Spending Habits: Tightwads vs. Spendthrifts

Note: There are special considerations when doing a project involving human subjects. ISEF-affiliated fairs often require an Informed Consent Form for every participant who is questioned or observed. Since this project uses an anonymous survey of individual behavior, with no manipulation of behavior by the investigator and minimal risk to the participants, the informed consent requirement can be waived. However, the experimental design of the project must be approved by an Institutional Review Board prior to the commencement of experiments or surveys. Please see the Science Buddies How-To page on Projects Involving Human Subjects and also refer to the ISEF rules for additional important requirements for studies involving human subjects: http://www.sciserv.org/isef/about/rules_regulations.asp.

1. The survey (Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein, 2007) is quite short, consisting of four questions (numbered 1, 2a, 2b, and 3). Here is a downloadable pdf version of the following survey (and the Adobe Acrobat reader you'll need to view it):

   1.  Which of the following descriptions fits you better?
   1 Tightwad (difficulty spending money)	2	3	4	5	6 About the same or neither	7	8	9	10	11 Spendthrift (difficulty controlling money)

   2.  Some people have trouble limiting their spending: they often spend money—for example on clothes, meals, vacations, phone calls—when they would do better not to.  Other people have trouble spending money. Perhaps because spending money makes them anxious, they often don't spend money on things they should spend it on.    a. How well does the first description fit you? That is, do you have trouble limiting your spending?
   	1 Never	2 Rarely	3 Sometimes	4 Often	5 Always
   b. How well does the second description fit you? That is, do you have trouble spending money?
   	1 Never	2 Rarely	3 Sometimes	4 Often	5 Always

   3.  Following are two scenarios describing the behavior of two shoppers. After reading about each shopper, please answer the question that follows.      Mr. A is accompanying a good friend who is on a shopping spree at a local mall. When they enter a large department store, Mr. A sees that the store has a "one-day-only-sale" where everything is priced 10–60% off. He realizes he doesn't need anything, yet can't resist and ends up spending almost $100 on stuff.      Mr. B is accompanying a good friend who is on a shopping spree at a local mall. When they enter a large department store, Mr. B sees that the store has a "one-day-only-sale" where everything is priced 10–60% off. He figures he can get great deals on many items that he needs, yet the thought of spending the money keeps him from buying the stuff.    In terms of your own behavior, who are you more similar to, Mr. A or Mr. B?
   	1 Mr. A	2	3 Neither	4	5 Mr. B

2. The steps below show how to calculate a respondent's score on the survey.
   1. Reverse-score the answers to the last two questions (2b and 3):
      • let the variable x be the respondent's answer to question 2b or 3, and
      • let the variable r be the reverse score,
      • r = −x + 6.
      • For example, if the respondent's answer to question 2b was 2, the reverse-scored answer would be −2 + 6 = 4.
   2. The total score on the survey is simply the sum of the respondent's answers for questions 1 and 2a plus the reverse-scored answers for questions 2b and 3. The table below illustrates an example for a hypothetical survey response.
      
      

      Question #	Respondent's Answer	Reverse Score (only 2b and 3)	Final Survey Score (sum of light gray boxes)
      1	10
      2a	4
      2b	2	4
      3	2	4	22

      
      
      
   3. Final survey scores can range from 4 to 26 (verify for yourself that this is true). The survey designers (Rick, Cryder, and Loewenstein, 2007) assign respondents to three categories, based on the final survey score (see the table below):
      
      

      Survey Score Range	Category
      4–11	'tightwad'
      12–18	'not conflicted'
      19–26	'spendthrift'

      
      
      
   4. For the sample group that the survey designers studied, the 'tightwad' category is essentially all scores that were more than one standard deviation below the mean. The 'spendthrift' category is essentially all scores that were more than one standard deviation above the mean. The 'not conflicted' category is essentially all scores that were within one standard deviation from the mean.
   5. Our hypothetical respondent with a score of 22 would be classified as a 'spendthrift.'

3. Determine how many participants you need.
4. Tips for administering the survey:
   1. The survey results should be anonymous, so do not ask for any identifying information on the response sheets.
   2. To conduct the study, you can look for volunteers at a busy shopping center or other public gathering place (adult supervision highly recommended).
   3. Alternatively, you could seek permission to conduct the survey at school.

Tabulating and Analyzing Results

1. Calculate the score for each survey, using the method described above (Preparing and Conducting the Survey, step 2).
2. Count how many respondents fall into each of the three categories: 'tightwad', 'not conflicted', and 'spendthrift' (Preparing and Conducting the Survey, step 2c).
3. More advanced students should also calculate the mean and standard deviation of the survey scores. How closely do the three different categories correspond to dividing the responses into groups according to the mean ± one standard deviation?