Injunctive social norms primacy over descriptive social norms in retirement savings decisions

Delivering information about retirement saving among Hispanic women: two Facebook experiments

We conducted two Facebook experiments (the first one during July 21-25, 2016, and the second during April 22-25, 2018) to determine what type of message related to injunctive norms is more effective in getting Hispanic women interested in learning about financial planning for retirement. We also explore how social media tools could be used in future interventions to promote retirement saving among Hispanic women. In both experiments, we found that a message centered on peer influence may be more successful than a message centered on familism in getting Hispanic women interested in learning more about financial planning for retirement. When we disaggregate our data by age and state, we find that click-through rates were higher among Hispanic women between 45 and 55 years old, and the largest numbers of impressions were among Hispanic women in California and Texas. When we disaggregate our data by device, we find that most study participants were reached through an Android smartphone.

A developmental model of financial capability

This study proposes a developmental model of financial capability to understand the process by which young adults acquire the financial knowledge and behaviors needed to manage full-time adult social roles and responsibilities. The model integrates financial knowledge, financial self-beliefs, financial behavior, and well-being into a single financial decision-making process. With two-time longitudinal survey data from college students ( N = 1,511; aged 18–23 years at Wave 1 and 21–26 years at Wave 2), the findings provide support for a pattern of co-occurring change: changing knowledge about personal finances associated with changing self-beliefs about finances; changing self-beliefs associated with changing financial behaviors; and changing financial behaviors ultimately associated with changes in financial and overall well-being. We discuss the findings in the context of facilitating a positive transition to adulthood during widespread economic uncertainty.