IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v22y2021i1d10.1007_s10902-020-00235-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Virtue of Thrift: A Person-Centered Conceptualization and Measure Development

Author

Listed:
  • Juliette L. Ratchford

    (Baylor University)

  • Sarah A. Schnitker

    (Baylor University)

  • Paul Reppas

    (Fuller Theological Seminary)

Abstract

The virtue of thrift, defined as the wise use and distribution of resources, has yet to receive much empirical study, despite the popularization of virtue research more broadly within positive psychology. With the recent rise in perceived resource scarcity (North and Fiske in J Soc Issues 72:122–145, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12159 ), thrift is a virtue of increasing importance. The purpose of these studies is to establish the virtue of thrift as a construct for psychological inquiry. The Thrift Questionnaire 21 was developed with EFA (Study 1; N = 257) and validated with CFA (Study 2; N = 401) to measure five factors of thrift (frugality/ecocentrism, spending dysregulation, investment, sharing/borrowing, and sanctified thrift), which relate to other virtues and predict well-being after accounting for personality traits. Latent profile analysis of the thrift factors in Study 2 revealed three profiles for the virtue of thrift: instrumental thrift (40.1%), non-thrift (33.7%), and sanctified thrift (26.3%). Participants classified under the sanctified thrift profile reported the highest levels of spontaneous giving, self-reported generosity, and gratitude, which supports the classification of this profile as representing the virtue of thrift. Potential objections to thrift are addressed as well as future directions for research.

Suggested Citation

  • Juliette L. Ratchford & Sarah A. Schnitker & Paul Reppas, 2021. "The Virtue of Thrift: A Person-Centered Conceptualization and Measure Development," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 385-411, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:22:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10902-020-00235-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-020-00235-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-020-00235-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-020-00235-7?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Otto, Annette M.C. & Schots, Paul A.M. & Westerman, Joris A.J. & Webley, Paul, 2006. "Children's use of saving strategies: An experimental approach," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 57-72, February.
    2. Rabinovich, Anna & Webley, Paul, 2007. "Filling the gap between planning and doing: Psychological factors involved in the successful implementation of saving intention," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 444-461, August.
    3. Tatzel, Miriam, 2002. ""Money worlds" and well-being: An integration of money dispositions, materialism and price-related behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 103-126, February.
    4. Lastovicka, John L, et al, 1999. "Lifestyle of the Tight and Frugal: Theory and Measurement," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 26(1), pages 85-98, June.
    5. Scott I. Rick & Cynthia E. Cryder & George Loewenstein, 2008. "Tightwads and Spendthrifts," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(6), pages 767-782, October.
    6. Achtziger, Anja & Hubert, Marco & Kenning, Peter & Raab, Gerhard & Reisch, Lucia, 2015. "Debt out of control: The links between self-control, compulsive buying, and real debts," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 141-149.
    7. Watson, John J., 2003. "The relationship of materialism to spending tendencies, saving, and debt," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 723-739, December.
    8. Anderson, C. Leigh & Nevitte, Neil, 2006. "Teach your children well: Values of thrift and saving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 247-261, April.
    9. Ger, Guliz & Belk, Russell W., 1996. "Cross-cultural differences in materialism," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 55-77, February.
    10. David G. Rand & Joshua D. Greene & Martin A. Nowak, 2012. "Spontaneous giving and calculated greed," Nature, Nature, vol. 489(7416), pages 427-430, September.
    11. Shim, Soyeon & Serido, Joyce & Tang, Chuanyi, 2012. "The ant and the grasshopper revisited: The present psychological benefits of saving and future oriented financial behaviors," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 155-165.
    12. Clifford F. Thies, 1996. "The Paradox of Thrift: RIP," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 16(1), pages 119-127, Spring/Su.
    13. Frank, Björn & Enkawa, Takao & Schvaneveldt, Shane J., 2015. "The role of individualism vs. collectivism in the formation of repurchase intent: A cross-industry comparison of the effects of cultural and personal values," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 261-278.
    14. Phipps, Marcus & Ozanne, Lucie K. & Luchs, Michael G. & Subrahmanyan, Saroja & Kapitan, Sommer & Catlin, Jesse R. & Gau, Roland & Naylor, Rebecca Walker & Rose, Randall L. & Simpson, Bonnie & Weaver, , 2013. "Understanding the inherent complexity of sustainable consumption: A social cognitive framework," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1227-1234.
    15. Kathryn Sharpe Wessling & Joel Huber & Oded Netzer, 2017. "MTurk Character Misrepresentation: Assessment and Solutions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(1), pages 211-230.
    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. Alipour, Ali & Yaprak, Attila, 2022. "Indulgence and risk-taking behavior of firms: Direct and interactive influences," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(2).
    2. Lilavati Krishnan, 2022. "The Scarcity–Prosociality Link: Ambiguous, Yet Thought-provoking," Psychology and Developing Societies, , vol. 34(1), pages 79-103, March.

    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. Marcelo Vinhal Nepomuceno & Michel Laroche, 2017. "When Materialists Intend to Resist Consumption: The Moderating Role of Self-Control and Long-Term Orientation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(3), pages 467-483, July.
    2. Nepomuceno, Marcelo Vinhal & Laroche, Michel, 2015. "The impact of materialism and anti-consumption lifestyles on personal debt and account balances," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 654-664.
    3. Liselot Hudders & Mario Pandelaere, 2012. "The Silver Lining of Materialism: The Impact of Luxury Consumption on Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 411-437, June.
    4. Wang, Hong & Ma, Baolong & Bai, Rubing & Zhang, Lin, 2021. "The unexpected effect of frugality on green purchase intention," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    5. Gong Sun & Wangshuai Wang & Zhiming Cheng & Jie Li & Junhua Chen, 2017. "The Intermediate Linkage Between Materialism and Luxury Consumption: Evidence from the Emerging Market of China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 475-487, May.
    6. Cäzilia Loibl & Jodi Letkiewicz & Simon McNair & Barbara Summers & Wändi Bruine de Bruin, 2021. "On the association of debt attitudes with socioeconomic characteristics and financial behaviors," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(3), pages 939-966, September.
    7. Lydia Chu, 2023. "Why Do Consumers Buy Green Smart Buildings without Engaging in Energy-Saving Behaviors in the Workplace? The Perspective of Materialistic Value," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-9, June.
    8. Marco FRIGERIO & Cristina OTTAVIANI & Daniela VANDONE, 2018. "A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Consumer Over-Indebtedness: the Role of Impulsivity," Departmental Working Papers 2018-08, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    9. Goldsmith, Ronald E. & Reinecke Flynn, Leisa & Clark, Ronald A., 2014. "The etiology of the frugal consumer," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 175-184.
    10. Linda Thunström & Chian Jones Ritten, 2019. "Endogenous attention to costs," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 1-22, August.
    11. Asli Elif Aydin, 2022. "Psychological and demographic factors influencing responsible credit card debt payment," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(1), pages 17-26, March.
    12. Innocent, Morgane & Francois-Lecompte, Agnès, 2018. "The values of electricity saving for consumers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 136-146.
    13. Pan, Li (Sunny) & Pezzuti, Todd & Lu, Wei & Pechmann, Cornelia (Connie), 2019. "Hyperopia and frugality: Different motivational drivers and yet similar effects on consumer spending," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 347-356.
    14. Gagandeep Kaur & Manjit Singh, 2024. "Pathways to Individual Financial Well-Being: Conceptual Framework and Future Research Agenda," FIIB Business Review, , vol. 13(1), pages 27-41, January.
    15. Mahfuzur Rahman & Mohamed Albaity & Billah Maruf, 2017. "The Role of Religiosity on the Relationship Between Materialism and Fashion Clothing Consumption Among Malaysian Generation Y Consumers," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 757-783, June.
    16. Williams, Trenton Alma & Zhao, Eric Yanfei & Sonenshein, Scott & Ucbasaran, Deniz & George, Gerard, 2021. "Breaking boundaries to creatively generate value: The role of resourcefulness in entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(5).
    17. Seuntjens, Terri G. & van de Ven, Niels & Zeelenberg, Marcel & van der Schors, Anna, 2016. "Greed and adolescent financial behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-12.
    18. Muhammad Awais & Tanzila Samin & Muhammad Awais Gulzar & Jinsoo Hwang & Muhammad Zubair, 2020. "Unfolding the Association between the Big Five, Frugality, E-Mavenism, and Sustainable Consumption Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-25, January.
    19. Srinath Jagannathan & Anupam Bawa & Rajnish Rai, 2020. "Narrative Worlds of Frugal Consumers: Unmasking Romanticized Spirituality to Reveal Responsibilization and De-politicization," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 149-168, January.
    20. Clinton Gudmunson & Sharon Danes, 2011. "Family Financial Socialization: Theory and Critical Review," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 644-667, December.

    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:spr:jhappi:v:22:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10902-020-00235-7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.