IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0159561.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effects of Financial Education on Impulsive Decision Making

Author

Listed:
  • William B DeHart
  • Jonathan E Friedel
  • Jean M Lown
  • Amy L Odum

Abstract

Delay discounting, as a behavioral measure of impulsive choice, is strongly related to substance abuse and other risky behaviors. Therefore, effective techniques that alter delay discounting are of great interest. We explored the ability of a semester long financial education course to change delay discounting. Participants were recruited from a financial education course (n = 237) and an abnormal psychology course (n = 80). Both groups completed a delay-discounting task for $100 during the first two weeks (Time 1) of the semester as well as during the last two weeks (Time 2) of the semester. Participants also completed a personality inventory and financial risk tolerance scale both times and a delay-discounting task for $1,000 during Time 2. Delay discounting decreased in the financial education group at the end of the semester whereas there was no change in delay discounting in the abnormal psychology group. Financial education may be an effective method for reducing delay discounting.

Suggested Citation

  • William B DeHart & Jonathan E Friedel & Jean M Lown & Amy L Odum, 2016. "The Effects of Financial Education on Impulsive Decision Making," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0159561
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0159561
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0159561
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0159561&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0159561?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. DeSteno, David & Li, Ye & Dickens, Leah & Lerner, Jennifer, 2014. "Gratitude: A Tool for Reducing Economic Impatience," Scholarly Articles 12185844, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    2. Annamaria Lusardi & Olivia S. Mitchell & Vilsa Curto, 2009. "Financial Literacy among the Young: Evidence and Implications for Consumer Policy," NBER Working Papers 15352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lenth, Russell V., 2016. "Least-Squares Means: The R Package lsmeans," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 69(i01).
    4. Meier, Stephan & Sprenger, Charles D., 2013. "Discounting financial literacy: Time preferences and participation in financial education programs," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 159-174.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ascaryan RAFINDA & Tímea GÁL, 2019. "The Educational Programme For Micro Investment In Agriculture In Indonesian Rural Areas," SEA - Practical Application of Science, Romanian Foundation for Business Intelligence, Editorial Department, issue 19, pages 23-38, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grohmann, Antonia & Kouwenberg, Roy & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2014. "Financial literacy and its consequences in the emerging middleclass," Kiel Working Papers 1943, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Yoshihiko Kadoya & Mostafa Saidur Rahim Khan, 2018. "Can financial literacy reduce anxiety about life in old age?," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(12), pages 1533-1550, December.
    3. Beshears, John & Choi, James J. & Laibson, David & Madrian, Brigitte C., 2011. "Behavioral economics perspectives on public sector pension plans," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 315-336, April.
    4. Zhang, Jiyuan & Tang, Hailong & Chen, Min, 2019. "Linear substitute model-based uncertainty analysis of complicated non-linear energy system performance (case study of an adaptive cycle engine)," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C), pages 87-108.
    5. Dario Priolo & Ciro Tolisano & Monica Brienza & Daniele Del Buono, 2024. "Insight into the Biostimulant Effect of an Aqueous Duckweed Extract on Tomato Plants," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-14, May.
    6. Jindrich Matousek & Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova, 2022. "Individual discount rates: a meta-analysis of experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 318-358, February.
    7. Gangwar, Rachna & Singh, Ritvik, 2018. "Analyzing Factors Affecting Financial Literacy and its Impact on Investment Behavior among Adults in India," MPRA Paper 89452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Sean Coogan & Zhixian Sui & David Raubenheimer, 2018. "Gluttony and guilt: monthly trends in internet search query data are comparable with national-level energy intake and dieting behavior," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-9, December.
    9. Paul E. Rose & James E. Brereton & Lewis J. Rowden & Ricardo Lemos Figueiredo & Lisa M. Riley, 2019. "What’s new from the zoo? An analysis of ten years of zoo-themed research output," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-10, December.
    10. van Rooij, Maarten C.J. & Lusardi, Annamaria & Alessie, Rob J.M., 2011. "Financial literacy and retirement planning in the Netherlands," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 593-608, August.
    11. Davidoff, Thomas & Gerhard, Patrick & Post, Thomas, 2017. "Reverse mortgages: What homeowners (don’t) know and how it matters," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 151-171.
    12. Grohmann, Antonia, 2018. "Financial literacy and financial behavior: Evidence from the emerging Asian middle class," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 129-143.
    13. Asarta, Carlos J. & Hill, Andrew T. & Meszaros, Bonnie T., 2014. "The features and effectiveness of the Keys to Financial Success curriculum," International Review of Economics Education, Elsevier, vol. 16(PA), pages 39-50.
    14. Andrew T. Hill & Carlos J. Asarta, 2015. "Gender and Student Achievement in Personal Finance: Evidence from Keys to Financial Success," Working Papers 15-01, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    15. Giovanni Gallo & Costanza Torricelli & Arthur van Soest, 2016. "Individual heterogeneity and pension choices: How to communicate an effective message?," Center for the Analysis of Public Policies (CAPP) 0136, Universita di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Dipartimento di Economia "Marco Biagi".
    16. James Andreoni & Michael Callen & Karrar Hussain & Muhammad Yasir Khan & Charles Sprenger, 2023. "Using Preference Estimates to Customize Incentives: An Application to Polio Vaccination Drives in Pakistan," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 1428-1477.
    17. Stella D. Juventia & Sarah K. Jones & Marie-Angélique Laporte & Roseline Remans & Chiara Villani & Natalia Estrada-Carmona, 2020. "Text Mining National Commitments towards Agrobiodiversity Conservation and Use," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-19, January.
    18. Kadoya, Yoshihiko & Khan, Mostafa Saidur Rahim, 2020. "What determines financial literacy in Japan?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 353-371, July.
    19. Lena Detlefsen & Andreas Friedl & Katharina Lima de Miranda & Ulrich Schmidt & Matthias Sutter, 2018. "Are economic preferences shaped by the family context? The impact of birth order and siblings’ sex composition on economic preferences," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2018_12, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    20. Elisabeth Sinnewe & Gavin Nicholson, 2023. "Healthy financial habits in young adults: An exploratory study of the relationship between subjective financial literacy, engagement with finances, and financial decision‐making," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 564-592, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0159561. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.