Want to be better with money? Sit in a tall chair: Tricking your brain into feeling powerful motivates you to save more
comments
With numerous outgoings, it can feel impossible to put money aside for a rainy day - but a simple mind trick could change that.
Research has discovered that making someone feel more powerful can result in them saving more of their hard-earned cash.
Across five studies, people who were asked to sit in a tall chair were more thrifty and frugal than those who sat on a low ottoman.
Research has discovered that simply making someone feel more powerful can result in them saving more of their hard-earned cash. Across five studies, people who were asked to sit in a tall chair were more thrifty and frugal than those who sat on a low ottoman
'We were interested in knowing whether the decision to save or not save money was affected by how someone was feeling during the time they were making a savings decision,' wrote authors Emily N. Garbinsky and Jennifer Aaker, from Stanford University, and Anne-Kathrin Klesse from Tilburg University.
During tests, the authors found that when made to feel powerful, the amount of money someone is willing to save for the future increases.
In one study, participants were made to feel powerful and were asked to sit in a tall chair. Other participants were made to feel powerless and were asked to sit on a low ottoman.
All participants were asked to respond to some questions and were then given the option to either collect their study compensation in cash or to put it in a lab savings account.
Another study revealed that making people feel powerful only increases saving when they are told they will be saving money to keep it, or when they are not given a specific reason to save
POWERFUL PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE TALLER, RESEARCH SUGGESTS
Some might think it's merely a tall tale – but researchers have found that the more powerful you are, the taller you think you are.
Previous research by Michelle Duguid from Washington University in St Louis and Jack Goncalo from Cornell University in New York conditioned volunteers into feeling empowered before testing them in three experiments on height perception.
The results show a definite correlation between feeling powerful and feeling tall and the study even suggests that employers might like to place short key workers in high offices to help them feel more dominant.
In a write-up of the recent study the pair said: 'The psychological experience of power may cause individuals to actually feel taller than an objective measurement would indicate they really are.'
Results showed the individuals who sat in the tall chair saved more of their money than those who sat on the low ottoman.
Another study revealed that making people feel powerful only increases saving when they are told they will be saving money to keep it, or when they are not given a specific reason to save.
In other words, making people feel powerful only motivates them to save money when the purpose of saving is to accumulate financial resources, and not when the purpose of saving is to spend those resources later.
Companies offering financial services like retirement planning can use these results to help their customers prepare for the future, including the creation of more effective intervention strategies, the researchers said.
Consumers can also use the results to better understand their own personal relationships with power and money.
'People who feel powerful use saving money as a means to maintain their current state of power. When saving no longer affords individuals the opportunity to maintain power, the effect of power on saving disappears,' the authors concluded.
Put the internet to work for you.
0 comments:
Post a Comment