Leiden University Student Repository

Fens, Lianne (2023)

To solve the unsolvable: investigating the relationship between financial scarcity and persistent behavior measured by time spent on unsolvable anagrams and riddles

Master thesis | Psychology (MSc)

The relationship between financial scarcity and persistence was examined using an online performance-based measure of persistence, the Anagram and Riddles task (ART). It was hypothesized that feelings of financial scarcity leads to less persistence, measured by time spent on the hard and unsolvable anagrams and riddles. The Household Task was used to provoke feelings of financial scarcity in the experimental group and the scores on the PIFS were used to measure each person’s financial scarcity in real life. Results showed a marginally significant relationship between persistence time on unsolvable trials and the ‘PIFS’. This would suggest that people who experience more financial scarcity, show more persistency than people without financial scarcity when trying to solve the unsolvable. Possible explanations for the lack of other significant findings include uncontrolled settings and absence of personal motivation during the task.

financial scarcity

persistence

cognitive function

PIFS

persistent behavior

Author

Fens, Lianne

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Economic and Consumer Psychology

Supervisors

Ruigendijk, Hester

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en