AUTHOR=Muehlbacher Stephan , Kirchler Erich 

TITLE=Individual Differences in Mental Accounting

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=10

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02866

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02866

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>Individual differences in mental accounting have rarely been studied, and empirical evidence regarding the relation between mental accounting and personality characteristics is scarce. The present paper reports three studies applying a Likert-type scale to assess the extent individuals engage in mental accounting practices. In each study, the five items of the measure loaded on a single dimension and had acceptable reliability, with a Cronbach’s α between 0.72 and 0.77. Study 1 (<italic>N</italic> = 165) regards the mental processing of prior losses in the theater-ticket problem (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B51">Tversky and Kahneman, 1981</xref>). Study 2 (<italic>N</italic> = 114) is based on prior work on income source effects (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="B15">Fogel, 1997</xref>) and analyzes mental accounting of prior gains. In both studies, individual differences in mental accounting moderated the effects of the experimental treatments. In an explorative survey conducted for Study 3 (<italic>N</italic> = 373), the extent of engaging in mental accounting was found to be positively correlated with being female, with conscientiousness, and financial literacy, and negatively related with education and non-planning impulsivity. Identification of individual differences and their correlates adds to existing evidence for some of the core assumptions of mental accounting theory. A practical implication of the findings is that providers of financial services must take individual differences into account when designing trainings and supportive tools for money management.</p>