Academy of Financial Services Annual Meeting 2022

financial help-seeking, financial well-being, coping, decision-making preparation

Past research has examined financial help-seeking as an outcome of life shocks or objective financial resources. Yet as a coping strategy, financial help-seeking would be an individual’s response to insufficient decision-making resources (i.e., the perception of decision difficulty). Thus, seeking help for a financial decision would be expected to mitigate the negative effects of insufficient decision-making ability on financial well-being outcomes. Using longitudinal data from Australia, we show that financial help-seeking is associated with a weakened association between perceived insufficient decision-making resources and the change in current money management stress but plays no role in the relationship between decision-making resources and the change in expected future financial security. Our findings suggest that help-seeking reduces short-term stress related to the decision yet does not alter perceptions of future outcomes. Attention should be given to the inability of financial help-seeking to mitigate the negative effects of decision difficulty on perceived future outcomes.