Leiden University Student Repository

Sieval, Loïs (2021)

The Effect of Shame Resilience on Behavioral Tendencies in Relation to Financial Support: A Study About Avoidance Action Tendencies and the Willingness to Contact Financial Support of Individuals Experiencing Financial Hardship

Bachelor thesis | Psychologie (BSc)

Research indicates that financial hardship is often accompanied by feelings of shame which in general leads to individuals to showing avoidance behavior. Particularly, individuals experiencing financial shame oftentimes partake into avoidance behavior when it comes to financial support. This study aimed to investigate whether shame resilience increases the willingness to contact a creditor and whether shame resilience decreases avoidance action tendencies of individuals experiencing financial hardship. A between-subject design was implemented whereat participants in the shame resilience group (N = 64) were compared to participants in the control group (N = 69). Within an online experiment, the randomly assigned participants recalled a financial hardship experience, read one out of two creditor letters, and were presented with several Likert-scale questions. Participants in the shame resilience group reported higher levels of a willingness to contact compared to the participants in...Show moreResearch indicates that financial hardship is often accompanied by feelings of shame which in general leads to individuals to showing avoidance behavior. Particularly, individuals experiencing financial shame oftentimes partake into avoidance behavior when it comes to financial support. This study aimed to investigate whether shame resilience increases the willingness to contact a creditor and whether shame resilience decreases avoidance action tendencies of individuals experiencing financial hardship. A between-subject design was implemented whereat participants in the shame resilience group (N = 64) were compared to participants in the control group (N = 69). Within an online experiment, the randomly assigned participants recalled a financial hardship experience, read one out of two creditor letters, and were presented with several Likert-scale questions. Participants in the shame resilience group reported higher levels of a willingness to contact compared to the participants in the control group. Regarding the voidance action tendencies, three items were analysed separately due to a low reliability. No differences were found on refuse action and distract action tendencies between the participants in both groups. However, participants in the shame resilience group reported lower levels of ignore action tendencies compared to the participants in the control group. Potential explanations for this, additional findings, strengths, and limitations are discussed and implications for future research are proposed.Show less

financial hardship

financial shame

shame resilience

financial support

approach behavior

avoidance behavior

Author

Sieval, Loïs

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Supervisors

Seip, E.

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en