Why do we spend money? Why do we buy things we don’t need or items that are outside of what we can afford? What advice should we heed if we’re trying to improve our ability to walk out of a store with only what we intended to buy? Some argue that gender, ethnic group membership or socio-economic status alone can explain differences in shopping and spending. Like with other areas of research (including affluent …
Take two children from seemingly similar advantaged, affluent backgrounds – perhaps parents with similarly prestigious jobs, the same type of family structure, high SAT scores, same GPAs, even the same interests and career plans. Why, in the future, would one end up with a significantly higher income than the other? It may be self-concept, or more specifically, core self-evaluations (CSEs): a set of psychological characteristics that include a belief in one’s worth and one’s …
Beginning in 1995 and then more broadly in 2000, the Social Security Administration (SSA) began mailing hard copy statements of estimated benefits to workers (the “Statements”; see the the SSA website). Included in the Statements were available disability insurance (DI) benefits and estimated monthly benefits at certain retirement ages, along with other information. The SSA stopped sending the Statements in 2011 for budget reasons but restarted the program in 2014. How did the Statements affect …