Self-control and financial risk taking

We report two studies investigating the role of self-control in risky financial decision-making, operationalized as incentivized lottery task decisions. Study 1 (N = 529) investigated the link between propensity to take financial risks and trait self-control. Study 2 (N = 321) examined whether reflecting on one’s prior successes and failures in exercising self-control has an impact on subsequent risky financial decision-making. Study 1 identified a negative link between self-control and financial risk-taking, and Study 2 found that reflecting on self-control successes lowered people’s propensity to take financial risks, while reflecting on self-control failures made people more prone to take financial risks.     

Family Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Risks of Financial Insecurity and Coping

During the COVID-19 pandemic, families have experienced unprecedented financial and social disruptions. We studied the impact of preexisting psychosocial factors and pandemic-related financial and social disruptions in relation to family well-being among N = 4091 adolescents and parents during early summer 2020, participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development^SM Study. Poorer family well-being was linked to prepandemic psychosocial and financial adversity and was associated with pandemic-related material hardship and social disruptions to routines. Parental alcohol use increased risk for worsening of family relationships, while a greater endorsement of coping strategies was mainly associated with overall better family well-being. Financial and mental health support may be critical for family well-being during and after a widespread crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.     

Determinants of financial worry and rumination

Significant parts of populations in developed countries frequently worry and ruminate about their finances. Financial worry and rumination can have serious psychological consequences, resulting in lower psychological well-being, mental-health problems, and impaired cognitive functioning. The literature lacks studies investigating the socio-demographic antecedents of and the financial processes underlying financial worry and rumination.The purpose of our study was to investigate the socio-demographic and financial antecedents of financial worry and rumination (FWR) and the financial factors mediating these relationships. We collected online self-administered survey data from a sample of the Dutch population (N = 1040). Using confirmatory factor analysis, we found that a bifactor model, including a strong and reliable general factor, provided the best explanation of the structure underlying FWR.We developed a parallel mediation model and investigated its structural relationships using structural equation modeling. After controlling for multiple hypotheses testing, our results show that income, past positive changes in one’s finances, and age are negatively related to FWR. We found no support for education level and only weak support for expected changes in one’s finances as antecedents. Furthermore, the explained variance in FWR substantially improved after adding the mediators of making ends meet, financial buffer, and perceived debts. Among these mediators, making ends meet played a key role explaining respectively half and two-thirds of the total effects of income and past changes in one’s finances on FWR. These results were robust under several specifications and were generalizable to the Dutch population. We discuss the implications of our results for future research and government policy.     

The ant and the grasshopper revisited: The present psychological benefits of saving and future oriented financial behaviors

This study examines the impact of saving and future-oriented financial behaviors on young adults’ well-being. Using two-timed longitudinal data (N = 748) collected both prior to and during the economic crisis, we tested and confirmed a psychological process model (i.e., financial attitude → behavioral intention → actual behavior → well-being), one that included parental norms, perceived behavioral control and financial planning horizon as antecedent factors. Our findings indicate that the more positive a young adult’s attitude toward financial behaviors, and the greater his/her perception of parental expectations, then the stronger will be this young adult’s intention to perform such behaviors. We found that behavioral intention at Time 1 contributed to actual financial behaviors at Time 2, which in turn was positively related to a young adult’s present sense of well-being. We also found that perceived behavioral control and financial planning horizon influenced both behavioral intention and actual behavior. Although perceived impact of the economic crisis moderated the link between past and present well-being, it did not affect the hierarchical flow of the model. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our study pertaining to consumer financial education.     

Improving youth mental health through family-based prevention in family homeless shelters

This exploratory study examines changes in suicidal ideation among a sample (N = 28) of homeless youth, ages 11–14, residing within family shelters in a large metropolitan area. Changes in suicidal ideation from pretest to posttest are compared across two group approaches to delivering HIV prevention. Youth and their families participating in the HOPE Family Program, incorporating a family strengthening approach, are compared to those receiving a traditional health education-only approach. Multivariate analyses reveal that youth in the HOPE Family Program were 13 times more likely to report a decrease of suicidal ideation. These findings indicate that health education programs integrating a family strengthening approach hold promise for positively impacting mental health outcomes for vulnerable youth.     

“Being a Therapist Doesn't Exclude You From Real Life”: Family Therapists’ Beliefs and Barriers to Political Action

A crucial and overlooked facet of social justice in family therapy is political and policy advocacy. Family therapists have unique insight into how social policies and political discourse shapes clients’ lives and the life of our profession. Such knowledge can inform policymakers and political debate, yet few family therapists are trained to engage in political action. In this randomized, national survey of licensed family therapists’ (N = 174), we explore beliefs about and barriers to engagement in political and policy processes. The findings suggest that there are significant barriers and uncertainties surrounding family therapists’ engagement, including time, feelings of efficacy, and interest. Given these barriers we discuss practical suggestions for clinicians and family therapy training programs.     

Housing costs and child functioning: Processes through investments and financial strains

This study used family investment and family stress theories to illuminate mechanisms through which housing costs may affect low-income children's psychosocial and cognitive functioning. Using longitudinal data from the Three City Study (N = 1898), path analyses found support for the investment perspective, with housing and neighborhood contexts mediating associations between higher housing costs and greater behavioral functioning and academic skills. These benefits of higher housing costs were somewhat offset by negative direct associations with children's functioning, although these were not explained by financial strain. Results revealed that receipt of government housing assistance disrupted these pathways. Few differences in patterns emerged between young children and adolescents. Policy implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Predicting children's savings: The role of parents' savings for transferring financial advantage and opportunities for financial inclusion

Parents transfer many forms of advantage to children based on their financial resources. Of interest is whether parents transfer educational and financial advantages and whether this occurs early in life. This paper examines financial advantage by asking whether children's own savings—apart from that of their parents—can be predicted by a separate measure of parents' savings for their child. This study predicts children's basic and college savings at ages 12 to 15 with separate samples from low-to-moderate- (LMI; N = 333) and high-income (HI; N = 411) households using Panel Study of Income Dynamics and Child Development Supplement data. Propensity score weighting and logistic regression results find that parents' savings for their child is significant in both household types. Given this, policies that aim to include children in savings may help reduce transfers of financial advantage and, ultimately, educational advantage.     

Economic distress and mental health: The role of family coping resources and behaviors

Relationships among economic distress, family coping resources and behaviors, and mental health are examined among a sample of 203 married men and 207 married women. Economic distress is negatively associated with mental health. Although family coping resources are lower among those experiencing economic distress and are generally positively related to mental health, their role as mediators of relationships between economic distress and mental health is limited. Economic distress is positively related to family coping behaviors. However, these behaviors do not have positive relationships with mental health and do not counteract the effects of economic distress on mental health. Some coping resources and behaviors have buffering effects on relationships between economic distress and mental health while others have exacerbating effects.This article is a revision of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August, 1986. The research was supported by grant 84–164 from the Office of Program Evaluation and Research, Ohio Department of Mental Health. Additional support was provided by the Office of Computing Activities, University of Dayton.Patricia Voydanoff is Director of the Center for the Study of Family Development, University of Dayton. Dr. Voydanoff holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Wayne State University. Her research interests include work and family life and coping with economic distress.Brenda W. Donnelly is a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Family Development, University of Dayton. Dr. Donnelly received her Ph.D. from the University of Delaware. She is currently conducting research on adolescent childbearing and religion and family life.     

Differing conceptions of the causes of the economic crisis: Effects of culture,economic training,and personal impact

We report findings from a survey regarding the lay perception of the causes of the worldwide economic and financial crisis. Respondents (N = 2245) from a variety of countries were included: China (Hong Kong), Turkey, Russia, Israel, Germany, USA, and France. We have previously documented a range of factors that affects lay understanding of the crisis The present study expanded the database and focuses on the combination of factors that jointly predict whether the respondents view the crisis as a complex impersonal system that malfunctioned, or hold a moral/intentional view about its origins. We show that respondents from Western World countries, who were unaffected by the crisis and have economic training, interpret the crisis differently from all other respondents (i.e., those living in Turkey, Russia, or Hong Kong, and those who were personally affected by the crisis or without economic training). These differences have important implications on how policies are perceived and evaluated by the public, and should inform how they are presented to the public.     

In Spite of All,We Make It: Themes of Stress and Resiliency as Told by Women in Families Living in Poverty

The purpose of this research study was to increase our understanding of how families living in poverty successfully meet life challenges. Family resiliency provided the theoretical framework for examining family coping and adaptation. This study used a purposive sample of women (N = 128) in families with children attending Head Start. All families lived below or at poverty level, most with 11th grade education or high-school/GED diploma. Content analysis methods were used for data analysis. Results of this study identify the characteristics that promote competence, including how individual, family, and environmental factors are potential stressors that also may serve to promote family resilience. The data indicate that family love and mutual support, as well as faith, help stressed families cope and maintain meaning in spite of lack of control over life circumstances resulting from economic poverty.     

The arithmetic of outcome editing in financial and social domains

Outcome editing refers to a set of mental rules that people apply when deciding whether to evaluate multiple outcomes jointly or separately, which subsequently affects choice. In a large-scale online survey (n = 2062) we investigate whether individuals use the same outcome editing rules for financial outcomes (e.g., a lottery win) and social outcomes (e.g., a party with friends). We also test the role of numeric ability in explaining outcome editing. Our results show that people’s preferences for combining or separating events depend on whether those events are in the financial or the social domain. Specifically, individuals were more likely to segregate social outcomes than monetary outcomes, except for when all outcomes were negative. Moreover, numeric ability was associated with preferences for outcome editing in the financial domain but not in the social domain. Our findings extend the understanding of the arithmetic operations underlying outcome editing and suggest that people rely more on calculations when making choices involving multiple financial outcomes and more on feelings when making choices involving social outcomes.     

Greed and adolescent financial behavior

Financial problems in adolescents have increased over the last decades. We investigated if individual differences in greed relate to financial behavior. Greed is an important motive for economic behavior and refers to the tendency to never be satisfied and to always want more. We developed a short version of the Dispositional Greed Scale (Seuntjens, Zeelenberg, Van de Ven, & Breugelmans, 2015), which we then used in a large survey with adolescents (N = 3899). Dispositional greed is associated with them having more income, spending more, saving less often, and having debt more often. Identifying what personality characteristics influence financial behavior at a young age is important, as the financial habits that people learn during adolescence persist in adulthood. We find that greed has both positive effects (having a higher income), but also negative effects with the greedy being less likely to save and being more likely to have a debt.     

Programmatic effects to modify sources of financial support among Hispanic teenage mothers

This study evaluates whether a randomized school-based intervention for adolescent teenage mothers successfully helped participants achieve better financial independence and economic prospects. Project Mothers and Schools (PMAS) is an initiative intended to modify attitudes and beliefs related to self-sufficiency, parenting, educational goals and achievement, career goals, health behaviors, and interpersonal relationships with family members. PMAS participants were surveyed at baseline and 12 months after intervention enrollment to evaluate the receipt of financial support from 11 sources. The 48 “core group” participants received a basic level of services, whereas the 43 “core-plus group” participants received the same basic services and additional enhanced services. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to identify statistically significant changes in participant responses from baseline to 12 months post-intervention. Both groups reported higher levels of employment 12 months post-intervention compared to baseline (z = − 3.162, p = 0.002 and z = − 2.646, p = 0.008, respectively). The core-plus group used more Food Stamps (z = − 2.673, p = 0.008) and reported receiving more child support (z = 2.236, p = 0.025) 12 months post-intervention versus baseline. PMAS benefited all participants by promoting employment 12 months post-intervention versus baseline. The enhanced services offered to the core-plus group appeared to also increase participant access to Food Stamps and child support, sources which assist participants down the path toward eventual financial independence.     

Sandwich generation in China: Exchange pattern with older parents and educational expenditure on young children

The sandwich generation have dual care commitments to both ageing parents and children, so balancing the distribution of resources to older and younger generations is an important issue for them. Using data from the (China Family Panel Studies, 2018, N = 1,477), we investigated the associations between financial exchange patterns with older parents and educational expenditure on young children from the perspective of sandwich generation couples. The results indicate that individuals tended to spend less on their children's education when they had obligatory financial exchange patterns with their ageing parents compared to their counterparts with independent exchange patterns. The associations between financial exchange patterns and educational expenditure on young children differed between low- and high-income families. This study contributes to understanding the complexity of fulfilling the multigenerational support commitments of the sandwich generation and calls for more social support for such individuals.     

Social insurance and children: The relationship between Social Security,economic well-being,and family context among child recipients

The relationship between social insurance, which provides families protection against certain risks, and child economic security is understudied. Using the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) matched to Social Security Administration benefit records, this article investigates the economic welfare effects of the child component of the US Social Security program. We examine how the poverty rate of child beneficiaries would change, absent Social Security income, and how heavily the family incomes of these children rely on it, by family characteristics. Our findings reveal that Social Security plays an important role in mitigating economic insecurity among children deprived of a wage-earning parent through disability, death, or retirement. Family structure, earnings, and employment status are identified as key factors moderating the effect of Social Security on child recipients’ financial circumstance.     

Expanding the Family Economic Stress Model: Insights From a Mixed‐Methods Approach

The current study used a mixed‐methods approach to examine how low‐income mothers managed their household economies, their experiences of economic pressure, and the consequences for family and child functioning. Qualitative analyses (N = 32 families) revealed that experiences of economic pressure were associated with an inability to afford both basic needs and some modest but highly valued “extras.” To meet demands, mothers reported using a variety of strategies, including instrumental support from friends and family members and other financial strategies. Results from the quantitative analyses (N= 516 families; 800 children, ages 6 – 15) were generally consistent with patterns observed in the qualitative analyses and extended the findings to include effects on parenting practices and children’s behavioral functioning.     

Constructing children's psychological well-being: Sources of resilience for children left behind in Northeast China

Population mobility has become an inevitable trend of social transformation in contemporary China. Parental migration has changed family structure patterns and brought great uncertainty to the psychological well-being of left-behind children. By comparing left-behind children to children of non-migrants, this study examines the impact of parental migration on children's psychological well-being and the potential support of schools for children's resilience development along three dimensions: children's school belonging, teacher–student relationships and peer support. Using a mixed-method approach, this study draws on an original survey of children (N = 605) and in-depth interviews with children, parents, grandparents, and teachers (N = 41) in Hunchun City, Northeast China. Overall, maternal migration has a negative impact on children's psychological well-being. In addition to teacher–student relationships, school belonging and peer support significantly mitigate this negative impact; qualitative data further suggest that peer support distracts from, rather than offsets, children's poor psychological well-being associated with maternal migration.     

Public Participation: Moving Beyond the Four Walls of Therapy

Family therapists have an ethical responsibility for public participation, to work toward creating a better society. Serving the public interest and developing laws to promote the profession and the public good can be achieved through policy advocacy and political participation. Political and policy work are important but overlooked aspects of family therapy, which is significant given the consequences differing policies have for clients and the profession. This paper reports on results from a random, national survey of licensed family therapists’ (N = 174) advocacy actions. Findings indicate family therapists have overarching policy concerns yet lack proactive legislative and activist engagement. The exploration of therapists’ actions and beliefs presented in this paper, serves as a springboard for therapists’ movement into the public arena. Video abstract accessible by clicking here .     

Keeping it in the family: The impact of a Family Finding intervention on placement,permanency, and well-being outcomes

Child-centered recruitment via Family Finding has gained national attention as an approach to search, discover, and engage kin and fictive kin to support the attachment and permanency needs of children in foster care. However, despite its promise it has received scant attention in the empirical literature. The current study compared the outcomes of a front-end Family Finding intervention (n = 196) and a comparison group (n = 262) among children in foster care in Cook County Illinois between the ages of 6 and 13. Results showed that there were no differences between the intervention and comparison group on reunification rates, placement stability, or on longitudinal externalizing behavior and internalizing symptoms. However, the intervention found close to 75% more relatives than the control group, and many of these relatives were significant figures in the children's lives. The intervention was also associated with a higher proportion of relative placements to total placements for a subgroup of children with five or more placements. Further, the effect of the intervention on this proportion (relative placements to total placements) was mediated by the greater number of relatives found in the intervention. Finally, the intervention was associated with relatively better Concurrent Planning. These results suggest that Family Finding has the potential to impact proximal outcomes related to discovery, engagement and planning but is currently not impacting more distal outcomes such as permanency and well-being. Family Finding approaches should continue to innovate, possibly through integration with psychosocial interventions, to affect more distal variables such as well-being outcomes.