekker et el., 2011; Saeri et al., 2023), limited attention has been given to how the findings from this previous research apply to the cultural sector. In fact, the cultural sector competes with other causes that might be perceived as more relevant to the society or more in need of charitable donations. Particularly, the specificities of this sector might be even higher in Saudi, where the cultural landscape has recently started to evolve, and therefore might be perceived as less important to the community. To fill this gap, the Saudi Ministry of Culture (MoC), conducted an incentivized donation experiment aimed to better understand to what extent successful strategies used in previous research could also work to influence philanthropic behavior in the cultural sector. More specifically, the experiment aimed to explore two critical research questions: (1) Does sharing a donor’s name upon contribution enhance their motivation to donate by providing extrinsic recognition? (2) Does informing potential donors about the tangible impact of their contributions increase their willingness to support cultural initiatives by appealing to intrinsic motivations?

Methodology

The MoC Behavioral Insights Unit conducted an incentivized donation experiment with 3 between-subject conditions experimentally manipulating a motivational framing: control, extrinsic and intrinsic. The experiment was conducted between April 20 and October 24, 2024, and targeted a total sample of 945 Saudi national respondents, and aged 18 years to 70 years old. Participants were randomly intercepted in public places across Saudi Arabia, and completed a structured survey designed to test how different motivational strategies influence financial donations to the cultural sector. At the beginning, respondents were asked about their past donation behavior, and the perceived barriers and motivations to donate to the cultural sector, before entering the donation task. In this task, respondents were presented with a short description of two associations eligible to receive financial donations (one in the cultural sector and the other focused on environmental protection) and were informed that they had 25 SAR to donate to these associations. Their task was to decide how to split the received amount between the two associations (or donate all the money to one of them), and the instructions emphasized that the amounts allocated to each association would result in real donations upon the completion of the experiment. The experimental conditions varied in how the cultural association was described to the respondents: Besides the scope of the association’s work described in the control condition, the experimental conditions included an extrinsic (“By donating 15 SAR or more to the [cultural association name], you will be part of the people who are on the donors list and your name will be shared with the [cultural association name]”), or intrinsic (“By donating 15 SAR or more to the [cultural association name], you can make an active contribution to preserving the Saudi heritage and its national value.”). Additional questions on respondents’ beliefs about donations to each of the two associations as well as their intentions on future donations were added after the donation task. Ethical considerations were strictly observed. The study was approved by ethics committee from the GfeW (German Association for Experimental Economic Research, under IRB Certificate No. rt9ThGQe).

Results

Independent samples t-tests (two-sided) were used to test the impact of motivational framing on financial donations to the cultural sector, with a specific focus on extrinsic and intrinsic motivational drives. Results from the donation task showed that highlighting the impact of donations significantly enhanced actual donations to the cultural association. Respondents exposed to this framing allocated 9.16% more money to the cultural association than those in the control condition (t (628) = 2.73, p < 0.01). Providing an option for public recognition such as sharing the name of people who donated to the cultural association, also increased marginally actual donations. Respondents exposed to this framing donated 5.29% more money to the cultural association than those in the control condition, but this difference is only weakly significant t (629) = 1.68, p = 0.09).

Conclusion

The results emphasize the efficacy of tailored motivational strategies in encouraging donations to the cultural sector, extending the insights from previous research to the cultural sector (Saeri et al., 2023). Particularly, intrinsic motivation is highly effective in promoting donations to the cultural sector. These findings offer valuable insights into designing effective donation campaigns in the cultural sector, suggesting that impact awareness can play a fundamental role in fostering financial support. However, it is important to acknowledge potential limitations in the experimental design. Respondents might be more generous or ambivalent with money that they do not own, which could lead to inflated decisions. Individuals are generally more emotionally attached to their own resources, which influences how they allocate funds. This emotional component may be missing when participants handle external funds. Additionally, risk preferences and loss aversion tend to be stronger when dealing with personal money, often resulting in more conservative or calculated decisions compared to experimental settings. To address this limitation, future studies could implement real-money incentives where participants make decisions with their own money, even in smaller amounts, to introduce personal stakes into the decision-making process. To enhance future campaigns and further leverage intrinsic motivation, donation appeals should highlight the direct impact of contributions on preserving and promoting cultural heritage. This can include showcasing tangible outcomes, such as funding local artists, restoring historical landmarks, or supporting traditional crafts. Cultivating a sense of ownership by positioning donors as essential supporters of cultural continuity and aligning contributions with shared cultural values can also tap into intrinsic motivations. Providing donors with autonomy by allowing them to select specific cultural projects to support can foster deeper personal satisfaction and engagement. Regular updates, including impactful stories from beneficiaries, can strengthen the sense of relatedness and achievement. Framing donations as meaningful acts of cultural preservation that contribute to self-growth and legacy-building further emphasizes the lasting personal satisfaction associated with their contributions.

ABSTRACT. Boredom is a common phenomenon, inevitably connected with experiencing negative emotions, that can be studied from two different main perspectives. Some researchers focus on boredom proneness as a trait defined as a permanent individual predisposition to feeling bored. Others examine the problem of boredom as a situationally evoked state. Such a state of boredom can be described as a conflict between a tendency to continue and a tendency to drop out of a situation that has become unpleasant primarily due to an individual’s inadequate motivation, resulting in an inadequate psychological adjustment. A different definition of boredom, somehow integrating both the state and trait approach, describes it as a temporary feeling of lowered arousal and negative emotions caused by the environment or individual traits. The state of boredom can push people toward engaging in various behaviors. Generally speaking, those who experience negative affect triggered by being in an unpleasant situation want to soothe these emotions. Usually, they do it by engaging in simple strategies to change the situation they are in and to start a stimulating activity—like reading a book, watching TV, or undertaking sport activities. Boredom has also been associated with impulsive, mindless eating and overeating; with seeking novel experiences, even if they are hedonically negative; and with risk taking in various areas, including financial risk. Because a nonoptimal arousal level, inevitably related to the state of boredom, can foster different impulsive, stimulating activities,we expected that it can also trigger impulsive, mindless buying, because buying can be just another instance of stimulating activity. However, frequently, when being bored—instead of just engaging in activities that are not boring—people employ more complex compensatory behaviors. These compensatory behaviors are meant not only to deal with negative affect by making the situation more interesting, but also and perhaps mainly to raise the lowered sense of meaning. Therefore, a specific activity can serve as a compensatory behavior in the face of boredom when it is important for the person and it provides her with such a sense of meaning. From this point of view, excessive buying can also appear as a result of increased boredom. In the contemporary consumption-oriented society, overwhelmed with materialistic values, people tend to believe that happiness, success, and meaning in life arise (at least partly) from earning a good deal of money and spending it on products, services, and experiences offered in the marketplace. In this project, we assumed that (at least some) people might easily conclude that buying and consuming may provide them with a sense of meaning, which leads to the conclusion that purchasing itself can serve as an activity that compensates for the state of boredom because of the meaning it might provide. In this project, we wanted to explore people’s behaviors connected with buying and its relationship to the daily level of boredom. Because we were interested in measuring behavior rather than pure declarations, we used a daily diary method. We investigated the link between boredom and behaviors connected with excessive buying (such as purchasing unplanned excessive items or engaging in buying-related activities e.g. spending time browsing shops either in-store or online) in a real-life setting. We recruited 1006 participants (501 Poles, 505 Brits; 501 men, 494 women, 11 others; age M = 34.8, SD = 12.7) to participate in a T0 survey where we explained I detail the procedure of our diary study and measured some of their traits. Then, 491 Poles and 436 Brits filled in a short questionnaire at the end of the day at least once out of 14 days. In the daily surveys, the participants reported some buying behaviors undertaken during that past day (time and money spent shopping and the number of purchased items, which constituted a preregistered latent variable) and the reasons for the purchase. They were asked to indicate how strongly the following reasons influenced the purchase: “I bought it because it felt good”, “I bought it to stop feeling bad”, “I bought it because I remembered I needed it” and “Other”. They were also asked about their feelings of boredom, happiness, and sadness. In both countries, participants who declared that they had performed more buying-related actions during the day also declared lower levels of boredom in the evening. The reasons for the purchase played an important role in the analyzed relationship, which appeared to be country-dependent. In the UK, individuals whose primary reasons for purchase were buying “to stop feeling bad” or “to feel good” couldn’t lower their feeling of boredom with even lots of purchases. In Poland, we did not observe a similar effect. Although surprisingly, in Poland, the main reason for shopping being “to feel good” was connected directly to boredom, such as the people buying to feel good (with a positive emotional state while buying) were then reporting lower levels of boredom in the evening. This effect was absent in the UK. Our outcomes confirm the relationship between boredom and buying. That relationship, however, may look different depending on the individuals’ motivation for purchase and their cultural background (e.g., country). Our project is a testament to a colloquial belief that people tend to “buy out of boredom” and a warning for shoppers to be aware of being bored into reckless buying. It is also a first step in understanding this phenomenon and developing strategies for dealing with the need to chase our boredom away with buying.

ABSTRACT. The way consumers shop and manage their finances has changed dramatically over the last ten years, driven by the digitalization of payments services, rise of e-commerce, and growing popularity of financial schemes like Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), short-term financing options enabling consumers to make purchases and pay in interest-free instalments over time. While these developments have enhanced purchasing convenience, they have also lowered spending barriers and purchasing friction, potentially exacerbating compensatory and compulsive buying behaviours.

Compulsive buying (CB), a problem first described by Kraepelin as early as 1915, is outlined by a preoccupation with buying and shopping, an irresistible urge to buy, and frequent buying episodes that cannot be controlled. Often used to counterbalance negative life events, inner deficiencies, and negative feelings, CB episodes initially bring relief and pleasure but are soon followed by remorse and guilt due to the inappropriateness of the spending behaviour and its negative consequences on relationships, well-being, and finances. Academic interest in compulsive buying - or addictive buying, depending on the discipline - as a consumer behaviour and policy problem emerged around 1990, when several research groups in the US, Canada, and Germany began investigating its aetiology, mechanisms, consequences, and evolution over time. By focusing on extreme buying behaviours, researchers also sought to gain a deeper understanding of regular shopping behaviour within consumer societies.

Despite major digital shifts in consumer culture potentially exacerbating extreme consumption behaviours, representative research on CB behaviour in-store and online, as well as the influence of payment methods, remains limited. A meta-analysis estimated a pooled CB prevalence of 4.9% in adult representative samples (Maraz et al., 2016). However, large heterogeneity across subgroups, driven by differences in the conceptualisation of CB, measurement tools, and assessment timeframes, limits cross-study comparability and the reliable identification of prevalence rates. Preliminary survey data additionally suggests a close link between online and offline CB, with 3% of respondents being classified as “addicted”, though distinct patterns emerged based on age and education level (Augsburger et al., 2020). It thus remains unclear how CB has evolved in response to these digital transformations, making it difficult to assess the scope of the problem and develop targeted interventions and policies that prioritize consumer well-being.

This study examined the relationship between online and offline CB, as well as the influence of BNPL schemes, in Germany, the European Union’s largest consumer and e-commerce market. Participants were recruited via YouGov Germany and completed an online survey. After data cleaning, 913 participants (sex: 51.4% female, age: M = 52.73, SD = 16.68, range = 18 – 87 years) were included for analysis.

Compulsive buying propensity was assessed using the German Addictive Buying Scale (Neuner et al., 2005; Scherhorn et al., 1990), a 16-item measure widely used in German-speaking countries. An aggregate score ranging from 16 to 64 was used as an index of compulsive buying propensity, with individuals scoring 45 and above classified as compulsive buyers. Online CB was measured using four additional items focused on online shopping. Online shopping frequency over the past 30 days was assessed across eight product categories using a 5-point scale (1 = daily; 5 = never), with higher total scores indicating greater overall frequency. Chi-square tests of independence and regression models with robust standard errors were used to examine CB prevalence and its links to online CB behaviour and BNPL schemes.

Participants had a mean CB score of 29.75 (SD = 11.15), with 10.84% classified as compulsive buyers. CB propensity was significantly higher among younger participants (B = -3.55, SE = 0.019, t = -18.44, p < .001) and those with a higher household net income (B= 0.001, SE = 0.000, t = 11.26, p < .001), while rates did not significantly differ by sex (χ²(1, N = 913) = .156, p = .693). A higher propensity for CB was associated with both more frequent online shopping (B= 0.247, SE = 0.021, t = 11.59, p < .001, , η² = .130) and increased online CB behaviour (B = 0.191, SE = 0.008, t = 23.25, p < .001, η² = .376), controlling for age, sex, and net income. Moreover, individuals who reported shopping more frequently online also exhibited higher levels of online CB (B = 0.216, SE = 0.017, t = 12.38, p < .001, η² = .146).

Buy Now, Pay Later schemes were used by 35.60% (n = 325) of participants in the past 30 days. BNPL use was significantly associated with higher CB propensity (B = 7.489, SE = .766, t = 9.778, p < .001, η² = .098) and a greater likelihood of being classified as a compulsive buyer (B = 1.013, SE = 0.285, p < .001). More frequent BNPL use also predicted higher levels of online CB behaviour. Compulsive buyers were nearly twice as likely to report using BNPL for reasons related to affordability and financial necessity (B = 0.652, SE = 0.312, p = .036) and exhibited more riskprone financial behaviour (e.g., increased spending) when using BNPL (B = 4.276, SE = 0.693, t = 6.17, p < .001, η² = .110). Among individuals who used BNPL in the past 30 days, use for reasons related to affordability and financial necessity significantly mediated the relationship between CB propensity and the likelihood of reporting any debt.

These findings have important implications for behavioural policy and consumer decisionmaking. The connection between CB, online shopping, BNPL use, and financial vulnerability underscores how modern credit tools reshape consumer behaviour by increasing consumer credit and reducing purchasing friction, lowering barriers to consumption. Understanding the cognitive and behavioural drivers of CB can inform targeted interventions, such as frictionincreasing measures in transactions and educational campaigns on the risks of BNPL schemes, to mitigate the negative consequences of CB and protect consumers’ economic and psychological well-being.

ABSTRACT. There is an extensive literature on the strategies people adopt to make multiattribute decisions, from Montgomery and Svenson’s (1976) and Svenson’s (1979) seminal analyses to the present (Walasek & Brown, 2024). The standard economic model, multattribute utility theory (Von Winterfeldt & Fischer, 1975), assumes that alternatives are compared on a common value scale (utility) arrived at by a compensatory mechanism whereby the weighted utility of each attribute value is summed within alternatives. Walasek and Brown present a convincing argument that compensatory evaluations, or trade-offs, across attributes have no logical basis because there is no common value scale for many attributes; they are incommensurable. Instead, they argue, multi-attribute decisions are generally carried out via noncompensatory strategies involving ordinal (rank) attribute evaluations. One such strategy is satisficing (Simon, 1955), whereby alternatives are considered sequentially, and the first is chosen that is judged to be satisfactory on all attributes. This avoids trade-offs across incommensurable attributes. Strong evidence against across-attribute decision strategies based on a common value scale is provided by studies demonstrating violations of transitive preferences, whereby in a series of binary choices, A is preferred to B, B to C but C is preferred to A. To account for intransitive preferences Tversky proposed two strategies involving within-attribute comparisons across alternatives: (1) the noncompensatory, lexicographic semiorder (LS) heuristic; and (2) the compensatory, additive difference (AD) model. In the former, if the difference between alternatives on the most important attribute is above a certain threshold, the better alternative on that attribute is chosen, otherwise the alternative that is better on the next most important attribute is chosen. This heuristic is noncompensatory, because an advantage on the second most important attribute is not traded off against an advantage on the most important one, however great that advantage might be. In contrast, the AD strategy is compensatory, since choice is made by weighing subjective attribute differences across alternatives against each other. This fully utilizes all the information available and allows an advantage on one attribute to compensate for a disadvantage on another. Although the AD strategy can account for violations of transitive preferences, it faces a similar commensurability problem to that faced by multiattribute utility theory; attribute differences cannot logically be compared across incommensurable attributes. Nevertheless, in our recent reanalysis of data from Tversky’s (1969) lottery choice paradigm, which supersedes previous analyses (Ranyard et al., 2024), we found that the a simplified AD (SAD) model received substantially more support that the LS model in accounting for violations of transitive preferences. The SAD model is not a process model; rather, it is an as-if model of decision outcomes that is compatible with compensatory, within-attribute evaluation processes. The aim of this talk is to review the evidence for such processes in Tversky’s lottery paradigm, which involves two incommensurable attributes, in the light of the incommensurability issue raised by Walasek and Brown (2024). We propose that the compensatory weighing of attribute differences across decision alternatives is a central component of reason-based decision making (Dietrich & List, 2016; Shafir, Simonson & Tversky, 1993).

Intransitive preferences and underlying processes in Tversky’s lottery paradigm Tversky’s (1969) lottery experiment involved binary choices between five simple monetary lotteries with the structure win s dollars with probability p, otherwise win zero (attributes or dimensions S and P): a = (7/24, $5.00), b = (8/24, $4.75), c = (9/24, $4.50), d = (10/24, $4.25) and e = (11/24, $4.00). An example of intransitive preferences would be: a ≻ b, b ≻ c , c ≻ d, d ≻ e and e ≻ a (where ≻ indicates ‘is preferred to’). In this case the better payoff, S, is preferred when the difference between S and P values is the smallest, but the better P is preferred when they are the largest. Montgomery (1977) replicated Tversky’s lottery study and extended it by eliciting think-aloud verbal protocols from his participants as they made their choices. In his original analysis, Montgomery did not assess the extent to which the choice data supported the AD or LS models. Here we cross-validate our Bayes factor analysis of the choice data (Ranyard et al., 2024) with the verbal protocols and find convergence of support for the SAD model for some participants. In Kalenscher et al.’s (2011) replication of Tversky’s lottery study, participants carried out the experiment in an MRI scanner which recorded neural correlates as they made their choices. On the basis of an initial analysis of the choice data, the authors split participants into a transitive (T) and non-transitive (NT) categories. One of their main findings was that as the objective dimension differences between lotteries increased, the aggregate choice proportions of NT participants switched from the better payoff to the higher probability of winning, and aggregate neural signals in the relevant areas were correspondingly related to objective dimension difference level. In this sense, neural value signals were intransitive. Our contribution here is to analyze the choice data more completely and assess the extent to which the choices of the NT participants were better accounted for by the compensatory SAD model or the noncompensatory LS model. We found that the Bayes factors of most NT participants strongly supported the SAD model rather than LS. This suggests that the aggregate neural responses reported by Kalenscher et al. reflect a compensatory dimension-based process rather than a noncompensatory one.

Conclusion Notwithstanding that differences in the attributes win probability and payoff amount are strictly incommensurable, we have presented choice evidence and both verbal and neural process evidence that people at least sometimes apply a compensatory decision process comparing such differences across attributes. We suggest that people may construct context-specific, ad hoc common differences scales for cross-attribute comparison processes to evaluate alternatives. These can provide good reasons for their decisions. Walasek and Brown’s (2024) excellent analysis of this issue could usefully be extended to account for the evidence presented here.

ABSTRACT. Consumption preferences differ depending on who we eat with (e.g. friends or family). We are very sensitive to social cues around food, such as the physique of others and their physical attractiveness. These differences in food preferences are not random, but are driven by certain motives, such as impression management. An important dimension of food choice related to impression management motives is the extent to which a food option signals masculinity or femininity. In other words, depending on the social environment, people may have different preferences for foods that are perceived as masculine or feminine, as the choice of such foods may serve as a self-presentation strategy to convey a positive image of oneself to others. Therefore, in this project, we examined consumers’ food preferences along the continuum of femininity and masculinity in different social contexts, such as when ordering food on a romantic date, dining with friends, or having a meal with family members. We also investigated whether this pattern depends on the gender of the consumer. Given that women prioritize status cues in men and tend to prefer food alternatives with an elegant presentation format, we expected men to be more inclined to signal status, not only by choosing more masculine foods, but also by preferring foods perceived to be more expensive. In contrast, we expected women to choose foods that signal femininity and an elegant presentation style. In Study 1, we presented American participants recruited from Prolific Academic (N = 163, 46.9% women, 53.1% men, age M = 41.7, SD = 14.5) with 15 pictures of dishes that differed in terms of femininity and masculinity and asked them about their preferences for these dishes in a dating or friendship context. These pictures of dishes were pretested to ensure that they differed markedly in perceived femininity and masculinity. We found that women (men) indicated a stronger preference for foods that were perceived as more feminine (masculine), confirming our initial hypotheses. We further predicted that these gender-typed food preferences should be reinforced when a mating motive (as opposed to a non-mating motive) is activated, such that these preference patterns should be more pronounced when dining out with an attractive date rather than meeting and eating with friends. This assumption was supported by the fact that women who were asked to imagine having a dinner with a date reported significantly stronger preferences for more feminine (less masculine) food alternatives, whereas this effect did not occur for women who were asked to think about having dinner with friends. However, contrary to our hypothesis that men should prefer more masculine foods when dining with an attractive date instead of friends, men reported a significantly stronger preference for masculine than feminine foods when dining with friends rather than with an attractive date. In Study 2, we collected actual data about the food ordered in one of the restaurants on the market square in Wroclaw, Poland. We cooperated with waiters and waitresses who recorded the orders of 111 groups of people (280 adult diners, 49% women, 51% men, estimated age M = 36.56, SD = 9.71) over 5 weekends. We also asked them to note whether the party was a date (n = 96 participants), a get-together with friends (n = 112 participants) or a meal with family members (n = 72). Finally, we asked them to photograph all the dishes on the restaurant menu (against a neutral background) and note the food prices. The dishes in the photographs were rated by 30 Prolific judges for their femininity, masculinity, price, and sophistication. Replicating the results from Study 1, we found that women selected more feminine and less masculine dishes than men, with the most significant difference being in the date context, followed by a meal with friends. There were no significant differences in the masculinity and femininity of the food ordered when women had a meal with their family members. With regard to the actual and perceived price of the food ordered, we found no differences between the eating contexts for women. However, men ordered the most expensive food when they had a date, followed by eating with friends and family members, respectively. Contrary to our expectations, we also found that the food ordered by men and women for a date and a meal with friends was similar in terms of 'sophistication,' although men ordered more 'mundane' food than women in the family eating situation. These findings are consistent with existing theories that sexual dimorphism and the embodiment of gender-typical traits are perceived as more attractive. Thus, women (men) appear to strategically attempt to increase their attractiveness to potential mates by choosing more feminine (masculine and expensive) foods, especially in mating contexts.

ABSTRACT. The rise of self-employment and gig work has redefined the labor market, offering new flexibility and altering traditional employment norms. While self-employment has numerous advantages, it also poses a critical challenge: income volatility, which undermines financial stability and complicates decision-making. Research shows that income volatility often drives short-term spending and heightened stress. This work primarily relies on project-based assignments, interspersed with gaps that create financial uncertainty. To navigate these uncertainties, workers must regularly assess their financial circumstances. The timing of financial evaluations—during periods of uncertainty or relative stability—becomes a critical factor in how workers manage their finances and stress.

This study addresses the question, “How does income volatility influence temporal discounting and financial stress over time?” Additionally, we explore the potential role of financial self-efficacy and consideration of future consequences as moderators of these effects.

Participants engage in an online incentivized simulation designed to mirror the experiences of freelancers, spanning a 12-round (representing 12-month) period during which they receive either stable or highly variable hypothetical monthly incomes. After each income, participants address expenses such as rent and groceries and interact with a financial advisor, a mechanism to assess both financial stress and temporal discounting. Assessments occur at both mid-task and at the end of the 12 rounds to track changes in financial stress and decision-making over time.

The current study tests the following hypotheses: High income volatility correlates with greater financial stress (H1) and higher temporal discounting (H2). Participants have lower financial stress mid-task than at the end of the task (H3), primarily due to uncertainty about future work opportunities at the end of the project and the cumulative effects of financial instability. Likewise, participants have lower temporal discounting mid-task than at the end (H4), suggesting that prolonged exposure to income fluctuations reinforces present-biased decision-making. The effect of income volatility on financial stress is weaker mid-task than at the end (H5), indicating that financial instability becomes more psychologically taxing as individuals approach the conclusion of their earnings period. Similarly, the effect of income volatility on temporal discounting is weaker mid-task than at the end (H6), suggesting that financial uncertainty increasingly drives short-term decision-making over time.

The findings offer valuable insights into the experience of self-employed individuals navigating income volatility. This research aims to contribute to the development of strategies and policies that foster greater financial resilience and stability in an increasingly volatile labor market.

ABSTRACT. Time preference, a fundamental concept in behavioral economics, describes how individuals balance immediate rewards against future benefits. Present bias, or the tendency to prioritize short-term gratification over long-term security, has significant financial implications, influencing behaviors such as lower savings, higher debt, and increased financial uncertainty. Understanding generational differences in future-oriented spending is critical for assessing economic mobility and long-term financial well-being. Some research suggests younger generations are more present-oriented due to economic instability, digital distractions, and shifting social norms. If younger cohorts systematically allocate less to future-oriented expenditures, they may face slower wealth accumulation, greater financial insecurity, and increased reliance on social support systems. However, other studies indicate that these differences may be driven by life cycle effects rather than fundamental generational shifts, with individuals naturally becoming more future-focused over time.

This study examines cohort differences in future-oriented spending using 20 years of Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX) data from 2004 to 2023. It analyzes expenditures in four categories associated with future orientation: reading, education, insurance, and retirement savings. The CEX provides detailed, nationally representative expenditure data in the United States, allowing for an assessment of cohort trends while controlling for age, period effects, and socioeconomic factors. Our final sample includes 76,151 Consumer Units, spanning six generational cohorts from the Silent Generation to Gen Z. Given the high number of zero expenditures in these categories, logistic regression models the probability of spending, while Tobit models analyze budget shares. Key controls include total expenditure, race/ethnicity, education, gender, marital status, family size, presence of children, homeownership, region, and population size of residence. Baby Boomers serve as the reference group due to their large sample size and broad age range.

Findings indicate a steady decline in reading expenditures across cohorts, with younger cohorts allocating less, likely due to the rise of digital media as a primary source of information and entertainment. Education expenditures also decrease across cohorts, with Gen X spending the most, followed by Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Gen Z. After controlling for socioeconomic factors, the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers show no significant difference in education spending, while younger cohorts allocate less. This may reflect shifting educational priorities, increased access to alternative skill-building methods, and rising tuition costs leading to greater reliance on student loans rather than direct expenditures.

Insurance spending remains relatively stable across generations, with Baby Boomers investing the most, followed by Gen X and the Silent Generation. Gen Z is the least likely to allocate funds toward insurance, but after adjusting for socioeconomic controls, most generational differences disappear. This suggests that life stage and economic conditions, rather than generational attitudes, primarily influence insurance spending patterns.

Retirement savings patterns reveal a more nuanced picture. While later generations appear more likely to save for retirement, with Gen Z showing the highest odds of contributing, the budget share allocated to retirement savings is highest among Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. However, after adjusting for controls, Gen Z and Baby Boomers show no significant difference, while the Silent Generation, Gen X, and Millennials are less likely to contribute. These findings suggest that the youngest generation, Gen Z, may prioritize retirement savings despite economic challenges, possibly in response to declining employer-sponsored pensions and greater awareness of financial uncertainty.

Overall, the results do not support a simple narrative that younger generations are becoming more present-oriented in their spending. While younger cohorts allocate less to reading and education, they appear to prioritize retirement savings, potentially reflecting broader economic shifts rather than a decline in future orientation. The rise of digital media and online learning may have reduced expenditures on traditional reading materials and formal education, while economic instability may have heightened awareness of the need for long-term financial planning. Millennials and Gen Z, having experienced economic recessions and uncertain job markets, may emphasize financial security in different ways compared to previous generations.

These findings highlight the complexity of generational financial behavior, emphasizing that spending patterns are shaped by a combination of economic conditions, cultural shifts, and evolving financial priorities rather than inherent generational traits. Further research is needed to disentangle cohort effects from broader structural changes and to assess how these trends influence long-term financial outcomes.

ABSTRACT. In this study, we run a learning-to-forecast exercise in laboratory conditions among 150 young consumers from Poland. The study aims to identify (1) to which theory consumer expectation formation aligns and (2) if psychological traits and economic literacy moderate the expectation formation pattern.

We are motivated to conduct this study as consumers are non-specialists with limited economic literacy and poor skills in processing economic information. From a macroeconomic point of view, their economic choices, dictated by expectations, translate very clearly into the economy's performance. Thus, recognising expectation formation patterns is essential from the central bank perspective as it enables the conduct of expectation-oriented monetary policy. Such a policy, implemented within an inflation-targeting framework, should ensure price stability, which is the primary mandate of modern central banks. Even though the recognition of consumer expectations models is essential, the empirical literature does not provide many explanations linking expectations with economic literacy and psychological traits. The existing works are rare and mostly survey-based. The novelty of the study is the new knowledge it creates and the data collection procedure based on the quasi-experiment.

The data collection for the study was designed as a quasi-experiment held in the laboratory. Subjects were first solving economic literacy and psychological traits tests using the Big Five model (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience) tested with a Mini-IPIP scale (International Personality Item Pool). Then, subjects were informed in a general way about the model that describes the functioning of the economy. The model reflected a standard, simplified, three-equations new-Keynesian framework with a forward-looking specification of inflation equation, (2) an IS curve explaining the output evolution in the economy and (3) the forward-looking Taylor rule. The central bank reaction reflected in the Taylor rule parameters was set as quite restrictive due to the special times when the study was held (decreasing but still elevated inflation). The modelled economy was also affected by random shocks. Subjects were informed about the current state of the artificial economy and divided into teams representing consumers in a given economy. The distribution across teams (economies) was performed according to the economic literacy test results. The forecasting exercise was run using the web application designed for this study.

The exercise was incentivized, and the reward depended on the accuracy of the overall forecast. The forecasting exercise consisted of 50 rounds. In each round, subjects forecasted inflation for one year ahead. After each round, they observe the inflation rate in the economy (the effect of mean expectations of the team and its interaction with the model and shocks), the last forecast (individual) and points attributed to the forecast accuracy. To replicate the actual economic condition, the outcome of the economy depended on the mean expectations of each economic agent operating in this economy (here – team members). The duration of the exercise was scaled to fit within 90 minutes. Subjects were recruited through university announcements in four Polish universities (two localizations). The exercise was held between May and October 2024.

The first step of the data analysis covered the test of the best fit to the expectation formation models – on the micro level – to one of the theoretical foundations of expectation formation: AR process, sticky information, adaptive expectations, the general model, and trend exploration. The models were estimated using the OLS. The best model was the most accurate (RMSE). Then, the application of logit regression enabled the search for the interdependencies between expectation formation, economic literacy and psychological characteristics.

The results indicate that about 25% of subjects' behaviour was explained by the general model, 20% used trend extrapolation, and about 15% used adaptive expectations and the same percentage of them – sticky information model. The choice of the model depended on the level of economic literacy. However, the interplay between psychological traits (tested with logit regression) and the model selection was negligible. We found some relationships between the choice of the model and agreeableness and openness to experience.

These results are significant from the point of view of monetary policy, especially in terms of central banks' ability to achieve inflation target. The lack of strong dependencies between the psychological traits and expectation formation models is good news as the policy-maker cannot shape behavioural and psychological aspects. The economic literacy that affected the model choice could be more easily affected by the education or educational system of the country. Finally, we noted that a large portion of subjects did not choose the simplest replication of past inflation as the benchmark for the future. This result confirms the engagement of economic agents in processing the information on inflation and expectations.

ABSTRACT. Financial discrimination represents a significant barrier to achieving equitable access to financial services and wealth-building opportunities (Bartlett et al., 2022), with potentially far-reaching consequences for individual financial well-being and broader economic inequality. While traditional economic theory assumes rational decision-making in financial services, behavioral economics, and economic psychology suggest that experiences of discrimination can create complex and sometimes counterintuitive patterns in consumer behavior. Drawing on these behavioral insights, our research examined the associations between experiencing financial discrimination and consumer trust in financial institutions, the relationship between discriminatory experiences and the likelihood of seeking financial advice, and the connection between racial identity and experiences of financial discrimination.

The findings reveal complex relationships between discrimination, trust, and financial decision-making. First, we found a significant negative association between experiencing financial discrimination and consumer trust in financial institutions, suggesting important connections between discriminatory experiences and consumers' relationships with the financial sector. This correlation with reduced trust may have important implications for long-term financial engagement and wealth-building opportunities, as reduced trust could lead to withdrawal from mainstream financial services.

Interestingly, our second finding revealed that individuals who reported experiencing financial discrimination were also more likely to report seeking financial advice. This unexpected relationship suggests a possible pattern where consumers who face discrimination may be more likely to seek professional guidance. This finding challenges conventional assumptions about discrimination and withdrawal from financial services and suggests a more nuanced relationship between these experiences and financial behaviors. However, these findings align with research that shows that Black consumers, who have historically experienced discrimination at a disproportionate level, are more likely to seek financial advice (Reiter & Qing, 2023).

The study's third key finding revealed significant racial disparities in experiences of financial discrimination, with White and Asian consumers reporting a lower likelihood of bias or racism when working with financial institutions compared to Black consumers. This result aligns with existing literature on racial disparities in financial services and adds to the growing body of evidence documenting persistent inequities in the financial sector (Craemer et al, 2020; Weller, 2009). These disparate experiences suggest that significant barriers to equitable treatment remain despite broader industry efforts to promote inclusion.

These findings have important implications for multiple stakeholders in the financial services sector. For financial institutions, the results highlight the critical importance of addressing discriminatory practices and their relationship with consumer trust. The correlation between discriminatory experiences and reduced trust suggests that institutions need to not only prevent discrimination but also actively work to rebuild trust with affected communities. The association between discrimination and increased advice-seeking behavior presents an opportunity for financial institutions to better serve and support consumers who have faced discrimination, potentially through targeted outreach and specialized support services.

For policymakers and regulators, our findings underscore the need for continued attention to discriminatory practices in financial services and the development of more effective enforcement mechanisms. The persistent racial disparities in experiences of discrimination suggest that current regulatory frameworks may be insufficient to ensure equitable treatment. Additionally, the complex relationship between discrimination and advice-seeking behavior indicates that policy interventions should consider both protective measures against discrimination and support for consumers navigating financial services after experiencing discrimination.

The study also has implications for consumer advocacy organizations and financial education providers. The increased likelihood of seeking financial advice among those who have experienced discrimination suggests an important role for these organizations in providing trusted guidance and support. These organizations might consider developing specialized programs or resources specifically designed to help consumers who have faced discrimination navigate financial services effectively. These findings contribute to our understanding of how discriminatory practices relate to consumer financial behavior and underscore the need for targeted interventions to rebuild trust and ensure equitable access to financial services. Future research could further explore the mechanisms through which discrimination and trust interact and the temporal sequence of these relationships and evaluate the effectiveness of various interventions aimed at addressing these issues.

The results emphasize that addressing financial discrimination requires a multi-faceted approach that combines stronger consumer protections, institutional reforms, and targeted support for affected communities. As the financial services sector continues to evolve, ensuring equitable access and fair treatment remains a critical challenge that requires ongoing attention from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers alike.

References Bartlett, R., Morse, A., Stanton, R., & Wallace, N. (2022). Consumer-lending discrimination in the FinTech era. Journal of Financial Economics, 143(1), 30-56. Craemer, T., Smith, T., Harrison, B., Logan, T., Bellamy, W., & Darity, W. (2020). Wealth Implications of Slavery and Racial Discrimination for African American Descendants of the Enslaved. The Review of Black Political Economy, 47(3), 218-254. https://doi.org/10.1177/0034644620926516 Reiter, M., & Qing, D. (2024). Racial and gender differences in financial advice seeking: Evidence from the National Financial Capability Study. Financial Planning Review, 7(1), e1169. Weller, C. E. (2009). Credit Access, the Costs of Credit and Credit Market Discrimination. The Review of Black Political Economy, 36(1), 7-28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12114-009-9034-6

ABSTRACT. In recent decades, a multitude of transformations have placed individuals in a challenging position with regard to financial decision-making. This is partly due to the dynamic development of a wide range of financial products (Lusardi et al., 2020). Furthermore, the responsibility that individuals bear for their own finances has increased considerably. This is mainly due to major changes in the pension landscape, which is demanding more personal responsibility from consumers by shifting financial decisions such as saving or investing to employees and pensioners. The situation has been further escalated by the emergence of international crises, including the global pandemic of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) and the energy crisis, which has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. The associated high inflation rates, rising energy prices and growing unemployment make it all the more important to demonstrate responsible and conscious financial behavior (Bucher-Koenen et al., 2024, Chhatwani and Mishra, 2021).

Responsible financial behavior is characterized by various skills that contribute to effective financial management. This includes the ability to control spending, pay bills promptly and plan for the future while saving money to ensure the well-being of oneself and one’s family (Perry and Morris, 2005). However, many people lack professionally sound and responsible financial behavior, which can lead to serious consequences, including health problems as well as reduced academic success and life satisfaction (Lin et al., 2022, Richardson et al., 2013, Xiao et al., 2009). This emphasizes the necessity for the long-term enhancement of financial behavior. In order to achieve this objective, it is essential to develop a comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence financial behavior. There is a general consensus that financial literacy is an important determinant of financial behavior. In recent years, studies have shown that psychological factors and personality traits, in addition to socio-demographic factors such as gender and ethnicity, influence financial decision-making as well (Goyal et al., 2021). Nevertheless, there is still a huge lack of knowledge with regard to psychological factors influencing financial behavior.

Therefore, the purpose of this analysis is to review the current state of research on the influence of psychological characteristics on financial behavior, to determine which characteristics have a significant influence on financial behavior and to examine whether there are differences in the effects on different types of financial behavior. More precisely, the influence on the variables planning behavior, saving behavior, investment behavior, credit behavior, spending behavior and general financial behavior was analyzed. Therefore a systematic literature review was con-ducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines (Moher et al., 2009). We searched the Web of Science Database with specific search terms and identified 79 eligible studies in 70 papers published between 1994 and 2024.

The results of our literature analysis show that there are many different psychological characteristics that influence general financial behavior or specific types of financial behavior. A total of 49 different psychological factors were found to exert a significant influence on at least one type of financial behavior. Self-beliefs and self-control were found to have a positive significant influence with high frequency, while impulsivity and neuroticism were most often found to have a negative influence. Nonetheless, the findings of numerous studies are ambiguous and to some extent contradictory.

With regard to the various categories of financial behavior, it was investigated how often the individual psychological factors were examined and into which frequency a significant influence could be demonstrated. It was found that planning behavior is primarily influenced by goal clarity and self-beliefs, while saving behavior and general financial behavior are influenced in particular by a high degree of self-control. Nevertheless, the impact of individual factors is demonstrated to vary not only in terms of frequency, but also in the nature of the effect itself. To illustrate, our analysis has demonstrated that while a high risk tolerance exerts a positive influence on planning and investment behavior, it concomitantly exerts a negative effect on credit behavior.

Our findings can be used to specifically address the variety of psychological influencing factors in financial education programs and advisory services. Programs to promote financial behavior could specifically strengthen some characteristics such as self-control, future orientation or financial self-beliefs. At the same time, other factors such as impulsiveness or neuroticism should be addressed in prevention measures. However, further research is necessary to refine the classification of results and to examine in particular the relationships and interactions between various influencing factors.

BUCHER-KOENEN, T., JANSSEN, B., KNEBEL, C. & TZAMOURANI, P. 2024. Financial literacy, stock market participation, and financial wellbeing in Germany. Journal of Financial Literacy and Wellbeing, 1, 486-513. CHHATWANI, M. & MISHRA, S. K. 2021. Financial fragility and financial optimism linkage during COVID-19: Does financial literacy matter? Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 94, 1-7. GOYAL, K., KUMAR, S. & XIAO, J. J. 2021. Antecedents and consequences of Personal Financial Management Behavior: a systematic literature review and future research agenda. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 39, 1166-1207. LIN, J. T., BUMCROT, C., MOTTOLA, G., VALDES, O., GANEM, R., KIEFFER, C., LUSARDI, A. & WALSH, G. 2022. Financial Capability in the United States: Highlights From the FINRA Foundation National Financial Capability Study. 5th Edition ed.: FINRA Investor Education Foundation. LUSARDI, A., MITCHELL, O. S. & OGGERO, N. 2020. Debt and Financial Vulnerability on the Verge of Retirement. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 52, 1005-1034. MOHER, D., LIBERATI, A., TETZLAFF, J., ALTMAN, D. G. & GROUP, P. 2009. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. PLoS Med, 6, e1000097. PERRY, V. G. & MORRIS, M. D. 2005. Who Is in Control? The Role of Self-Perception, Knowledge, and Income in Explaining Consumer Financial Behavior. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 39, 299-313. RICHARDSON, T., ELLIOTT, P. & ROBERTS, R. 2013. The relationship between personal unsecured debt and mental and physical health: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 33, 1148-62. XIAO, J. J., TANG, C. & SHIM, S. 2009. Acting for Happiness: Financial Behavior and Life Satisfaction of College Students. Social Indicators Research, 92, 53-68.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we present the expansion of behavioural insights applications within Ofcom. From a standing start in 2022, we have built an inter-disciplinary Behavioural Insights Hub. Along the way, we have developed a toolkit of online Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), rapid A/B testing, behavioural audits, and strategic behaviour change programmes. Our discussion focuses on how we are using behavioural insights to develop and implement policy. We illustrate our findings through three mini-case studies:

1) Behavioural audits of social media companies’ practices. • Problem: Social media platforms’ online choice architecture (‘OCA’) practices can deliberately or inadvertently lead people to make choices which are not in their best interest and thereby make them less safe online. To understand the impact of these practices on users’ behaviour we needed a systematic way to analyse them. • Remedy: We conducted a behavioural risk audit on “age gates” on the most popular social media platforms, to learn what they’re doing and hypothesise how it might be affecting user behaviour. • Result: Our first behavioural audit highlighted the pervasiveness of suboptimal defaults on self-declaration age gates, and opened the door for further exploration of how OCA is being used to affect time people spend online.

2) Strategic application of behavioural theories to policy implementation • Problem: The Online Safety Act applies to platforms large and small that host user generated content. Many of these small firms will not be aware of their obligations nor will they have extensive resources to develop their understanding of their obligations when they do become aware of their obligations. • Remedy: We have designed implementation plans for the OSA for smaller businesses using the Stages of Change Model, combined with other frameworks such as COM-B for diagnosing problems and EAST for developing specific interventions – leading to a range of tools to drive compliance with the Act. • Result: The behaviourally-informed digital tools and communications will ‘go live’ soon.

3) Online randomised control trials • Problem: We needed to draft codes of practice for online platforms to follow. However, the evidence base for ‘what works’ in the design of safety measures was very limited. • Remedy: We ran a series of online randomised control trials to understand what works in the effective design of safety measures. • Result: The results of our trials supported the evidence base of the codes of practices which platforms must now adhere to.

This paper highlights the practical applications of behavioural insight in policy-making and the development of tools to support policy implementation, offering valuable insights for regulators and policymakers.

ABSTRACT. The article describes initiatives, mainly in the public sector, involving economic psychology and behavioural science taking place in Brazil as early as 2007 often combining with financial education in different areas. The extent to which they have been able to reach and spread over the country and sometimes the region, make it noteworthy that despite the fact that Brazil had yet barely begun to accommodate behavioural science research in the realm of academic work at that time, it was possible to carry them forward and open ways for those willing to try and incorporate economic psychology and behavioural science in their studies and work. Unlike established institutions more often found in the northern hemisphere, where economic psychology has been present in universities since the beginning of the 20th century (with Gabriel Tarde, in France), and more contemporarily, since 1958 (with Karl-Erik Wärneryd, in Sweden, followed by several other colleagues in other countries in Europe, later resulting in the creation of IAREP, in 1982), Brazil has started to directly apply research findings in policy-making, or at least clear the way so it could happen as the instances below indicate. One major initiative has been the pioneering introduction of economic psychology in the National Strategy for Financial Education, from 2008 on, initially led by 8 government departments (the four financial regulators – CVM, the Brazilian equivalent to the Securities and Exchange Comission, the Central Bank of Brazil, PREVIC, National Supplementary Pension Plans Superintendence, SUSEP, Private Insurance Superintendence; the Ministry of Education; the Ministry of Justice, with the National Consumer Secretary; the Ministry of Social Security; the Ministry of Economy). Another one involved the Central Bank of Brazil in several levels: starting with an introductory course on economic psychology for the financial citizenship and education department, with subsequent participation of economic psychology in a financial inclusion forum (both in 2010), a financial education workshop (2011), a full project with the British embassy to investigate credit and indebtedness in Brazil in 2012-13 (including exchanges with experts in the UK, a workshop for servants from different branches all over Brazil, two lengthy reports and a final seminar for stakeholders, authorities and the financial citizenship and education department). It culminated with a project to integrate economic psychology associated with financial education in their Money Museum (2013-15), with a Memorandum of Understanding with IAREP in 2013, and a final interactive exhibit of financial education incorporating economic psychology and behavioural insights at the Museum, and some branches, for a general audience but moreover students in all levels, particularly from public schools. Economic psychology contributions have also been made to financial education short videos, while the discipline was made into one of the pillars for their financial citizenship program and in 2014 a practitioner with expertise in the area was indicated by the Bank to become a member of the OECD International Network on Financial Education (INFE). The third initiative is related to CVM, the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission, that hosted the first behavioural science and investor education conference in Brazil, in 2013, holding yearly editions until the mid-pandemic period, and inviting several IAREP members as keynote speakers. In 2014, another pioneering step was the founding of a Behavioural Science Group (NEC, in Portuguese) in CVM, , with members coming from the academy, the financial market and other local experts, followed by the introduction of economic psychology and behavioural science in IOSCO-the International Organization of Securities Commissions, and in other countries over the American continent, the publication of a report on behaviourally-informed programs and initiatives and digital booklets covering different features of behavioural biases for investors, savers and consumers (2015-17). The fourth addressed consumer protection at PROCON-SP, the state consumer protection agency in São Paulo, taking the first steps back in 2007, with lectures for their employees, also open to interested consumers, and gradually developing into a formal economic psychology training for mediators and the agency technicians involved in a pilot program to tackle over indebtedness in 2012, in partnership with the State Court of Justice, that aimed to assist over indebted consumers negotiate with their creditors in collective agreements outside of formal judicial processes. Interest in the discipline also spread to other states and cities, with lectures and short courses provided. Lastly, an introductory extension course on economic psychology started to be offered in 2005, first at scientific conferences or in company, and as of 2006 until now, open to general audiences and linked to different educational institutions over the years, helping disseminate the discipline among students and potential policymakers as well. Expansions from these early initiatives are also mentioned as they have, directly or indirectly, triggered the participation of economic psychology often linked to financial education in events in other Latin American countries (Costa Rica, with their SEC, Uruguay and Paraguay, with their Central Banks, plus the US, with FINRA-The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and workshops sponsored by the World Bank in Vietnam (with the Ministry of Education) and Colombia (with their SEC). Other developments have taken place in Brazil, such as seminars at other public institutions, like the National Supplementary Pension Plans Superintendence, the Private Insurance Superintendence, the National Consumer Secretary at the Ministry of Justice. In conclusion, it is expected that this report may also inspire other countries in similar conditions to try and develop their own paths to include and develop economic psychology in whatever manner may be available to them at the time. The discipline holds vast solid literature and can help address different issues and specific challenges in different sectors, so exchanges of experience may enhance the track each builds towards making economic psychology relevant and useful. The Brazilian process may indicate that alternative routes can open doors for economic psychology (and behavioural science), especially in the Global South.

ABSTRACT. The article describes the Latin American Behavioral Science Conference held in November 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, presenting its objectives, outcomes, and implications for the regional advancement of behavioral science and public policy. It emphasizes the event’s importance as a milestone for Latin American Behavioral Science and explores its role in fostering collaboration, disseminating knowledge, while addressing culturally specific challenges through innovative approaches by regional stakeholders. The field of Behavioral Science has grown exponentially worldwide, particularly in its applications to public policy. In Latin America, this expansion is characterized by unique opportunities and challenges, requiring further documentation and dissemination of its contributions to the Global South. Behavioral Science applications in the public sector in Latin America began with pioneering initiatives in 2014 like NudgeRio by Rio de Janeiro City Hall and Núcleo de Estudos Comportamentais by The Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil. Other initiatives have since emerged, including those by institutions from Brazil (011.LAB, CINCO, Federal Revenue Office), Uruguay (CEIBAL), Unidad de Ciencias del Comportamiento y Políticas Públicas del Gobierno (Argentina) Peru (MineEDU Lab), etc., and institutions from other parts of the world that develop projects in Latin America, like The Behavioral Insights Team, BeWay and Ideas 42, among others. While some of these have been discontinued, particularly government units, they highlight both progress and ongoing challenges in the region. It is important to recognize that these initiatives were preceded by efforts from researchers and consultancies, like Vértice Psi. Documenting this event preserves its contributions, facilitates the replication of best practices, and underscores the region's unique perspectives. The Conference took place in Rio de Janeiro on November 13, 2024, at the Rio Operations Center, inaugurating the “G20 Conference Room,” a new space for meetings during the G20 Summit. Organized and funded by NudgeRio, a unit of Rio de Janeiro City Hall, it was a pioneering event that gathered local and global stakeholders to discuss Latin American behavioral science, showcasing NudgeRio’s 10-year journey and exploring ideas for a multilateral document on intersectoral and interdisciplinary cooperation. Leveraging the G20 platform, the event amplified the visibility of Behavioral Science in the Global South, highlighting their alignment with global agendas on sustainability, public health, and governance. It was the sole behavioral science side event of the 2024 G20 Agenda and strategically timed within the Urban 20 Summit (November 14-16) in Rio. NudgeRio also hosted the panel “Behavioral Science to Address Urban Social Issues” on the U20 mainstage, allowing Conference speakers to discuss regional projects and NudgeRio’s achievements with the broader public. The target audience included Latin American and international representatives from Nudge Units, universities, research centers, consultancies, and public authorities. The 50 attendees at the conference, representing institutions from diverse fields, countries and regions of Brazil, were carefully selected to facilitate face-to-face interaction and dialogue. The event began with opening remarks by Rafaela Bastos, followed by two morning sessions featuring four distinguished speakers: 1. Michael Hallsworth, Chief Behavioral Scientist at The Behavioral Insights Team (BIT), discussed BIT’s projects in Latin America, including initiatives to improve tax compliance in Guatemala and increase vaccination uptake in Argentina; 2. Rafaela Bastos, President of the Instituto Fundação João Goulart and Head of NudgeRio, presented NudgeRio’s methodologies, emphasizing culturally responsive approaches to nudge thinking and experimentation; 3. Antônio Claret, Representative of CINCO – the General Coordination of Innovation and Behavioral Science of the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services, highlighted the role of CINCO in democratizing behavioral insights for federal policies and fostering their nationwide development; 4. Gabriel Inchausti, Professor at ESPM, researcher, speaker, and consultant, addressed the state of the art in Behavioral Science academic research and the challenges related to replicability and scalability of behavioral interventions both locally and globally. The session was followed by the roundtable discussion: “Challenges and Contributions of Latin America to Behavioral Science”. Moderated by Rafaela Bastos, the panel featured Manuel Bonduki, professor at Insper and public policy specialist; Mary MacLennan, senior advisor on Behavioral Science at the UN; and Vera Rita de Mello Ferreira, a leading figure in economic psychology in Latin America and former IAREP president. The session explored challenges in knowledge management and application, replicability of projects across Latin American countries, and prospects for institutionalizing behavioral science initiatives in governments and organizations. It also emphasized the importance of tailoring interventions to local contexts and the potential of regional cooperation to strengthen collaboration networks. The afternoon was dedicated to debating macro-guidelines for cooperation and knowledge management in Behavioral Science. Key proposals from the discussions included: Interinstitutional cooperation in policymaking; Establishing a network linking universities, research institutions, and practitioners to facilitate knowledge, methods, and experience exchange; Prioritizing research on specific issues and demands unique to Latin America; Sharing experimental results from the region and fostering cooperation in projects, initiatives, and events; Accounting for cultural and contextual aspects in addressing public challenges and strategies; Promoting transnational studies to better understand differences between countries in behaviorally informed interventions; Creating a repository for scientific research, project reports, and methodological discussions to consolidate regional literature; Highlighting regional methodologies such as Nudge Thinking (NudgeRio), Simples Mente (CINCO), and the "Fab Five" perspective (Vera Rita de Mello Ferreira). The Conference laid the groundwork for a collaborative Latin American behavioral science agenda, with discussions highlighting the region's potential while also addressing challenges like linguistic barriers and limited cross-border representation. The event closed with an intention to strengthen networks, create contextually relevant methodologies, and position Latin America as a leader in behavioral science applications.

ABSTRACT. Crises pose unanticipated challenges and bring about the need for novel policy solutions. Oftentimes, uncertain times require innovative solutions that help governments and public organizations to influence the trajectory of the crisis or mitigate the damage. Public sector experiments offer an opportunity to test out novel solutions before they are applied on a wider scale. Given that, experimental policymaking could be viewed as a useful approach in crisis governance. However, conducting policy experiments during crisis can face various challenges. This article takes a broad view on crises: instead of focusing on certain types of crises (e.g economic or health crises), this study focuses on crises as unexpected turbulence in an organisation's environment. A crisis is “a serious threat to the basic structures or the fundamental values and norms of a social system, which – under time pressure and uncertain circumstances – necessitates making critical decisions” (Rosenthal et al 1989, p. 10). Although crises present private sector organisations as well as governments with „windows of opportunity“ (Hooren, et al. 2014) to enforce policy changes, profound changes are argued usually not to happen during turbulent conditions (Hooren, et al. 2014; Onno, 2024) and „fundamental change in the aftermath of an exogenous shock is the exception rather than the rule“ (Hooren, et al. 2014). Although experimentation helps to gather evidence-based information and supports organisational learning, there is only limited research about the role of experiments in turbulent environments, especially in providing crisis response. Drawing on the literatures on experimental policymaking, public sector innovation, and crisis management, the theoretical part of the paper outlines the key paradoxes that experimentation during cries faces and what the implications of these paradoxes are for experimental policymaking. These paradoxes include: (1) crises require fast responses, experiments need time; (2) Crises decrease tolerance for failure, experiments entail failure; (3) Experiments need resources (e.g cognitive space, people, funding) but during crises these become scarce; (4) crises provide „windows of opportunity“ to learn and innovate but transformations after the crises are rather rare. In the empirical part of the paper we probe – drawing on interviews conducted with 66 public officials in Estonia and Finland – how these paradoxes have been perceived to influence experimentation during crises and what the implications of these paradoxes are. We find that, crises change the priorities of governments and public organizations and induce ad hoc experimental solutions specifically tailored for crisis response. However, other experiments, such as ongoing experiments for anticipatory governance, may be put on hold or cancelled. We argue that, overall, although crises create a pressure to innovate, the timeframes and uncertainty experiments entail can make it challenging to use experimentation as part of crisis governance. Also, despite turbulent times increase civil servants’ willingness to take risks, less tolerance for failure is perceived and not enough safe space to experiment. If experiments are undertaken during a crisis, they tend to be short, limited in scope, and follow the logic of design thinking rather than randomized controlled trials.

Literature: Hooren, F.V., Kaasch, A. and Starke, P., 2014. The shock routine: Economic crisis and the nature of social policy responses. Journal of European Public Policy, 21(4), pp.605-623. Onno, K., 2024. The Role of Data Capabilities in Developing Public Sector Dynamic Capabilities: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Public Administration, pp.1-12. Rosenthal, U., Charles, M. T. & ′t Hart, P. (Eds.). (1989b). Coping with crises: The management of riots, disasters and terrorism. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.

ABSTRACT. This article presents the creation of a network by Brazil's first Behavioral Science unit, CINCO. Shortly after its establishment, a derivative network, CINCONECTE, was launched in November 2023. In its first year, CINCONECTE has engaged over 2,000 participants, including individuals and partner institutions, standing out as an innovative initiative for disseminating and applying behavioral science within the Brazilian federal government. Its primary goal is to connect public servants, volunteer researchers, and policymakers interested in collaboratively using behavioral science to address public challenges. The network's governance has facilitated greater coordination across government levels, optimizing resources and fostering innovation, while also promoting horizontal knowledge exchange, enabling diverse stakeholders to contribute to the enhancement of public services and policies. In this context, CINCONECTE, as a network for innovation and behavioral science in the Brazilian public sector, can be analyzed in light of recent literature on network governance, which emphasizes inter-organizational collaboration and coordination among multiple actors in policymaking. This study seeks to answer the following questions: how has the network formation process unfolded? How has CINCONECTE contributed to expanding the use of behavioral science within the Brazilian government? What strategies have been employed and what key results have been achieved after one year of implementation? and how have the Study and Experiment Groups (GEEs), which form the network's core innovation units, been structured and developed? The methodology applied in analyzing CINCONECTE’s records is descriptive and qualitative, based on document collection and systematization of activities conducted in its first year. The main findings indicate that the network has influenced the formulation and implementation of public policies across various sectors. Among its 2,000-plus members, the Master Collaborators stand out, actively engaging in network governance and development through working groups that meet periodically to discuss and make consensus-based decisions on priority themes. Another key pillar of the network is the GEEs, which function as innovation labs, conducting applied research and testing solutions for public challenges. Currently, three GEEs are active: GEE Silence, which examines the impact of noise on decision-making; GEE Disinformation, which explores strategies to combat fake news; and GEE Management, which investigates the application of behavioral science in public administration. For 2025, the creation of the Integrity GEE is planned, focusing on interventions that promote ethical and integrity-driven behaviors. Despite having existed for just one year, two pilot experiments have already been conducted. The first, led by GEE Silence, piloted an intervention using an application to assess mindfulness as a tool for reducing the impact of everyday noise, such as conversations and construction sounds, involving approximately 25 participants. The second, led by GEE Disinformation, tested a nudge-based intervention to enhance users’ ability to identify fake news, engaging over 80 participants. The third active group, GEE Management, has yet to conduct an intervention but is researching why people perceive multitasking as more productive, despite scientific evidence suggesting otherwise, with the goal of establishing a deeper diagnostic understanding before designing an intervention. Beyond the GEEs, CINCONECTE fosters collaboration and knowledge sharing through events, publications, and experimental projects. In its first year, the network has published 10 newsletters (CINFORME) to expand behavioral science’s impact in the public sector, hosted seven webinars attracting nearly 900 live participants and generating almost 7,000 views on its YouTube channel, and offered six free training courses in behavioral science—COMPORTAMENTO & TAL—taught by network members. This exchange of evidence and insights has contributed to the implementation of innovative approaches and provided empirical support for more effective public policies. The descriptive analysis underscores that partnerships are crucial to CINCONECTE’s success. Collaboration between academic institutions, the private sector, and government agencies enhances the impact of initiatives and accelerates their implementation. However, challenges remain, including integrating diverse areas of expertise and securing resources to ensure the network’s long-term sustainability. In conclusion, CINCONECTE demonstrates the potential of collaborative networks in advancing behavioral science within the Brazilian government and serves as a valuable reference for other governments, particularly in the Global South. Ideally, regional networks could also emerge, driven by ongoing exchanges and cooperation. So far, CINCONECTE’s approach has proven effective in promoting evidence-based solutions and fostering a more efficient, citizen-centered public sector. From a practical standpoint, the network can serve as a model for other government initiatives and potentially become a benchmark. Theoretically, it reinforces the significance of network governance in public-sector innovation. Future research should focus on deepening the evaluation of the GEEs’ impact, possibly developing specific methodologies for this purpose. [1] CINCO – Coordenação-Geral de Inovação e Ciências Comportamentais – Ministry of Management and Innovation Brazil cinco@gestao.gov.br [2] CINCO – Coordenação-Geral de Inovação e Ciências Comportamentais – Ministry of Management and Innovation Brazil cinco@gestao.gov.br [3] Vértice Psi – Instituto de Psicologia Econômica e Ciências Comportamentais; IAREP- the International Association for Research in Economic Psychology President; verarita@verarita.psc.br

ABSTRACT. According to Fiske’s relational models theory (1992), there are four types of interpersonal relationships: communal sharing, market pricing, authority ranking, and equality matching. Among these, communal sharing and market pricing are the most distinct, governed by fundamentally different norms. Communal sharing is driven by intimacy, altruism, and mutual care, whereas market pricing is based on self-interest, proportional exchange, and cost-benefit analysis (Fiske & Haslam, 2004). Although communal sharing is psychologically rewarding and highly desirable, it may not function effectively for individuals with attachment insecurities (Clark & Aragon, 2013). For instance, individuals with high attachment anxiety tend to experience heightened emotional reactivity toward close others, whereas those with high attachment avoidance exhibit lower empathic concern, reduced affective empathy, and diminished perspective-taking, all of which can have maladaptive social consequences (Ecer et al., in preparation). In contrast, market pricing can serve as a buffer against attachment insecurities by providing structure, autonomy, and predictability in relationships (Gasiorowska & Zaleskiewicz, 2021, 2023). In this study, we conceptualize market mindset as an umbrella construct that reflects the tendency to treat interpersonal relationships as market-like, exchange-based interactions rather than communal ones. We propose that individuals with high attachment insecurities—specifically, high attachment anxiety and avoidance—are more likely to adopt a market mindset for several reasons. First, individuals with higher attachment anxiety often seek predictability and immediate reassurance (Gollwitzer & Clark, 2019), while those with higher attachment avoidance prefer independence and distance from vulnerability. Consequently, for individuals with attachment insecurities, asking for help in close relationships can create conflict, a sense of threat, and ambiguity (Gasiorowska & Zaleskiewicz, 2021). As a result, adopting a market mindset becomes an effective coping strategy (Gasiorowska et al., 2023). In a preregistered Study 1 (N = 885 U.K. participants, 452 women, M age = 43.54), we propose that higher levels of attachment insecurities—attachment anxiety and avoidance—are associated with a stronger preference for a market mindset. Furthermore, we predict this relationship will remain significant even after controlling for personality traits, dark triad personality traits, basic psychological needs, self-esteem, self-construal, emotional intelligence, material values, and greed. Additionally, we hypothesize that the need for cognitive closure will mediate the relationship between attachment anxiety and market orientation, while the relationship between attachment avoidance and market orientation will be mediated by agency. Our findings indicated that attachment insecurities were significantly related to a market mindset, and this relationship remained significant after controlling for the aforementioned variables. Most importantly, we found that attachment anxiety was positively associated with a higher market mindset through an increased need for cognitive closure. However, we did not find a mediation effect of agency in the relationship between attachment avoidance and market mindset. While Study 1 demonstrated a robust effect of attachment insecurities on market mindset, it was correlational in nature. Therefore, in a preregistered longitudinal Study 2, we re-invited participants from Study 1 who had passed attention checks and provided valid Prolific IDs (n = 879), and 648 participants (M age = 46.30, SD = 13.21) participated in the second wave one year after the first wave. We aimed to test the causal relationship between attachment insecurities and market mindset over time by examining whether the relationship between attachment insecurities and market orientation remained stable across time points (T1 to T2). Additionally, we tested whether attachment insecurities at T1 causally influenced market orientation at T2 (causal relationship model). We also explored a reversed causation model, in which market orientation at T1 predicted attachment insecurities at T2 and a reciprocal causation model, which combined both effects. We expected the causal relationship model to best explain the data, highlighting the significant predictive role of attachment insecurities in shaping market orientation over time. Similar to Study 1, market orientation was modeled as a latent variable including calculative mindset (Kim., 2021) and exchange orientation in both romantic relationships (partner/spouse) and acquaintance/colleague interactions (Gasiorowska et al., 2023). However, this latent variable did not exhibit a good model fit (TLI = 0.44, CFI = 0.17). Gasiorowska et al. (2023) found that correlations for exchange orientation shift when participants indicate different close and stranger identities over time. Consistent with this, the majority of participants in Study 2 (N = 513) reported a different stranger at Time 2 compared to Time 1. Therefore, we separately analyzed calculative mindset, exchange orientation toward a close person, and a stranger. Our causational model showed that attachment anxiety at Time 1 was not related to exchange orientation toward a stranger at Time 2, similar to attachment avoidance. However, both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance at Time 1 were related to exchange orientation toward a close relationship at Time 2. Finally, attachment anxiety at Time 1 positively predicted the calculative mindset at Time 2. As we predicted, this model had the best model fit index. However, the reversed causation model, in which market mindset at T1 predicted attachment insecurities at T2, was not supported. Similarly, the reciprocal causation model showed weak fit indices (TLI = 0.44, CFI = 0.17), indicating that attachment insecurities more strongly influenced market mindset rather than vice versa. To sum up, we found that attachment insecurities have a significant effect even after controlling for various psychological traits. People with high levels of attachment anxiety tend to have an increased need for cognitive closure, which results in a market mindset. However, agency did not mediate the relationship between attachment avoidance and a market mindset. Finally, we confirmed that attachment insecurities predict a market mindset over time, particularly in close relationships. Our findings suggest that attachment insecurities play a significant role in shaping a market mindset

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION Among the theories of other-regarding preferences inspired by traces of altruism in economic behavior, the Fehr and Schmidt model (1999, henceforth FS) has arguably been the most influential. FS is a model of self–centered inequality aversion and posits that people are averse to disadvantageous and advantageous inequality — that is, to being poorer or richer than someone else.

Countless extensions to this framework have been proposed. However, to the best of my knowledge, the potential interplay between the advantageous and disadvantageous status has not yet been explored. This oversight is rather surprising, particularly given how saturated this field is and how straightforward the following questions are: Does the presence of the rich influence attitudes towards the poor? Does the presence of the poor influence attitudes towards the rich? In this project, I address this gap in the literature and test the following two hypotheses:

H1: Disadvantageous inequality decreases aversion to advantageous inequality. H2: Advantageous inequality decreases aversion to disadvantageous inequality.

I hypothesize that, in the presence of someone richer than themselves, people feel relieved of their obligations towards the poor and behave less prosocially towards them (H1). Additionally, I hypothesize that the presence of someone poorer makes people less bothered by the wealth of the rich, thus reducing spiteful behavior towards them (H2).

The economic literature has largely neglected such interplay, and yet insights from social psychology support my hypotheses. Studies on social comparison (Festinger, 1954) have shown that upward and downward social comparison (i.e., comparing oneself to someone perceived as superior or inferior) can alter behavior not only towards the target of comparison, but also towards neutral third parties (Moyal et al., 2020; Schlosser and Levy, 2016; Zheng et al., 2015). I believe these studies provide a compelling justification for examining whether, within the realm of income comparisons, resentment towards wealthier individuals can spill over and mitigate sympathy for poorer people, and whether compassion for the poor can mitigate hostility towards the rich.

CONTRIBUTION In this project, I extend the FS model to incorporate my hypotheses and explore how they alter the predictions of the standard model. Furthermore, I test my hypotheses empirically with an online experiment.

First and foremost, my project contributes to the literature on other-regarding preferences by highlighting dynamics previously overlooked. Additionally, it revisits past estimates of the FS model’s parameters, which were typically measured in groups of two players, e.g., where subjects are either richer or poorer than someone else. I argue that evidence from such dyadic interactions should be interpreted with caution, as they may lead to particularly high estimates of inequality aversion.

Moreover, I theorize pro-cyclical adjustments of inequality aversion to inequality itself, suggesting that people’s preferences might accommodate, rather than oppose, an already increasing inequality. Therefore, my research aligns with other micro founded theories of pro-cyclical fairness concerns (Roth and Wohlfart, 2018; Benabou, 2000; Cöte' et al., 2015) and contributes to understanding why income inequality can be a persistent phenomenon.

MODEL EXTENSION In the standard FS model, the utility of player i in a set of n players is given by

SEE EQUATION 1) IN THE PDF

Where R and P are the subsets of players who are richer and poorer than i, respectively. With standard FS preferences (α_i, β_i > 0), the utility of person i decreases over the income of richer people and increases over the income of poorer people. The second term in Eq. 1 is typically referred to as envy and the third term as guilt.

In my extension, envy towards the rich is a decreasing function of advantageous inequality, and guilt towards the poor is a decreasing function of disadvantageous inequality. In a set of n players, the utility of player i is given by

SEE EQUATION 2) IN THE PDF

I refer to γ_i as the relief coefficient, which measures i’s propensity to deflect envy and guilt towards poorer and richer people, respectively. I incorporate two maximum operators to prevent the arguments of envy and guilt from turning negative, meaning that relief can at most nullify the primary feelings it originates from. I assume 0 ≤ γ_i < 1 because, if γ_i > 1, i’s total guilt and envy decrease if the poor give money to the rich, which is implausible. I demonstrate through simple comparative statics that the linear effects I introduce alter the standard model’s predictions by modifying the marginal impact of inequality on i’s utility.

Concerning Hypothesis 1, I show that, in the presence of someone richer, i does not benefit as much from enriching the poor. This occurs because, as the poor become richer, i suffers less guilt but also grows more envious towards the rich. Namely, advantageous inequality aversion goes down from β_i/(n−1) to (β_i−α_i*γ_i)/(n−1) when disadvantageous inequality gets positive, making i less prosocial (or even antisocial) towards the poor.

Concerning Hypothesis 2, I show that the presence of someone poorer than i reduces her disadvantageous inequality aversion from α_i/(n−1) to (α_i−β_i*γ_i)/(n−1). This occurs because, when guilt is activated by advantageous inequality, a further enrichment of the rich makes i more envious but also alleviates her guilt towards the poor, making her less spiteful (or even prosocial) towards the rich.

EXPERIMENT I run an online experiment to test if disadvantageous inequality reduces advantageous inequality aversion (H1), and if advantageous inequality reduces disadvantageous inequality aversion (H2). I conduct a between-subject experimental design where participants are divided into groups of three players, each endowed with different amounts (x_R ≥ x_i ≥ x_P). The focus is on the median earner i.

For H1, I keep x_i and x_P constant across treatments while increasing x_R. Then, i employ a modified dictator game to measure i’s advantageous inequality aversion. In a separate study, I test H2 by keeping x_R and x_i constant across treatments while decreasing x_P. Then, I employ a modified ultimatum game to measure i’s disadvantageous inequality aversion. The experiment is programmed using oTree (Chen et al., 2016), and I plan to run it in the summer of 2025.

REFERENCES See PDF

ABSTRACT. The Problem:

Policymakers have to ignore most of the issues and most of the information available to them most of the time (Cairney 2020, Feldman 1989). In policymaking literature it is often explained by bounded rationality (Cairney 2020, Lindblom 1959, Peters and Fontaine 2022, Peters and Zittoun 2016, Scharpf 1997, Zahariadis 2016).

A Potential Solution:

Mindfulness-based training (MBT) seemingly benefits the quality of decision-making in general (Karelaia and Reb, 2015) and can be a cognitive enhancer (Bostrom and Roache 2007; Kirsh and Maglio 1994: 51). More specifically, “…mindfulness training might be considered an informal training in attention skills” (Verhaeghen 2021).

Based on current evidence, mind-wandering takes up about half of all waking time of a person (van Vugt and van der Velde 2018: 176 citing Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010; Smallwood & Schooler, 2015, Jha 2021). Rumination and mind-wandering cause “declines in cognitive task performance” (van Vugt and van der Velde 2018: 175), and in model-based decision-making (Liu et al, 2023).

Van Vugt and van der Velde (2018) developed a mechanistic cognitive model of mind-wandering based on ACT-R (adaptive control of thought-rational) architecture and on assumptions that 1) the main task and “off” task mind-wandering are competing for person’s cognitive resources and 2) mind-wandering is “a process of memory retrieval” (van Vugt and van der Velder 2018: 177).

The research on MBT for attention and mind-wandering in particular shows evidence for specific objectives in healthy individuals in highly demanding jobs—military, first responders and fire-fighters (Jha et al 2015, Stanely et al 2011). The MBT application in political contexts is also expanding (Bristow 2019, Lilley 2020) and can be beneficial to policy decision making through various mechanisms, since the MBT reduces, for example, the escalation of commitment (Schmitzer-Torbert 2020), but there is still no data on whether it attenuates the effects of bounded rationality.

Experimental design:

To test the hypothesis that MBT can improve the completion of cognitively demanding task, I design and carry out a randomised field experiment with active and passive control groups. The participants’ problem solving skills are tested 1) prior to mindfulness-based attention training intervention (T1); 2) immediately after the intervention (T2); and 3) in a 30 days follow up (T3). Cognitively demanding tasks are loosely based on the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) mock case study—the participants are asked to suggest a solution to a policy issue while respecting a number of limitations. If the MBT (in regards to attention and mind-wandering) indeed helps to reduce “off task” time and frees cognitive resources for main task problem-solving, I expect to see the results at T2 to be better than those at T1; and T3 equal or worse than T2, but better than T1.

Bibliography:

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ABSTRACT. Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents represent a novel class of social actors within social and economic systems. To ensure the effective integration of human-AI societies, it is crucial to understand how people perceive and form impressions of AI agents. A particularly useful framework for understanding human-AI relationships is offered by social cognition research (Fiske, 1993, 2018). In this framework, the two fundamental dimensions of social cognition are warmth and competence. Warmth refers to one’s intentions, whether they are benevolent or malevolent, while competence refers to one’s ability to act on their intentions. The perception of an interaction partner’s low/high warmth and low/high competence is related to emotional and behavioral reactions towards them. Although both warmth and competence judgments are fundamental for social perception, evidence indicates the primacy of warmth judgments; warmth is typically judged before competence and carries more weight in affective and behavioral reactions (Fiske, 2018). Non-human actors, such as AI agents, elicit social cognitive judgments in a similar manner as humans, and prior work has identified warmth and competence as meaningful dimensions of AI agents’ perception (Harris-Watson et al., 2023; McKee, Bai & Fiske, 2023). In the present research, we compared human-human and human-AI trust-related interactions in terms of the fundamental dimensions of social cognition as the trustee’s characteristics, using a set of vignettes describing everyday trust-related situations. In the first study (N = 198), we compared the importance of warmth and competence characteristics of a human or AI trustee when making decisions in different types of trust-related situations. In the second study (N = 600), we compared warmth- and competence-related attributions when explaining the successful or unsuccessful result of a trust-related situation involving one of three trustee types: an AI agent, a human expert, or a human friend. In both studies, we used the same set of six vignettes, with two vignettes representing each of the three types of situations: (1) situations in which people would rather trust a friend, (2) situations in which people would rather trust a human expert, and (3) situations in which people would rather trust an AI agent. In Study 1, participants were asked to imagine that they found themselves in each of the six situations presented in the vignettes in which they were considering asking the trustee for support or advice. After reading each vignette, participants were asked to rate the importance of trustee characteristics when making a decision of whether to trust them or not. The results of Study 1 revealed that when deciding of how much trust to place, the two fundamental dimensions of social cognition were more influential in scenarios involving human trustees than in those involving AI trustees. Additionally, the competence of the trustee emerged as more critical than their warmth. However, the importance of the two dimensions depended on the type of the situation being considered. In situations in which people would rather trust a friend, the importance of warmth was higher, and the importance of competence was lower than in situations in which people would rather trust an expert or an AI agent. In Study 2, participants were first asked to imagine that they found themselves in each of the six situations presented in the vignettes. After reading each scenario, participants were informed about the trustee's performance (success or failure) and asked to rate the trustee on warmth and competence items. Below is a sample vignette with trustee type and performance manipulations, as well as warmth and competence measures: „You have a legal problem that could lead to serious consequences and you don’t know how to handle it. You decide to consult a/an [AI agent/expert/friend]. You follow their advice and end up really [happy/unhappy] about the consequences. In your opinion, the [AI agent/expert/friend] is: a) friendly; b) competent.” Results of Study 2 showed that when explaining trust-related situations in retrospect, i.e., already knowing their consequences, people attributed less warmth and less competence to AI agent trustees than to human trustees (experts or friends). Also, trustee performance had a smaller effect on the warmth and competence scores of AI agent trustees than in the case of human trustees. Just like experts, AI agents were rated as equally warm and competent, while friends were rated as more warm than competent. Our outcomes should be considered in the context of the functions of stereotypes, which help people make sense of the social world. In our present research, AI agents were viewed as less competent than humans from high competence groups (friends or experts), less warm than friends (high warmth stereotype), and equally or less warm than experts (low warmth stereotype). AI technologies are perceived as social actors, and people interact with them as such. Therefore, we believe it would be valuable to further explore stereotypes that can be associated with AI agents as a social group. The results might also be considered in the context of cognitive biases. Recent research on the perception of AI showed that in a number of contexts, the label “AI” could have a negative connotation (e.g. Bellaiche et al., 2023; Grassini & Koivisto, 2024). Our findings suggest that, under identical conditions, AI agents were rated lower than humans in both warmth and competence, which likely confirms the presence of an anti-AI bias in impression formation. Furthermore, the diminished importance of warmth and competence when making trust-related decisions in human- AI interactions may be linked to a form of apprehension toward AI technologies. Future research should explore whether these more negative attitudes and reduced trust in AI agents, compared to humans, are rooted in unconscious biases against AI technologies. Understanding what shapes people’s perceptions of AI technologies is crucial for the smooth functioning of human-AI societies. The presented results contribute to interdisciplinary research with the goal to ensure beneficial interactions between humans and AI technologies.

References are provided in a separate file as adding them here exceeds the word limit.

ABSTRACT. We focus on the preferences of a salient group of highly-experienced individuals who are entrusted with making decisions that affect the lives of millions of their citizens, heads of government. We test for the presence of a fundamental behavioral bias, loss aversion, by examining heads of governments' choice of decision rules for international organizations. Loss averse leaders would choose decision rules that oversupply negative (blocking) power at the expense of positive power (to initiate affirmative action), causing potential welfare losses through harmful policy persistence and reform deadlocks. If loss aversion is muted by experience and large-stakes it may not be exhibited in this context. We find evidence of significant loss aversion implied in the Qualified Majority rule of the Treaty of Lisbon, when understood as a Nash bargaining outcome. World leaders may be more loss averse than the populous they represent.

This paper focuses on the preferences of a very small, but nonetheless extremely salient, group of individuals who are entrusted with making decisions that affect the lives of millions of their citizens: heads of government. If indeed loss aversion is a basic evolutionary trait then we should expect to observe it within heads of government. On the other hand, heads of government are an unrepresentative sample of the human race. They are, for instance, substantially more cognitively able than average (Dal Bó et al., 2017). Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, there is growing evidence that these individuals (and other elite decision-makers) possess superior, or at least different, faculties of decision-making to a more representative sample of the population and, in particular, to the undergraduate students upon which many experimental estimates of loss aversion are based (e.g., Alevy et al., 2007; Hafner-Burton et al., 2013).

A growing body of evidence casts loss aversion as a potentially mutable behavioral bias, arising from the interplay of immediate emotional reactions with deep cognitive preferences in decision-making processes (e.g., Sokol-Hessner et al., 2009, 2013; Andersson et al., 2016; Cheng and He, 2017). Accordingly, some economists (e.g., List, 2003, 2011; List and Mason, 2011; Levitt and List, 2008) argue that loss aversion may go away with experience and large stakes. If so, world leaders, who make large-stakes decisions on a daily basis, should not be prone to loss aversion. Furthermore, political leaders also are known to have higher than average educational attainment (e.g., Dal Bó et al., 2009; Dal Bó and Rossi, 2011), and education is frequently negatively associated with the strength of loss aversion (Booij and Kuilen, 2009; Hjorth and Fosgerau, 2011; Gächter et al., 2022). Also, Inesi (2010) reports experimental ndings indicating that powerful people exhibit less loss aversion.

Our principal analysis studies the adoption in 2007 by European leaders of a new decision rule the so-called Lisbon Quali ed Majority (QM) rule for the European Union Council of Ministers (EUCO). The QM decision rule is a majority rule used by the EUCO as an alternative to unanimity for decision-making in a subset of policy domains. The Lisbon QM rule requires that, to pass, 55 percent of member states must vote in favor of a motion, and those in favor must also represent at least 65 percent of European Union (EU) citizens. Alternatively, a motion also passes if three or fewer countries vote against it. To rationalize this decision rule as a bargaining outcome requires estimates of loss aversion that are (well) above two, providing evidence that EU leaders are loss averse in both an absolute and relative sense. Consistent with our ndings, Axel Moberg, a witness to the negotiation of the earlier Nice QM rule as a member of the Swedish delegation, documents how member states were largely preoccupied with "...the ability of groups of like-minded states to block decisions" (Moberg, 2002: 261), i.e., a negative concept of power (see also Galloway, 2001, Ch. 4). As a robustness check, we show that our qualitative finding of absolute and relative loss aversion among world leaders also holds for the design of earlier negotiations of QM rules back to 1958, and is also robust to perturbations of the baseline methodology.