Recent studies showed that financial hardship is often accompanied with experiencing shame and avoidance of contact with creditors. The shame resilience theory (Brown, 2006) states that shame is...Show moreRecent studies showed that financial hardship is often accompanied with experiencing shame and avoidance of contact with creditors. The shame resilience theory (Brown, 2006) states that shame is strongly intertwined with the experience of powerlessness and feeling trapped. The aim of this study is to investigate whether reducing these feelings can increase one’s shame resilience and whether this affects one’s willingness to contact a creditor. This is done by manipulating letters of creditors. Each condition gets to read a different letter. There is a control condition which gets to read a standard letter, a powerlessness condition in which the experience of powerlessness is addressed, a feeling trapped condition in which the experience of feeling trapped is addressed and an interaction condition in which both components are addressed. Results show that willingness to contact is greater in the powerlessness condition compared to the control condition. The other two conditions showed no significant difference compared to the control condition.Show less
