TY - JOUR
T1 - Students' concern about indebtedness
T2 - a rank based social norms account
AU - Aldrovandi, Silvio
AU - Wood, Alex M.
AU - Maltby, John
AU - Brown, Gordon D.A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant numbers RES-062-23-2462, ES/K002201/1] and the Leverhulme Trust [grant number RP2012-V-022].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Society for Research into Higher Education.
PY - 2014/3/28
Y1 - 2014/3/28
N2 - This paper describes a new model of students' concern about indebtedness within a rank-based social norms framework. Study 1 found that students hold highly variable beliefs about how much other students will owe at the end of their degree. Students' concern about their own anticipated debt – and their intention of taking on a part-time job during term time – was best predicted not by the size of the anticipated debt, but by how they, often incorrectly, believed their debt ranked amongst that of others. Study 2 manipulated hypothetical debt amounts experimentally and found that the same anticipated debt was rated as 2.5 times more concerning when it ranked as the second highest being considered than when it was the fifth highest. Study 3 demonstrated that the model applies to evaluation of different types of debt (income contingent loans versus general debt).
AB - This paper describes a new model of students' concern about indebtedness within a rank-based social norms framework. Study 1 found that students hold highly variable beliefs about how much other students will owe at the end of their degree. Students' concern about their own anticipated debt – and their intention of taking on a part-time job during term time – was best predicted not by the size of the anticipated debt, but by how they, often incorrectly, believed their debt ranked amongst that of others. Study 2 manipulated hypothetical debt amounts experimentally and found that the same anticipated debt was rated as 2.5 times more concerning when it ranked as the second highest being considered than when it was the fifth highest. Study 3 demonstrated that the model applies to evaluation of different types of debt (income contingent loans versus general debt).
KW - attitudes towards debt
KW - context effects
KW - decision by sampling
KW - range frequency theory
KW - social norms
KW - students' indebtedness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84931563565&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/03075079.2014.881349
DO - 10.1080/03075079.2014.881349
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84931563565
SN - 0307-5079
VL - 40
SP - 1307
EP - 1327
JO - Studies in Higher Education
JF - Studies in Higher Education
IS - 7
ER -