Article
The presence of financial debt amongst international postgraduate students is associated with increased levels of stress. According to studies conducted within the field of neurofinance, the existence of financial stress chronically activates the HPA axis resulting in elevated levels of cortisol and impairment of PFC-dependent functions such as working memory, cognitive flexibility, and sound decision-making about finances (referred to here as the Debt Brain Paradox). While there is a clear need for interventions in terms of helping postgraduate students with financial anxiety to improve their performance, a comprehensive programme of neuropsychoeducation, cognitive-reframing and skills of financial engineering have not been evaluated so far. This action research project (Cycle 1) involved development and evaluation of the six sessions long Neurofinancial Literacy Intervention (NLI) for 15 international postgraduate students from 18 recruited (attrition rate = 16.7%) experiencing moderate to severe levels of financial anxiety. In this paper, focus is made on two main outcomes – self-reported financial anxiety and cognitive performance as measured by established tests. The neurobiological processes involved in the improvement of these outcomes (e.g. cortisol regulation and PFC network activation) are theoretical assumptions that will be validated using cortisol sampling and neuroimaging in Cycle 2. Provisional hypothesis-generating results suggest positive changes in all four outcome measures – executive function composite score (M = 53.8 to 62.4; d = 0.99, 95% CI [0.38, 1.59]); self-reported financial anxiety on the Financial Anxiety Scale (M = 14.9 to 11.2; d = 1.18, 95% CI [0.52, 1.83]); quality of financial decisions according to the researcher's Financial Decision Scenarios Questionnaire (46.7% to 61.3%; d = 1.31, 95% CI [0.60, 2.00]); working memory accuracy (63.1% to 69.8%; d = 0.84, 95% CI [0.25, 1.42]). The lack of a control group, participant selection criteria of high baseline anxiety levels (thus increasing the risk of regression-to-the-mean effect), and the sample size make any causal inferences impossible; effects can be viewed only as initial signals needing to be further confirmed through a controlled design study. Thematic analysis of reflective journals resulted in four themes: neurological reframing; cognitive/threat distinction; financial engineering empowerment; and future agency.
Key Words: neurofinance, financial stress, prefrontal cortex, executive function, action research
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Richardson, T., Elliott, P., & Roberts, R. (2013). The relationship between personal unsecured debt and mental and physical health. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(8), 1148–1162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2013.08.009
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643–662. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054651
Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press.
Wechsler, D. (2008). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale — Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV): Administration and scoring manual. Pearson.
World Medical Association. (2013). Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA, 310(20), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.281053
Arnsten, A. F. T. (2015). Stress weakens prefrontal networks: Molecular insults to higher cognition. Nature Neuroscience, 18(10), 1376–1385. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4087
Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. Guilford Press.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
British Psychological Society. (2021). Code of ethics and conduct. BPS.
Camerer, C., Loewenstein, G., & Prelec, D. (2005). Neuroeconomics: How neuroscience can inform economics. Journal of Economic Literature, 43(1), 9–64. https://doi.org/10.1257/0022051053737843
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2018). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (3rd ed.). SAGE.
Dickerson, S. S., & Kemeny, M. E. (2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 355–391. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.355
Gathergood, J. (2012). Self-control, financial literacy and consumer over-indebtedness. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33(3), 590–602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2011.11.006
Golden, C. J. (1978). Stroop Color and Word Test: A manual for clinical and experimental uses. Stoelting.
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493
Hofmann, S. G., Asnaani, A., Vonk, I. J. J., Sawyer, A. T., & Fang, A. (2012). The efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy: A review of meta-analyses. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36(5), 427–440. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-012-9476-1
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (2005). Participatory action research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 559–603). SAGE.
Knutson, B., & Bossaerts, P. (2007). Neural antecedents of financial decisions. Journal of Neuroscience, 27(31), 8174–8177. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1564-07.2007
Landis, J. R., & Koch, G. G. (1977). The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 33(1), 159–174. https://doi.org/10.2307/2529310
Lupien, S. J., McEwen, B. S., Gunnar, M. R., & Heim, C. (2009). Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 434–445. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2639
Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2014). The economic importance of financial literacy. Journal of Economic Literature, 52(1), 5–44. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.52.1.5
Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty impedes cognitive function. Science, 341(6149), 976–980. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1238041
McNiff, J. (2017). Action research: All you need to know. SAGE.
Montague, P. R., & Berns, G. S. (2002). Neural economics and the biological substrates of valuation. Neuron, 36(2), 265–284. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0896-6273(02)00974-1
Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013). Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. Times Books.
Norvilitis, J. M., & Mao, Y. (2013). Attitudes towards credit and finances among college students in China and the United States. International Journal of Psychology, 48(3), 389–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207594.2011.645486
Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Reitan, R. M. (1958). Validity of the Trail Making Test as an indicator of organic brain damage. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 8(3), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1958.8.3.271
Richardson, T., Elliott, P., & Roberts, R. (2013). The relationship between personal unsecured debt and mental and physical health. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(8), 1148–1162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2013.08.009
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643–662. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054651
Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press.
Wechsler, D. (2008). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale — Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV): Administration and scoring manual. Pearson.
World Medical Association. (2013). Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA, 310(20), 2191–2194. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2013.281053
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Ayesha Sayeed
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