On the subjective value of moneyexamining factors that influence denomination choice and consumer spending

Zusammenfassung

Although today’s consumer is spoilt for choice when deciding how to pay for purchases, cash remains king (Bagnall et al., 2016). This thesis attempts to investigate the psychological processes underlying people’s decision to pay for purchases using cash as well as its behavioural consequences. Across 19 experiments, I present a framework that extends past research on denominations to purchasing contexts that highlight price information. The present thesis consists of three parts. In the first part, I argue that people’s choice of which denomination to purchase with, is influenced by the tendency to anchor on price information within the purchase environment (i.e., selective accessibility framework: Strack & Mussweiler, 1997). Consequently, people exhibit a tendency to prefer cash payment over a payment card. In the second part, I study the extent to which this tendency towards a semantic prime (i.e., price information) influences spending behaviour and I demonstrate a reversal of the “denomination effect” (Raghubir & Srivastava, 2009). In the third part, I explore the boundary conditions of my findings in Chapter 2 and propose the idea that in addition to price information, differences in spending behaviour may be influenced by the activation of a spending goal.