Attitudes towards saving and debt-taking behavior during first major flexibility on pandemic restrictions in Argentina

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of time perspectives, sociodemographic and debt-taking behavior data on the attitudes towards saving in the Argentine population during major flexibilities in pandemic restrictions. The present study was online questionnaire-based. A total of 720 participants were recruited through snowball sampling method (447 women; 62.1%) between the ages of 18 and 65 years of age (M=34.37; SD=13.67). A sociodemographic and financial behavior was administered along with locally adapted version of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory. It was found that future and past-negative time perspectives were positively related to some of the positive attitudes towards saving. Conversely, present-fatalistic, and present-hedonistic were positively related to negative saving attitudes. Debt-taking behavior was positively related to the difficultness on saving. Also, female participants showed more difficultness in saving than men. The research on economic psychology that contemplates time perspective theory is scarce, particularly in Argentina. This is the first study that highlights the importance of predominant time orientations on the analysis of saving behaviors.