Is our relationship with money affected by how our brain works?
Why is saving easy for some people and not for others?
What drives us towards virtuous financial behavior and what leads us to make imprudent choices or choices that are not in line with our long-term economic goals?
Many assume that, when it comes to economic matters, individuals make decisions based exclusively on rational considerations.
In reality, as behavioral economics experts well know, this is not always true. Human beings are complex and also move under the pressure of emotional impulses originating from various factors and distorted perceptions of reality. We talked about the topic in episode 7 of the podcast “Mica solo parole” with the economist Luciano Canova.
There are so many mental traps that we risk falling into every day and which have the power to distance us from our aspirations: the impatience that leads us to choose immediate pleasure over long-term happiness is certainly one of the most widespread.
The context in which we live and the stimuli to which we are continually subjected end up influencing our thought patterns and our decision-making ability.
The role of saving in the instant gratification society
We have become accustomed to considering instant gratification as a normal mode of satisfaction, which influences every aspect of our lifestyle.
Only a few years ago, the release of the new episode of a TV series generated expectations for entire days or weeks. Today, as a consequence of the spread of streaming platforms, we can finish the entire season of a TV series in a few hours, have non-stop access to content of all genres and watch one film after another.
In the era of accessibility and constant connection, the search for immediate satisfaction of needs applies to the most disparate situations: from ordering a pizza while sitting comfortably on the sofa at home, to the unbridled search for approval on social channels.
Giving up short-term gratification to achieve greater long-term gratification appears increasingly difficult to us, yet the ability to plan a savings strategy is based precisely on this type of attitude.
Saving, in fact, is the conscious choice to wait to achieve a more important goal in the future (enrolling in a training course, a trip or, simply, the serenity given by having a sum to deal with various unexpected events).
It therefore seems clear that living in the era of everything and immediately does not favor the choice of saving instead of consuming everything immediately.
The “marshmallow test”: what it is and what it teaches us
The “marshmallow test”, or delayed gratification, is one of the best known experiments in behavioral psychology. It was first realized in 1972, at Stanford University, by psychologist Walter Mischel.
A marshmallow was offered to children aged between 3 and 6, with the request not to eat it immediately and the promise of a second marshmallow if anyone waited 15 minutes.
The experiment aimed to evaluate the ability to resist a temptation in order to receive greater satisfaction at a later time.
Only a third of participants waited the 15 minutes it took to get the second marshmallow. Some gave in immediately, others after a more or less long time.
Mischel and his collaborators followed those children in the following years, continuing to take note of their behaviors and the results obtained in school, work and relationships.
The analyzes carried out showed the existence of a correlation between the ability to postpone immediate gratification as children and the results obtained throughout life.
This test highlights the importance of learning to exercise perseverance and self-discipline from an early age, to achieve a greater ability to govern emotions, which is fundamental for building more satisfying situations in adulthood.
Becoming familiar with the fundamentals of saving at a young age can be an excellent start to gaining experience in the correct management of money, as this guide from the Museum of Saving suggests.
The good news: saving (and self-control) can be trained
Having a good level of self-control and being able to plan our economic future can significantly improve the quality of our life.
To achieve this, it is important to know how to identify the moment in which our emotions risk leading us astray.
If, for example, we have decided to enroll in a course for our professional growth and to cover the cost it will be necessary to set aside a certain sum per month for a certain period of time, we will have to behave accordingly.
This requires that, instead of using part of the course budget for a compulsive purchase, we are able to resist temptation thanks to our rational awareness.
Recognizing the automatisms of the mind allows us to try to overcome them.
Furthermore, the more we practice not being “fooled” by our perceptions and carry out actions consistent with our goals, the better we become at doing so.
In fact, self-control can be trained as if it were a muscle.
If we learn not to let ourselves be carried away by emotions (which guide the temptations of the moment), by consistently exercising rational thought and moving away from the hegemony of the “here and now”, we will discover that saving can become a natural choice even in a historical period that does not encourage it, as well as a source of long-term satisfaction.