The Meanings Of Credit Cards In Consumers’ Minds And Its Effects On Consumers’ Perceptions And Behaviors

Abstract

This dissertation comprises three essays about credit cards. Taking a qualitative approach, the first essay investigated the meanings of credit cards in consumers' minds by conducting 19 photo-elicitation interviews. Three themes emerged from the data. They were Easy Money (a theme about informants' feelings on the ease of spending, and the ease of gaining access to money by using credit cards), Indebtedness (a theme about informants' sensitivity to indebtedness when using credit cards), and Relationship (a theme about informants' perceived relationships with credit cards). Implications for credit card education were drawn from these emerged themes. The second essay further explored the theme of Easy Money as found in the first essay by studying the easy money effect of credit cards cue and the effectiveness of reminding consumers of their hard work in weakening the easy money effect. The easy money effect was proposed to occur when consumers associated money with easy and had a lower perceived value of money. Based on the proposed conceptual framework, one of the effective ways in weakening the easy money effect of credit cards cue is by reminding consumers of their hard work as to suppress their thoughts about easy money and to increase their perceived value of money. Findings from two experimental studies revealed that when being shown with credit cards cue, spendthrift participants associated money with easy more and spent more as compared to tightwad participants as well as when they were not shown with credit cards cue. However, when the spendthrift participants were reminded of their hard work after being shown with credit cards cue, their spending was significantly reduced. The results suggested that the easy money effect of credit cards cue did exist and reminding consumers of their hard work was effective in weakening such effect. As inspired by the theme of Indebtedness found in the first essay, the third essay investigated if a mere exposure to credit cards cue promoted consumers' perceived financial well-being and hence facilitated their spending. Findings from an experimental study showed that after being shown with credit cards cue, spendthrift participants had more spending-related thoughts and less debt-related thoughts than tightwad participants; spendthrift participants also perceived themselves having a better financial well-being and spent more than tightwad participants. Further analyses revealed that consumers' perceived financial well-being mediated the credit cards cue effect on spending.