Moods , Norms & free lunches & saving mindset

 

JULY 12, 2012 Thursday Fatalism Makes You Avoid Preparing for Retirement Each 1-point increase in workers' fatalism, the belief that they have little control over things, decreases their likelihood of making retirement calculations by 9%, say Joel Shapiro of the University of Oxford and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College. Each 1-point increase (along a 4-point scale) also decreases the probability of their reading about retirement by 6.7%. To encourage retirement planning, policy makers should combat fatalism by persuading people that they really do have control over their future well-being, the researchers say. Some 11% of the population is fatalistic, according to one study. Source: Norms, moods, and free lunch: Longitudinal evidence on payments from a Pay-What-You-Want restaurant