IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mub/wpaper/2021-09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Individual Differences in Behavioural Responses to the Financial Threat Posed by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Magdalena Adamus

    (Masaryk University, MUEEL)

  • Matúš Grežo

    (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences)

Abstract

Using a representative sample of 400 Slovaks, the study investigated the mediating role of subjective perception of financial threat to the relation between psychological resources and behavioural responses in the adaptation to financial stress posed by the COVID-19. The results showed that greater neuroticism and uncertainty intolerance were positively related to aggravated perception of financial threat. This led to greater willingness to change consumption patterns and use of mostly problem-focused coping strategies. The model remained robust after controlling for chronic financial hardship moderators, including the absence of savings and indebtedness. In contrast, acute financial hardship caused by the deterioration of one’s financial situation during the pandemic showed to significantly moderate the relation between one’s psychological resources and perceived financial threat.

Suggested Citation

  • Magdalena Adamus & Matúš Grežo, 2021. "Individual Differences in Behavioural Responses to the Financial Threat Posed by the COVID-19 Pandemic," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2021-09, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:mub:wpaper:2021-09
    DOI: 10.5817/WP_MUNI_ECON_2021-09
    Note: License: CC BY 4.0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.econ.muni.cz/mub/wpaper/wp/econ/WP_MUNI_ECON_2021-09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5817/WP_MUNI_ECON_2021-09?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barrafrem, Kinga & Västfjäll, Daniel & Tinghög, Gustav, 2020. "Financial well-being, COVID-19, and the financial better-than-average-effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    2. de Bruijn, Ernst-Jan & Antonides, Gerrit, 2020. "Determinants of financial worry and rumination," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Zhang, Dayong & Hu, Min & Ji, Qiang, 2020. "Financial markets under the global pandemic of COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    4. Marjanovic, Zdravko & Fiksenbaum, Lisa & Greenglass, Esther, 2018. "Financial threat correlates with acute economic hardship and behavioral intentions that can improve one's personal finances and health," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 151-157.
    5. Marjanovic, Zdravko & Greenglass, Esther R. & Fiksenbaum, Lisa & De Witte, Hans & Garcia-Santos, Francisco & Buchwald, Petra & Peiró, José María & Mañas, Miguel A., 2015. "Evaluation of the Financial Threat Scale (FTS) in four European, non-student samples," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 72-80.
    6. Jay J. Van Bavel & Katherine Baicker & Paulo S. Boggio & Valerio Capraro & Aleksandra Cichocka & Mina Cikara & Molly J. Crockett & Alia J. Crum & Karen M. Douglas & James N. Druckman & John Drury & Oe, 2020. "Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(5), pages 460-471, May.
    7. Haroon, Omair & Rizvi, Syed Aun R., 2020. "COVID-19: Media coverage and financial markets behavior—A sectoral inquiry," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    8. Blázquez, Maite & Budría, Santiago & Moro-Egido, Ana I., 2020. "Over-indebtedness and age: The effects on individual health," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    9. Xu, Yilan & Beller, Andrea H. & Roberts, Brent W. & Brown, Jeffrey R., 2015. "Personality and young adult financial distress," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 90-100.
    10. Kirk, Colleen P. & Rifkin, Laura S., 2020. "I'll trade you diamonds for toilet paper: Consumer reacting, coping and adapting behaviors in the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 124-131.
    11. Gasiorowska, Agata, 2014. "The relationship between objective and subjective wealth is moderated by financial control and mediated by money anxiety," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 64-74.
    12. Marjanovic, Zdravko & Greenglass, Esther R. & Fiksenbaum, Lisa & Bell, Chris M., 2013. "Psychometric evaluation of the Financial Threat Scale (FTS) in the context of the great recession," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-10.
    13. Lisa Fiksenbaum & Zdravko Marjanovic & Esther Greenglass, 2017. "Financial threat and individuals’ willingness to change financial behavior," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 9(2), pages 128-147, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Carlos-María Alcover & Sergio Salgado & Gabriela Nazar & Raúl Ramírez-Vielma & Carolina González-Suhr, 2022. "Job Insecurity, Financial Threat, and Mental Health in the COVID-19 Context: The Moderating Role of the Support Network," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    2. de Bruijn, Ernst-Jan & Antonides, Gerrit, 2020. "Determinants of financial worry and rumination," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    3. Hussain Mehdi & Huma Ali & Shaukat Malik & Zeeshan Rasool, 2021. "Impact of Financial Threat on the Change of Investor Behavior: The Moderating Effect of Social Support During Covid-19 in Pakistan," Apuntes del Cenes, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, vol. 40(72), pages 47-70, July.
    4. Rao, Purnima & Goyal, Nisha & Kumar, Satish & Hassan, M. Kabir & Shahimi, Shahida, 2021. "Vulnerability of financial markets in India: The contagious effect of COVID-19," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    5. Ryan Thomson & Rebecca Mosier & Michelle Worosz, 2023. "COVID research across the social sciences in 2020: a bibliometric approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(6), pages 3377-3399, June.
    6. Niculaescu, Corina E. & Sangiorgi, Ivan & Bell, Adrian R., 2023. "Does personal experience with COVID-19 impact investment decisions? Evidence from a survey of US retail investors," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    7. Narayan, Paresh Kumar, 2022. "Understanding exchange rate shocks during COVID-19," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    8. Al-Maadid, Alanoud & Alhazbi, Saleh & Al-Thelaya, Khaled, 2022. "Using machine learning to analyze the impact of coronavirus pandemic news on the stock markets in GCC countries," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    9. Narayan, Paresh Kumar & Devpura, Neluka & Wang, Hua, 2020. "Japanese currency and stock market—What happened during the COVID-19 pandemic?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 191-198.
    10. Golab, Anna & Bannigidadmath, Deepa & Pham, Thach Ngoc & Thuraisamy, Kannan, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty and industry return predictability – Evidence from the UK," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 433-447.
    11. Ahmad, Wasim & Kutan, Ali M. & Chahal, Rishman Jot Kaur & Kattumuri, Ruth, 2021. "COVID-19 Pandemic and firm-level dynamics in the USA, UK, Europe, and Japan," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    12. Ashraf, Badar Nadeem & Goodell, John W., 2022. "The impact of social cohesion on stock market resilience: Evidence from COVID-19," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).
    13. Jie Hao & Viet T. Pham, 2022. "COVID‐19 Disclosures and Market Uncertainty: Evidence from 10‐Q Filings," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 32(2), pages 238-266, June.
    14. Tran, Phan Huy Hieu, 2021. "Does employee stock ownership program reduce a company’s stock volatility during the Covid-19 lockdown?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    15. Gächter, Martin & Huber, Florian & Meier, Martin, 2022. "A shot for the US economy," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    16. Padhan, Rakesh & Prabheesh, K.P., 2021. "The economics of COVID-19 pandemic: A survey," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 220-237.
    17. Shah, Sayar Ahmad & Garg, Bhavesh, 2023. "Testing policy effectiveness during COVID-19: An NK-DSGE analysis," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    18. Bai, Lan & Wei, Yu & Wei, Guiwu & Li, Xiafei & Zhang, Songyun, 2021. "Infectious disease pandemic and permanent volatility of international stock markets: A long-term perspective," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    19. Elnahass, Marwa & Trinh, Vu Quang & Li, Teng, 2021. "Global banking stability in the shadow of Covid-19 outbreak," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    20. Naidu, Dharmendra & Ranjeeni, Kumari, 2021. "Effect of coronavirus fear on the performance of Australian stock returns: Evidence from an event study," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    financial threat; neuroticism; uncertainty intolerance; consumption patterns; coping strategies; COVID-19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • G41 - Financial Economics - - Behavioral Finance - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making in Financial Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:mub:wpaper:2021-09. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emunicz.html .

    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.