Behavioural science and financial capability : designing and testing complex interventions

Financial capability is a multifaceted concept that describes the skills and knowledge of managing one’s financial resources. This area has seen recent interest in identifying the underlying factors due to the increasing responsibility placed upon consumers. Policy makers typically use financial education to improve financial behaviours (based on economic assumptions), which has demonstrated mixed effects. To develop more reliable methods, the current thesis uses a comprehensive model of behaviour to understand the barriers and facilitators of financial capability, in addition to developing and testing interventions to improve financial capability. The first chapter provides a conceptual review of financial capability through a behavioural science lens, to understand why greater financial literacy may not translate to optimal financial behaviours. The second chapter details the behavioural framework used in the thesis in greater depth, the third chapter details some of the issues why individuals fail to maintain their goals under the concept of cognitive control. In the fourth chapter I present secondary analyses of previously conducted formative research identifying several key behavioural mechanisms affecting people’s financial capability. Firstly, individuals often fail to keep within their means due to automatic mechanisms to improve their social rank amongst peers. Secondly, individuals often struggle to save for the future due to deficits in more reflective mechanisms, e.g., goal-directedness. I provide a behavioural diagnosis from these findings in chapter five, from which I design and pilot three intervention. The pilot study’s findings are then used to inform the design of a randomized control trial. The sixth chapter details a multi-site randomised-controlled trial. This trial uses Goal-Setting and Habit-Based interventions to improve participants’ financial capability, measured via their consumption, account balances, and savings. The Goal-Setting group demonstrated significant improvements across all three measures. In contrast, the Habit-Based group improved only in their account balances compared to the Control group. The seventh chapter examines the moderating effects of individual differences which have been previously demonstrated to account for variations in consumption and savings. These results demonstrate that higher levels of goal-directedness can improve reductions in monetary consumption

A Randomized Controlled Trial to Evaluate Interventions Designed to Improve University Students’ Subjective Financial Wellness in England

The current paper describes a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of intervention tools designed to help people save more or spend less money by enhancing their capabilities, motivations, and opportunities. The participants included 177 students from an English University who were randomly allocated to either the Control, Savings-Tool, or Savings+Habit-Tools group. Participants provided with the intervention tool(s) for four weeks were more likely to experience improvements in both their financial satisfaction and subjective perceptions than those in the Control group not asked to use either tool. The tools did not significantly affect financial behaviors or objective financial wellness. The discussion examines limitations of the study and discusses avenues for future research such as including a longer follow-up period

Digital cognitive behavioural therapy intervention in the workplace:study protocol for a feasibility randomised waitlist-controlled trial to improve employee mental well-being, engagement and productivity

INTRODUCTION: One in six workers experience some form of mental health problems at work costing the UK economy an estimated £70 billion/year. Digital interventions provide low cost and easily scalable delivery methods to implement psychological interventions in the workplace. This trial tests the feasibility of implementing a self-guided 8-week digital cognitive behavioural therapy intervention for subthreshold to clinical depression and/or anxiety versus waitlist control (ie, life as usual) in the workplace. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Feasibility of implementation will be tested using a mixed-methods evaluation of the two-arm randomised waitlist-control trial. Evaluation will include examination of organisational buy-in, and the engagement of employees through the trial indicated by the completion of outcome measures. In addition, we also explore how participants use the platform, the appropriateness of the analysis both with reference to the outcome measures and linear modelling. Finally, we examine the acceptability of the intervention based on participants experiences using qualitative interviews. Assessments take place at baseline (T0), at 8 weeks post-treatment (T1), at short-term follow-up 4 weeks post-treatment (T2) and long-term follow-ups (6 and 12 months after-end of treatment). We will recruit from 1 July 2021 to 31 December 2021 for employees and self-employed workers with depression and anxiety symptoms (subclinical and clinical levels) who are not seeking or engaged in treatment at the time of the trial. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Full approval was given by the University of Warwick Biomedical and Research Ethics Committee (BSREC 45/20–21). The current protocol version is 2.8 (August 2021). Publication of results in peer-reviewed journals will inform the scientific, clinical and business communities. We will disseminate results through webinars, conferences, newsletter as well as a lay summary of results on the study website (mhpp.me). TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN31161020

SAVINGS Trial

A Randomised-controlled trial designed to reduce monetary consumption, comparing goals and habits against a standalone control group

Risk compensation: how vaccination impacts social distancing in an online natural experiment

To reduce transmission of COVID-19, public mandates recommended or required minimum physical distancing between individuals, in addition to the use of vaccine rollouts as a public health measure. When individuals are faced with multiple risk reducing behaviours, they may engage in risk compensation. In an online natural experiment, risk compensation was investigated during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine whether vaccination and beliefs in vaccine efficacy reduced physical distancing. Participants completed a distance matching task, where they position avatars of themselves in hypothetical stylized images of everday scenarios in a 2 (location) x 3 (activity) factorial design. Consistent with risk compensation, this study finds that individuals are more willing to stand closer to strangers when fully vaccinated as vaccine beliefs grow. Furthermore, such behaviours do not mitigate when controlling for percieved risk of a COVID-19 infection or hospitalisation. A similar finding is observed for vaccine intentions as well as a difference between revealed and stated preferences of risk when comparing across vaccine manufacturers. These results suggest that though vaccines can be effective as a public health measure, the act of being vaccinated may lead to risk compensation that could lead to additional waves from mutations of any such public health crisis

Diagnostic validity of behavioural and psychometric impulsivity measures : an assessment in adolescent and adult populations

This investigation examined how different psychological and behavioural measures can be used to identify impulsive individuals. Five clinical groups split, between adolescents and adults, with varying levels of weight-management issues, were used to validate the impulsivity measures. The measures consisted of two behavioural, an inhibitory control measure (Stop Signal Task) and a Temporal Discounting measure, along with two personality measures, the Temperament and Character Inventory (Cloninger, Przybeck, Svrakic, & Wetzel, 1994) and the adolescent version (The Junior Temperament and Character Inventory) and finally the Barrat Impulsivity Scale (Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995). The most sensitive was the Stop Signal Reaction time, which depicted significant differences in inhibitory control for all but two groups (Adult Lifestyle and Adult Healthy). The psychometric scales were able to sufficiently discriminate between obese and impulsive individuals with healthier participants. The Self-Control and Novelty Seeking subscales on the BIS. The Novelty Seeking subscale of the TCI-R and the JTCI, significantly discriminated between obese and healthy individuals. There was a high degree of association amongst the measures used, identifying that these measures can be used to monitor and measure impulsiveness in obese individuals for use in weight-loss interventions

Co-designing theoretically informed, conceptual prototypes for interventions to increase hand hygiene in hospital settings : a case study

This case study describes a design thinking workshop to develop conceptual prototypes for interventions that may increase hand hygiene in hospital settings. The workshop was held in London, United Kingdom. The workshop brought together nurses, doctors, and infection prevention/control staff with experience working in hospital settings along with behavioural scientists and designers with experience developing theoretically informed interventions. After the workshop, a core design team synthesised the initial conceptual prototypes into a set of five more distinct conceptual prototypes that can inform future interventions. Stanford d.School’s five-stage model was used to capture the design thinking process. We propose additional workshops should be conducted wherein multidisciplinary teams of relevant stakeholders (including patients) co-design novel solutions for enduring problems

Effects of a hybrid digital Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia and Emotion Regulation in the workplace (SLEEP)

Introduction: This trial tests the efficacy of implementing a hybrid digital cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (dCBT-I) and emotion regulation (ER) in the workplace. The study protocol follows on the SPIRIT (Standard Protocol Items for Randomized Trials) 2013 recommendations. Methods and analysis: Mixed methods evaluation with a two-arm randomised waitlist control design of a six weeks dCBT-I+ER intervention through self-guided online platform and four videoconferencing therapy sessions. A process evaluation will examine fidelity of delivery and experiences of the intervention. Primary outcomes are the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7). Secondary outcomes are job productivity, job satisfaction, well-being, quality of life, self-reported (sleep diary data) and objective (actigraphy) sleep parameters, and usage of online intervention platform. Assessments take place at baseline (T0), week-8 post-treatment (T1), and week-12 post-randomisation (T2). We will recruit 156 workers with sleep and emotion regulation problems ranging from subclinical to clinical levels not engaged in treatment at the time of the trial. Ethics and dissemination: Full approval was given by the University of Warwick Biomedical and Research Ethics Committee (BSREC 45/20-21). The current protocol version is 2.8_Aug21. Publication of results will inform the scientific, clinical, and business communities through peer-reviewed articles, webinars, conferences, and newsletters. Trial registration: ISRCTN, ID: ISRCTN13596153. Registered on 08/06/2021