Mar 03, 2023
Congratulations…
FHCE alumna Contey Smith CFP® received the 2023 Emily Quinn Pou Professional Achievement Award. Established in 1999 in honor of the fourth Dean of the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences, this award is presented to graduates who have attained substantial achievements and are at midpoint of their careers.
Dr. Kristy Archuleta was named the Betsy Barnard Sages Endowed Professor in Financial Therapy and Behavioral Financial Planning. This Endowed position was made possible by the incredible generosity and support of the Sages Family.
Dr. Lance Palmer has received the 2023 Creswell Award. This award named after the First Dean of the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences recognizes a current or retired faculty or staff member who has provided leadership in motivating and guiding students.
Dr. Diann Moorman has received the 2023 Bill and June Flatt Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award.
Dr. Lu Fan has received the 2023 FACS Early Career Research Award.
Dr. Dee Warmath has been selected to participate in the UGA Rural Engagement Workshop.
Dr. John Grable has accepted the invitation to serve on the Board of the Academy of Financial Services.
Professor Emerita Dr. Brenda Cude and colleagues received the 2022 Spencer L. Kimball Writing Award from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners Center for Insurance Policy and Research for their published paper in the Journal of Insurance Regulation entitled:
Zhang, H., Cude, B. J., Groshong, L., & Katie Keith, J. D. (2022). The Impact of State Surprise Medical Billing Protections on Consumers with Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance. Journal of Insurance Regulation.
Dr. Joseph Goetz’s paper entitled "McCoy, M., O’Neal, C.W., Gale, J., Goetz, J., & Mancini, J.A. (2021). Financial boundary ambiguity among military spouses. Family Relations, 70(4), 1265-1279. " received the 2022 best Family Financial Wellbeing Paper Award from National Council on Family Relations (NCFR). This paper was selected from articles published across 22 different publications.
Doctoral student Camryn Cobb will be operating two design sprints in Spring 2023. One is the annual EITC design sprint in partnership with Drs. Lance Palmer and Joan Koonce. The other is a net zero energy design sprint she will operate in partnership with the Office of Experiential Learning, Entrepreneurship Program, and Office of Sustainability. She was awarded a Sustainability Grant (mentor Dr. Dee Warmath) to operate this sprint. All UGA students are encouraged to participate and can win cash awards.
Doctoral student Jordan Bell has been tapped again this year to facilitate the human-centered design curriculum for UGA's Innovate U, a project originated by President Morehead's office and operated by the Office of Business Engagement and the Fanning Institute. This program involves 25 or so Athens Clarke County (ACC) high school students in a four-week program combining leadership and human-centered design workshops that culminates in student presentations to their parents as well as officials from UGA and the ACC school system. This year, Cox Enterprises is sponsoring Innovate U.
Dr. John Grable and alumna Dr. Amy Hubble were keynote speakers in the NAPFA South Symposium in Charlotte, NC.
FHCE Master’s student Will Johnston for completing his Master’s in Community Development.
FHCE doctoral student Tracy Liu accepted a position at Morgan Stanley.
Dr. Any Carswell received his AICP Certification awarded by the American Institute of Certified Planners.
Other news…
The MSNT-Financial Planning and J.D. joint Master’s program in financial planning and UGA Law received approval effective from 2023.
Dr. Kimberly Watkins was interviewed by Investment News on strategies for attracting more diverse students into the financial planning undergraduate and graduate programs.
Dr. Lu Fan was invited by NEFE to present her research related to the relationship between state-mandated financial education and financial outcomes of young adults, including holding credit cards, having emergency savings, and saving for retirement.
Dr. Michael Thomas was quoted by Nerdwallet in their article on setting financial boundaries.
The following two papers published by FHCE faculty and graduate students got included in the World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 Research Database:
Liu, Y., Zhang, Y., & Chatterjee, S. (2023). Financial hardship and depression experienced by pre-retirees during the COVID-19 pandemic: the mitigating role of stimulus payments. Applied Economics Letters, 30(3), 391-396.
Warmath, D., O'Connor, G. E., Newmeyer, C., & Wong, N. (2022). Have I saved enough to social distance? The role of household financial preparedness in public health response. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 56(1), 319-338.
Effie Antonoudi hosted the 2022 UGA Regional Virtual Diversitas Event, where financial professionals engaged with our UGA financial planning students and high-school FBLA students and their advisors. Guest speakers included Dr. Kimberly Watkins, alumni Victoria Santini CFP®,Anna Schermerhorn
Dr. Kristy Archuleta (mentor) and our students Andy Li, Levi Sheffield, and Jimmy Cochran attended the NAFPA South Symposium.
Research
Grable, J. E., & Rabbani, A. (2023). The Moderating Effect of Financial Knowledge on Financial Risk Tolerance. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 16(2), 137.
The purpose of this paper is to describe a study that was designed to determine to what extent subjective and objective measures of financial knowledge moderate the relationship between an investor’s financial risk tolerance and demographic factors thought to be important descriptors of an investor’s willingness to take a financial risk. It was determined that those who identified as male, and those with more attained education and income, exhibited higher investment risk tolerance (IRT). Subjective financial knowledge (SFK) was positively associated with IRT. The relationship between gender and IRT was moderated by SFK, whereas the relationship between IRT and age was moderated by objective financial knowledge (OFK). A positive relationship between education and IRT was noted, but the relationship was moderated by OFK, whereas the association between IRT and household income was moderated by SFK. Findings from this study indicate that while SFK and OFK are positively correlated, they are not measuring the same underlying construct, and as such, each moderates IRT relationships differently.
Peng, Y., Lu, Y., & Shen, C. (2023). An Agenda for Studying Credibility Perceptions of Visual Misinformation. Political Communication. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10584609.2023.2175398
Today’s political misinformation has increasingly been created and consumed in visual formats, such as photographs, memes, and videos. Despite the ubiquity of visual media and the growing scholarly attention to misinformation, there is a relative dearth of research on visual misinformation. It remains unclear which specific visual formats (e.g., memes, visualizations) and features (e.g., color, human faces) contribute to visual misinformation's influence, either on their own or in combination with non-visual features and heuristics, and through what mechanisms. In response to these gaps, we identify a theoretical framework that explains the persuasive mechanisms and pathways of visual features in lending credibility (e.g., as arguments, heuristics, and attention determinants). We propose a list of relevant visual attributes to credibility perceptions and a research agenda that integrates methods including computational visual analysis, crowdsourced annotations, and experiments to advance our understanding of visual misinformation.
Peng. Y. (2022). The role of ideological dimensions in shaping acceptance of facial recognition technology and reactions to algorithm bias. Public Understanding of Science. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09636625221113131
Abstract. Facial recognition technology has been introduced into various aspects of social life, yet it has raised concerns over its infringement of civil liberties and biases against minorities. This study investigates how three ideological dimensions—social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and libertarianism—shape facial recognition acceptance. First, two surveys of crowdsourced workers (N = 891 and 587) demonstrated that the acceptance of facial recognition applications is positively associated with right-wing authoritarianism and negatively with libertarianism, whereas social dominance orientation shows little influence. Second, an experiment (N = 496) exposed participants to information about demographic biases in facial recognition applications. This message produced more opposition to facial recognition and this effect largely was not moderated by the three ideological dimensions. In summary, individuals’ endorsement of various ideologies predicts their acceptance of facial recognition technology, but messages about algorithm biases in facial recognition can still shape their attitudes regardless of the preexisting ideologies.
If you have any news items or current research you would like included in Just So You Know…. please email Swarn Chatterjee. Just So You Know…. is now available at https://www.fcs.uga.edu/fhce/just-so-you-know.
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Jan 03, 2023
January 2023 Just So You Know…
Congratulations…
FHCE doctoral student Camryn Cobb has received the UGA Campus Sustainability grant. She will use the funds to run a zero-waste design sprint in Spring 2023.
Dr. Dee Warmath has been invited to serve as the Senior Editor for the Journal of Consumer Affairs.
Prof. Sherle Brown has been invited to serve on the Georgia Apartment Association Foundation (GAAF) Board. She also received the 2022 IREM Georgia Academic Award and was honored in the awards ceremony on December 7th, 2022.
Congratulations to the graduating class of Fall 2022! This semester we had a record 18 Master’s students (5 Double Dawgs) and 3 doctoral students who graduated from FHCE. Huge thank you to Dr. Andy Carswell (Reader), Prof. Sherle Brown (Marshal), Dr. Dee Warmath and Dr. Kimberly Watkins for attending the FACS Convocation and UGA commencement ceremonies.
Other news…
Dr. Lu Fan’s article (co-authored with Dr. Soomin Ryu) entitled “The relationship between financial worries and psychological distress among U.S. adults” was featured in a Forbes news article related to a discussion on financial instability and mental health problems. And another article co-authored with Dr. Swarn Chatterjee entitled “Surviving in financial advice deserts: limited access to financial advice and retirement planning behavior” was featured in UGA TODAY and yahoo news.
Research paper by doctoral students Jia Qi and Tracy Liu (Co-authored with Dr. Swarn Chatterjee) entitled “Retirement preparedness of Generation X compared to other cohorts in the United States” was featured in UGA TODAY, in the “Consumer Behavior” section of @UGAResearch.
Drs. Kristy Archuleta and John Grable represented the department and hosted a booth at the 2022 Financial Planning Association (FPA) National Conference in Seattle, WA in December. And promoted the FHCE graduate programs.
Dr. Kimberly Watkins was invited to attend the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) Innovation and Impact Summit in Denver, CO, December, 2022.
Research
Golden, W., & Cordie, L. (2022). Digital financial literacy. Adult Literacy Education, 4(3), 20-26.
An individual with digital financial literacy has the knowledge and skills to use digital devices to make better financial decisions. The pervasiveness of financial technology (fintech) in the daily lives of adults in the United States creates digital literacy training and educational opportunities. This report from the field offers a brief literature review, a discussion on digital financial literacy, and the importance of fintech adult education. Our goal is to guide educators and others on how foundational knowledge on digital technologies in relation to financial literacy education can prepare adult learners for the use of fintech. Expanding the use of technology to financial literacy education and practices are as crucial as reading, writing, and numeracy in today’s digital economy.
Zhang, H., Cude, B. J., Groshong, L., & Keith, K. (2022). The impact of state surprise medical billing protections on consumers with employer-sponsored health insurance. Journal of Insurance Regulation. https://doi.org/10.52227/25440.2022.
This article used consumer survey data to investigate the impact of state surprise medical billing protections on consumers with employer-sponsored health insurance. State protections were categorized as comprehensive, partial, and none following the Commonwealth Fund (2019). Our results indicated that consumers with employer-sponsored health insurance who lived in states with comprehensive surprise medical billing protections were more likely to report receiving surprise medical bills than those who lived in states with no protections. We offer several explanations for this result, including that state protections do not apply to self-funded health care plans. Regarding differences across ages, we found that consumers ages 45 to 60 were more
likely to receive a surprise medical bill, which is consistent with the age distribution of those receiving the highest proportion of surgical and non-surgical procedures. With these results, our study contributes to the health insurance literature by deepening our understanding of surprise medical billing regarding both consumer knowledge and the impact of state regulation.
Dec 08, 2022
December 2022 Just So You Know…
Congratulations…
Kaylee Ranck (major professor Dr. Patryk Babiarz) successfully defended her dissertation.
Dr. Kimberly Watkins received the 2023 Sweaney Innovation fund for her project entitled “Learn, Do, and Serve: Incorporating Peer Financial Counseling into the Client communication and Counseling Course”.
Dr. Brenda Cude began her tenure as the Editor of the Journal of Consumer Affairs.
UGA students, alumni, and faculty won several awards in the 2022 AFCPE® Annual Meeting:
- UGA Financial Planning Team comprising of Andy Li, Josh Brumbach, and William Medcalf placed 2nd in the Financial Counseling Knowledge bowl (mentor faculty Dr. Michael Thomas).
- FHCE alumni Dr. Leslie Green and faculty Dr. Narang Park won the Outstanding Poster Award
- FHCE Doctoral student Yulia Zhang and Dr. Lu Fan received the Outstanding Research Paper Award
FHCE had an impressive list of alumni and companies started by them that were listed in the 2023 UGA Bulldog 100:
Abound Wealth Management, Bo Hanson BSFCS ’08 (Financial Planning), Franklin, TN – bo@aboundwealth.com
Dental Claim Support, Ryan DeLettre BSFCS ’06 (Consumer Econ), Savannah, GA – rdelettre@dentalclaimsupport.com
Fairway Insurance Group Inc., John Loftin BSFCS ’03 (Housing), Acworth, GA – jrloftin@fairwayinsgroup.com
Laura Wilfong Realtor LWW Inc., Laura Wilfong BSFCS ’93 (Consumer Econ), Athens, GA – laurawwilfong@gmail.com
Showpony, Daniel Stewart BSFCS ’05 (Housing), Augusta, GA – daniel@wierstewart.com
XY Planning Network, Alan Moore BSFCS ’09 (Financial Planning), MS ’12 (Consumer Econ and Housing), Bozeman, MT – alan@xyplanningnetwork.com
LangScapes Athens LLC, Kerrie Lang BSFCS ’07 (Consumer Econ), Winterville, GA – kerlyn24@hotmail.com
Rugged Road LLC, Spencer Sutlive BSFCS ’20 (Financial Planning), Duluth, GA – spencer@ruggedroadoutdoors.com
Scott Construction LLC, Will Scott BSFCS ’04 (Housing), Macon GA – will@scottconstructionga.com
Telecomm Innovations LLC, Emily Poole BSFCS ’00 (Consumer Journalism), Athens, GA – emily@telecominnovations.com
Dr. Brenda Cude was an invited panelist at the International Association of Insurance Supervisors Annual Conference in Santiago, Chile in November 2022. The topic was
Changing consumer preferences: What do they mean for global insurance supervision?
Recent study by Dr. Brenda Cude was listed in the top 10 for SSRN:
Logue, K. D., Schwartz, D., & Cude, B. J. (2022). The value and reality of transparent consumer insurance contracts. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4260410 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4260410
Oct 26, 2022
Congratulations…
Dr. Megan Ford (major professor Dr. Joe Goetz) successfully defended her dissertation.
Doctoral student Jordan Bell led the design thinking portion of Innovate U in partnership with the Fanning Institute and the ENTR Program this past summer.
Doctoral student Camryn Cobb led the UGA Summer Design Sprint in partnership with Cox Enterprises' Human Centered Design team.
Dee Warmath has been appointed to the UGA Innovation District Leadership Team.
Effie Antonoudi was invited to present at the 10th Annual Athens Women’s Business Expo organized by the UGA Small Business Development Center at the Delta Innovation Hub. Her presentation included information about current economic and financial trends and a discussion on financial planning tips and how to focus on your strengths and prepare for retirement.
Dr. Joe Goetz was invited to speak on the psychology of financial advice, and Dr. Lance Palmer served on the task-force for at the 2022 CFP Board Academic Research Colloquium in Washington DC in October.
Conference Participation
Doctoral student Heejae (Hannah) Lee presented her research with John Grable, Patrick Kump and Dee Warmath titled "Financial Help-seeking as a Coping Mechanism" at the 2022 AFS virtual meeting.
Doctoral student Danah Jeong presented her research with major professor Dr. Lance Palmer and co-author Dr. Aman Sunder at the 2022 CFP Board Academic Research Colloquium in Washington DC in October.
Doctoral students Jia Qi and Yu (Yulia) Zhang and co-author Dr. Swarn Chatterjee presented their poster titled “Business Hardships and COVID Adversities of Older U.S. Business Owners” at the 2022 CFP Board Academic Research Colloquium in Washington DC in October.
Dr. Dee Warmath presented her research with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission on consumer financial decision making and help-seeking to the Personal Financial Planning Department at Texas Tech on October 14.
Several of our doctoral students and faculty including Adriana Garcia, Eunjin Kwak, Jia Qi, Tracy Liu, Yu (Yulia) Zhang, and Effie Antonoudi participated in the 2022 FMA conference in Atlanta, GA in October.
Yu (Yulia) Zhang, Danah Jeong, Jia Qi, and EJ Kwak participated in the 2022 CFP Board Academic Research Colloquium in Washington DC in October.
Dr. Kristy Archuleta organized and hosted an information session for prospective graduate students, and advisors from other colleges.
Drs. Kristy Archuleta, John Grable, and Kimberly Watkins promoted the Financial Planning Graduate programs at the 2022 NAPFA National Conference in Denver, CO.
Dr. Kimberly Watkins took students to the 37th Excell Conference in Las Vegas Nevada during September 2022.
Recent Research
Chatterjee, S., & Fan, L. (2022). Surviving in financial advice deserts: limited access to financial advice and retirement planning behavior. International Journal of Bank Marketing, (ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-01-2022-0022.
This study introduces the concept of financial advice deserts (FADs), including financial advice received from personal financial advisors (PFAs) and Certified Financial Planners™ (CFP professionals) and investigates the association between living in these FAD states and the retirement planning activities of individuals. The study found that living in the FAD states was negatively associated with both having retirement accounts and contributing regularly to retirement accounts. Overall, the findings of this study underscore the need for providing greater access to financial advice and improving financial literacy among financially marginalized populations who are residing in FAD states in the United States of America. This study makes unique contributions to the literature by raising the issue of geographic inequality in terms of access to financial advice and introducing the innovative notion of FADs. The findings provide fresh insights into the understanding of retirement planning and preparedness from the perspective of state-level inequality of financial advice through PFAs and CFP professionals, thereby expanding the previous knowledge that emphasizes only individual- and household-level differences. Significant implications for public policies and practitioners are also discussed.
LeBaron‐Black, A. B., Saxey, M. T., Totenhagen, C. J., Wheeler, B. E., Archuleta, K. L., Yorgason, J. B., & James, S. (2022). Financial communication as a mediator between financial values and marital outcomes. Family Relations. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12786.
We test whether perceived similarity of partners' financial values is associated with marital satisfaction and stability and whether financial communication mediates these associations. We used dyadic data from the Couple Relationships and Transition Experiences project, a nationally representative sample of newlyweds (N = 1,700 different-sex couples). We conducted an actor–partner interdependence model to test direct and indirect associations. Partners who perceived similar financial values are better able to communicate with their spouse about money, which in turn predicts marital satisfaction and stability. We found both actor and partner associations and evidence of both full and partial mediation. Our results support previous research demonstrating the importance of shared financial values in understanding relationship outcomes. Additionally, financial communication is a mechanism linking these constructs. Our findings may inform interventions for increasing marital satisfaction and stability and for improving couple financial communication.
Oct 17, 2022
October 2022 Just So You Know…
Congratulations…
Drs. Jaeyong Yoo and Dyna Ty successfully defended their dissertations.
Recent Consumer Analytics Graduate Vanessa Sachs (major Prof. Dr. Dee Warmath) on receiving first prize in the SEC Pitch Competition for her SWAKE line of cosmetics. Vanessa was recognized in the annual conference competition hosted at the Louisiana State University’s E.J. Ourso College of Business.
Doctoral student Muna Sharma for participating as a Data Scientist Intern for Bayer Inc.
Doctoral Student Michael Gawrys, and co-author/mentor Dr. Andy Carswell for sharing their research to the Study Committee on Regulation, Affordability and Access to Housing at the Georgia State Capitol on 9/28/2022.
Doctoral Student Yu (Yulia) Zhang and co-author/mentor Dr. Lu Fan for receiving the Outstanding Research Paper Award in the 2022 AFCPE Symposium for their research entitled "Financial Inclusion through Mobile Fintech Tools: A Financial Literacy and Well-being Perspective". They will receive the award in the 2022 AFCPE Symposium this November in Orlando, FL.
Dr. John Grable and our alums Drs.Wookjae Heo and Abed Rabbani for winning the Outstanding Paper Award in 2022 Emerald Literati Awards. Their paper was entitled "A test of the association between the initial surge in COVID-19 cases and subsequent changes in financial risk tolerance" that was published in the Review of Behavioral Finance.
Dr. Kimberly Watkins for receiving funding to conduct the Schwab Financial Planning Academy in collaboration with the Texas Tech University School of Financial Planning over summer. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ugafacs/albums/72177720300563257
Prof. Sherle Brown for organizing the Fall Residential Property Management Board of Advisors meeting.
Prof. Effie Antonoudi on being invited to serve on the Board of Diversitas.
FHCE Career Fair was held on Oct 4th, 2022. 36 firms attended the event.
Recent Research
Fan, L. (2022). Consumer financial information processing: An integrated approach to examine individual differences. International Journal of Consumer Studies. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12859
This study applied an integrated approach to construct a hierarchical framework for consumer financial information processing. Individual differences in customers' psychological, cognitive and motivational characteristics were examined as antecedents. Using data collected from a sample of 613 U.S. adults, this study used the structural equation modeling method to identify significant direct and indirect relationships amongst personality traits, financial self-efficacy, financial information-gathering ability, search motivation, financial information sufficiency and the utilization of heuristics and systematic financial information-processing modes.
Grable, J. E., Kwak, E.J., & Chen, P.J. (2022). An Evaluation of the Association between Marital Status and Financial Risk Tolerance. Journal of Financial Planning, 34(7), 84-96.
Financial planners collect vast amounts of data from individual clients to determine appropriate investment strategies. It is important to be able to accurately categorize appropriate financial and investment recommendations to ensure regulatory compliance, client acceptance, and financial planning strategy adherence, all of which foster trust, understanding, and further validation of the professional relationship. Using data from 1,174 financial decision-makers, it was determined that marital status is not uniformly associated with financial risk tolerance. Financial knowledge emerged from the analyses as the most important descriptor of financial risk tolerance across genders. Additionally, older respondents were found to be less willing to take a risk.
Kim, S. D., & Carswell, A. T. (2022). The mediation effect of indoor air quality on health: A comparison of homeowners and renters. Indoor air, 32(9), e13108. https://doi.org/10.1111/ina.13108
This research aims to explore whether there is a health disparity between homeowners and renters affected by the indoor air quality of their dwellings. By proxying the presence of mold and smoke as conjoint facilitators of poor indoor air quality, we design a mediation model that previously has not been explored empirically. The structural path model in this study shows that there is indeed a disparity in health between homeowners and renters by demography, socioeconomic status, and dwelling condition. Our study argues that renters whose living conditions are generally worse off than homeowners are also unequal in their health status due to exacerbating effects from poor indoor air quality, which is endogenous to the state of the renter. The originality of this study is that it is the first study that empirically tests the mediation effect of poor indoor air quality of homeowners and renters using a structural equation path model.
Skobba, K., Moorman, D., Meyers, D., White, K., & Tiller, L. (2022). Nowhere to go: Housing pathways of college students with foster care and homelessness experience. Child & Family Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12944
This study builds on previous research to understand longer term housing experiences in late adolescence and early adulthood for vulnerable college students. Using a biographical, qualitative method, we study high school and college housing and family circumstances for 27 students with homelessness or foster care experience enrolled in 4-year colleges in Georgia. We identified three different housing pathway types in high school—family homelessness, unaccompanied youth and foster care. Housing instability and frequent moves were common in high school among all housing pathway types. In college, students who were able to find low or no-cost housing and those who identified a foster care pathway in high school achieved greater housing stability. Others students experienced a continuation of housing instability that began in high school. Additional funding to cover the cost of on-campus housing would likely contribute to increased stability. Additional strategies, such as rental assistance programmes tailored for college students, may be needed to address housing instability for vulnerable college students. More research on the unmet housing needs and the consequences of housing instability during college for homeless and foster youth is needed to further a housing policy agenda that focuses on practical solutions.
Warmath, D., Elizabeth O'Connor, G., Wong, N., & Newmeyer, C. (2022). The role of social psychological factors in vulnerability to financial hardship. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 56(3), 1148-1177. https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12468
Previous research attributes vulnerability to financial hardship either to structural inequities or to poor financial behavior. Less attention has been paid to the role of social psychological factors or to the relative contribution of demographics, behavior, and social psychology in understanding an individual's vulnerability to financial hardship. While studies have examined psychosocial factors in financial outcomes, we argue that these factors represent a missing perspective in the construction of interventions to lessen vulnerability. We further argue that a holistic perspective considering all three factors is needed to address vulnerability to financial hardship. Capitalizing on the richness of the CFPB National Financial Well-Being Survey data (n = 6394), we examine the unique contribution of psychosocial factors in explaining an individual's financial vulnerability over and above demographics and behaviors. Using four different measures of financial hardship, we find that all three types of factors play important roles in understanding vulnerability to financial hardship. Our findings suggest that more holistic measures and interventions are needed to enhance consumer financial well-being.
Zhang, H., Cude, B. J., Groshong, L., & Keith, K. (2022). The impact of state surprise medical billing protections on consumers with employer-sponsored health insurance. Journal of Insurance Regulation. https://doi.org/10.52227/25440.2022
This article used consumer survey data to investigate the impact of state Surprise medical billing protections on consumers with employer-sponsored health insurance. State protections were categorized as comprehensive, partial, and none following the Commonwealth Fund (2019). Our results indicated that consumers with employer-sponsored health insurance who lived in states with comprehensive surprise medical billing protections were more likely to report receiving surprise medical bills than those who lived in states with no protections. We offer several explanations for this result, including that state protections do not apply to self-funded health care plans. Regarding differences across ages, we found that consumers ages 45 to 60 were more likely to receive a surprise medical bill, which is consistent with the age distribution of those receiving the highest proportion of surgical and non-surgical procedures. With these results, our study contributes to the health insurance literature by deepening our understanding of surprise medical billing regarding both consumer knowledge and the impact of state regulation.
Jul 01, 2022
Congratulations…
Dr. Dee Warmath received the FACS 2022 Early Career Faculty Research Award.
Dr. Kimberly Watkins was accepted to the 2022 Lilly Fellows Cohort at the University of Georgia.
Dr. Lu Fan was awarded the 2022 NEFE/Knology Financial Education Database Training Fellowship.
Dr. Michael Thomas was invited to present on the topic of “Understanding the Relationship between Social Capital and Financial Well-being" in the Personal Finance Seminar for Professionals at the University of Maryland Extension.
Doctoral students Francisco Diaz, and Jyotsna Ghimire were awarded the 2022 ACCI Conference Scholarship.
Doctoral student Jyotsna Ghimire received the 2022 ASHEcon Conference Scholarship Award and was recognized at the ASHEcon Conference in Austin, TX in June.
Media Spotlight
Dr. Kristy Archuleta was recently interviewed for a pod-cast Episode #31 “What are your money hopes?” that received international publicity. https://www.themosthatedfword.com/episode-31-what-are-your-money-hopes/
Drs. Lance Palmer and Joan Koonce and the VITA program received national media coverage. Yahoo Finance
Dr. Pamela Turner and her work with the UGA Radon Education program was featured in the June 21, 2022 edition of the Morningagclips. https://www.morningagclips.com/uga-radon-education-program-promotes-awareness-home-testing/
Dr. Yilang Peng was recently interviewed by WBAY Wisconsin for his work on “Fitspiration” social media posts and psychological impact. https://www.wbay.com/2022/04/11/your-health-matters-recent-research-fitspiration-social-media-posts-psychological-impact/
Recent Research
Chang, Y., Chatterjee, S., & Kim, J. (2022). Do Households Use Food Budget Stretching to Alleviate Food Insecurity?. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/fcsr.12438
This study assesses whether households buy foods of low nutritional value and use coupons and store savings as effective budget-stretching measures to alleviate food insecurity. Interview and food-acquisition data for a sample of 4,235 households from the National Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey and mediation regression models were used. The study found little evidence of compromised nutritional quality as a budget-stretching practice. Stretching budget through coupons and store savings negatively predicted food insecurity, but it was not associated with income, suggesting that the poorest households might not consider coupons and store savings a viable option to maintain food access.
Choi, S. L., Harrell, E. R., & Watkins, K. (2022). The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Business Ownership Across Racial/Ethnic Groups and Gender. Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbac058
Objectives
We examined the extent to which optimism buffers the effects of physical limitations on depressive symptoms across 4 mid- and later-life age groups (ages 40–49, 50–64, 65–74, 75 and older at baseline). Analyses are motivated by stress theories, which propose that the protective effects of coping resources are evidenced only at high levels of stress. We further explore whether these purportedly protective effects diminish with age, as health-related stressor(s) intensify and become irreversible.
Methods
We use data from 2 waves (2004–2006 and 2013–2014) of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS, n = 4,515) and Midlife in the United States (MIDUS, n = 2,138). We estimate ordinary least squares regression models with 3-way interaction terms to examine prospectively the benefits of optimism as a coping resource for persons with physical limitations across 4 age groups. Physical limitations are assessed with a composite measure encompassing mobility and activity of daily living limitations.
Results
In HRS and MIDUS, persons with 3+ limitations reported significantly more depressive symptoms than persons with 0–2 limitations, yet these disparities diminished at higher levels of optimism. Buffering effects of optimism vary by age. For midlife and young-old persons with 3+ limitations, optimism is strongly and inversely related to depressive symptoms at follow-up. Comparable protective effects are not evident among the oldest sample members.
Discussion
Stress and coping models should consider more fully factors that limit older adults’ capacity to deploy purportedly protective personal resources. Investments in structural or institutional supports may be more effective than interventions to enhance positive thinking.
Cotwright, M., & Chatterjee, S. (2022). Equity Return Expectations and Financial Wealth Holdings of US Households. Open Economics, 5(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1515/openec-2022-0118
This paper examines the association between stock market return expectations and financial wealth holdings of older adults using the 2016 wave of the Health and Retirement Study. Our study finds that less than 30% of individuals assigned a greater than 50% probability that the market will earn a positive nominal return in the following year. However, considerable heterogeneities were observed across racial/ethnic groups. Health status, the cognitive functioning of older adults, and expectations of positive stock market return were positively associated with greater financial wealth holdings among households. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by applying a unique mathematically derived measure of future return expectations, and extends the literature on equity return expectations and the financial portfolios of households. The findings from this study inform policy makers, and underscore the need for prioritizing programs and policies that can be play a critical role in building human capital, in promoting financial capability, and in bridging the financial wealth gap for households belonging to the disadvantaged and underserved racial ethnic groups.
Diaz‐Valenzuela, J. F., Holman, M., Zhang, Y., & Skobba, K. (2022). Local Leaders' Perceptions of Housing Access and Segregation in their Communities. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/fcsr.12439
Research on housing discrimination and segregation usually focuses on federal-level actions, yet access to housing is determined locally. Local government leaders influence whether or not their communities provide housing to meet all residents' needs. This study uses a statewide survey of local leaders from 240 different municipalities in one Southeastern state to better understand their perceptions of local housing opportunities. The findings, which present areas for future research, suggest that the perceptions of some local leaders may be shaped by the housing needs of an idealized community. Additionally, the needs of some residents may be less visible to local leaders.
Fan, L. & Lim, H. (2022). Cognitive Abilities and Seeking Financial Advice: Differences in Advice Sources. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, 33(1), 97-114. DOI:
10.1891/JFCP-19-00079
This study used the 2017 National Financial Well-Being Survey to investigate the relationship between cognitive ability and seeking financial advice. Three aspects of cognitive ability were examined: memory, objective numeracy, and subjective numeracy. The results showed that in general, the three were not associated with seeking financial advice. However, after decomposing the sources of the advice, we found that among financial advice-seekers, memory and objective numeracy were positively associated with seeking financial advice from family. When adding the interactions between cognitive ability factors and age, older individuals with good memories were less likely to seek advice from family, while older individuals with higher objective numeracy were less likely to use social networks to seek financial advice. The study’s findings suggest future development in policies and practices to benefit those with low cognitive abilities to seek better financial advice using multiple advice sources.
Fan, L., Chatterjee, S., & Kim, J. (2022). Young adults’ personality traits and subjective well-being: The role of perceived money management capability. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 100689. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbef.2022.100689
This study examines the association between personality traits and subjective well-being (SWB) of young adults, the mediating role of perceived money management capability (PMMC), and whether these associations differed by gender. Using the 2015 wave of the Transition into Adulthood Supplement study of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study finds that several personality traits, including extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, were positively associated with SWB, while neuroticism was negatively associated with SWB. PMMC was positively associated with SWB and partially mediated the relationships between extraversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism and SWB. Furthermore, gender differences were observed in the associations between personality traits and SWB. Although four of the five personality traits, with the exception of openness, were consistently associated with SWB for young men and women; gender differences were found in the relationships between personality traits and PMMC. The mediating role of PMMC also differed by gender. Discussion and implications of the findings for policymakers and scholars are included.
Grable, J., Warmath, D., & Kwak, E. J. (2022). An Assessment of the Association between Political Orientation and Financial Risk Tolerance. Journal of Risk and Financial Management, 15(5), 199. https://doi.org/10.3390/jrfm15050199
The purpose of this paper is to present findings from research that was undertaken to answer the following questions. First, to what extent is political orientation associated with financial risk tolerance, and second, to what degree is political orientation predictive of changes in risk tolerance across periods? Using panel collected before and after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, it was determined that the strength of affiliation with the Republican and Democratic Parties was descriptive of cross-sectional financial risk tolerance. Republicans were found to exhibit greater risk tolerance compared with Democrats. Across periods, the risk tolerance of Republicans was less stable, whereas the financial risk tolerance of Democrats was more stable. A significant decrease in risk tolerance was observed for those affiliating as a Republican pre-election to post-election. When political orientation was measured on a scale, the decrease in risk tolerance across periods for Republicans was significant. The risk tolerance of those affiliating as a Democrat increased across the periods but at a lower rate than in the drop in scores among Republicans. When viewed across the variables of interest in this study, political orientation was found to be an important descriptor of FRT.
Grable, J., & Kwak, E. J. (2022). An Evaluation of the Consistency of Financial Risk-Aversion Estimates. Journal of Personal Finance, 21(1), 19-30.
This paper reports results from tests designed to determine whether financial risk aversion—the opposite of which is financial risk tolerance—varies based on the at-risk dollar amount presented in a risk-aversion evaluation. Risk aversion was observed to decrease slightly when respondents were presented with a low at-risk dollar amount, although the difference in observed scores across three at-risk dollar scenarios was less than one point on a 10-point scale. It was also noted that survey respondents were relatively risk averse and that females and older respondents exhibited greater risk aversion. When presented with a high at-risk dollar choice, those who self-identified as Black and those with high incomes exhibited less financial risk aversion.
Heo, W., Rabbani, A., Grable, J. E., & Roszkowski, M. (2022). The alpha and omega of financial risk-tolerance assessment. Financial Planning Review, 5, 2022;e1138. https://doi.org/10.1002/cfp2.1138
Over the past three decades, numerous scaling and attitudinal measurement techniques have been developed to facilitate the assessment of an individual's financial risk tolerance. Cronbach's alpha has traditionally been used as the primary measure of scale reliability for assessment tools that have been developed using classical psychometric theory. Recently, however, psychometricians have raised concerns about the ongoing use of Cronbach's alpha as a robust measure of scale reliability. In its place, some have argued that reliability estimates should be based on greatest lower bound (GLB) and omega estimations. The purpose of this paper is to describe and compare these alternative reliability measures to Cronbach's alpha for a widely used research-focused financial risk-tolerance scale. Using a dataset with 179,450 observations, findings from this study suggest that while estimates based on Cronbach's alpha, omega, and the GLB do differ, for the most part, reliability estimates across the measures are more similar than dissimilar.
Osinubi, A., Skobba, K., Ziebarth, A., & Tinsley, K. (2022). Perceptions and affordable rental housing: A small-town perspective from Georgia. Housing and Society, 49(2), 187-208. https://doi.org/10.1080/08882746.2021.1940447
Many rural small towns are facing a shortage of rental housing affordable to low-income households at a time when the stock of existing affordable housing is increasingly vulnerable. Previous research suggests that local decision-makers in small towns may be reluctant to advocate for an increase in affordable housing due to their proximity to residents, local power dynamics and racial inequality. This study uses survey data from 164 decision-makers in rural, small towns in Georgia to examine perceptions of housing affordability and the need for rental housing for low-income households compared to place-level data on rental housing supply, demand, affordability and other community characteristics. Many communities in the study have housing market and economic conditions that are likely affecting their lower-income residents, however increasing affordable rental housing was not an identified need for the majority of respondents in the study. Our analysis found no clear pattern between the data-based indicators of housing need and decision-makers’ assessments of changes needed in housing for low-income renters. Small town politics may contribute to this lack of awareness or acknowledgment of housing need. Further research about the factors that shape perceptions of and actions on housing issues among leaders in rural small towns.
Pak, T. Y., & Fan, L. (2022). Childhood Experience of Parental Affection and Financial Well‐being in Later Life: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study. Journal of Consumer Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12463
Childhood experience of parental affection has been shown to be influential in numerous domains of a child's life. Using a nationally representative sample of older Americans, this study examined the association between childhood experience of parental affection and financial well-being four to five decades later. Consistent with the literature, childhood experience of parental affection was found to be positively related to both objective and subjective financial well-being, as evidenced by greater total assets and lower total debt, debt-to-assets ratio, propensity to experience difficulty paying bills, and financial satisfaction. The results were robust to controlling for early life characteristics of parents and family, as well as addressing potential recall bias in retrospective reports. Our findings suggest that parental affection in childhood exerts a long-lasting influence on financial well-being, which persists into later life. Early intervention for those who lack parental affection may complement financial education programs and yield significant lifetime benefits
Peng, Y. (2022). Politics of COVID-19 vaccine mandates: Left/right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, and libertarianism. Personality and Individual Differences.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886922001659
Mandatory and punitive vaccination policies, such as requiring vaccination certificates for public activities and firing employees who refuse vaccination, have raised considerable objections. With a sample of U.S. crowdsourced workers (N = 983), this study investigates how four ideologies–left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and libertarianism–explain vaccine acceptance and attitudes toward vaccine policies. Results show that LWA predicts higher vaccine acceptance and support for COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the punishment of unvaccinated individuals, whereas libertarianism and RWA show negative relationships. SDO is linked to opposition to vaccine mandates. This study underscores the role of specific ideological components in shaping attitudes toward vaccine policies while also contributing to the arguments that LWA and libertarianism have important implications for studying sociopolitical attitudes.
Qi, J., Chatterjee, S., & Liu, Y. (2022). Retirement Preparedness of Generation X Compared to Other Cohorts in the United States. International Journal of Financial Studies, 10(2), 45. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijfs10020045
According to the U.S. Census records, 40% of the population is aged between 35 and 64. This statistic means that a substantial percentage of the nation’s population is in the wealth-formation phase of their life cycle and should be saving towards their retirement goals. Hence, the demand for retirement planning is anticipated to increase over the next decade. However, many economists and policymakers are concerned that a substantial number of American households are not well prepared for retirement. The Retirement Confidence Survey of the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that 36% of workers do not have any retirement savings. In particular, Generation X is the cohort that is least prepared for retirement. This research focuses on Generation X (40–54 years old) and explores this cohort’s retirement preparedness relative to their Baby Boomer and Millennial peers. The study also models cohort effects and identifies the key factors affecting retirement preparedness. The result indicates that Generation X is better prepared for retirement than Millennials in safer portfolio allocations, but there is no significant difference in retirement adequacy between Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. Income, risk tolerance, and attainment of a college education are positively associated with retirement preparedness.
Sharma, M., & Babiarz, P. (2022). Spending behavior and stimulus transfer use in response to income shocks among older Americans: evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic. Applied Economics Letters. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2022.2078774
This study examines household behavioural responses to the pandemic-induced income shocks regarding their overall spending and spending out of 2020 CARES stimulus payments. Using data from the 2020 Health and Retirement Study COVID-19 project and restricting our sample to older adults (51 years old and above), we show that the negative income shocks experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic put downward pressure on household spending. Results also reveal that, relative to those who did not experience an income shock, stimulus recipients who experienced income losses were more likely to use the stimulus transfer to increase spending, pay off debt, or for other purposes rather than to save.
Zhang, H., & Peng, Y. (2022). Image clustering: An unsupervised approach to categorize visual data in social science research. Sociological Methods & Research.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00491241221082603
Automated image analysis has received increasing attention in social scientific research, yet existing scholarship has mostly covered the application of supervised learning to classify images into predefined categories. This study focuses on the task of unsupervised image clustering, which aims to automatically discover categories from unlabelled image data. We first review the steps to perform image clustering and then focus on one key challenge in this task—finding intermediate representations of images. We present several methods of extracting intermediate image representations, including the bag-of-visual-words model, self-supervised learning, and transfer learning (in particular, feature extraction with pretrained models). We compare these methods using various visual datasets, including images related to protests in China from Weibo, images about climate change on Instagram, and profile images of the Russian Internet Research Agency on Twitter. In addition, we propose a systematic way to interpret and validate clustering solutions. Results show that transfer learning significantly outperforms the other methods. The dataset used in the pretrained model critically determines what categories the algorithms can discover.
Zhang, Y., & Fan, L. (2022). Financial Capability, Financial Education, and Student Loan Debt: Expected and Unexpected Results. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning. DOI: 10.1891/JFCP-2021-0039
This study used the 2015 National Financial Capability Study to investigate the relationships among financial capability, financial education, and student loan debt outcomes. Specifically, this study examines four student loan outcomes: delinquency, stress, preparation, and satisfaction among borrowers who obtained loans for themselves. Three forms of financial capability (objective financial knowledge, subjective financial knowledge, and perceived financial capability) and two forms of financial education (formal school/workplace education and informal parental education) were used as potential predictors in the study. The Probit regression results showed that expectedly, several financial capability and financial education factors were positively associated with desirable financial outcomes such as loan calculation and loan satisfaction, and negatively associated with undesirable outcomes such as loan stress and loan delinquency. However, this study also showed several unexpected results. For example, objective financial knowledge was negatively associated with loan calculation and loan satisfaction, and subjective knowledge and formal financial education were positively associated with loan delinquency.
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Apr 04, 2022
Dr. Lance Palmer has been named the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teach Professor. The highest honor for teaching at the University of Georgia.
Dr. Lu Fan has been selected as the recipient of the 2022 ACCI Richard B. Morse Early-Career Award. She will be recognized at the 2022 ACCI Annual Conference in Clearwater Beach, FL (May 19-21, 2022).
Doctoral student Heejae Lee and Dr. Sheri Worthy have received the 2021 Family and Consumer Sciences Best Paper Award in the Food and Nutrition category for their paper “Adoption of fad diets through the lens of diffusion of innovations”.
Doctoral student Zongze Li will receive the 2022 ACCI Consumer Movement Archives Applied Consumer Economics Award for the best Student Paper for his article entitled “Materialism and use of credit cards: The mediation effects of the Theory of Planned Behavior constructs”. His co-authors on this paper are Drs. Diann Moorman and Swarn Chatterjee.
Drs. Joan Koonce, Lance Palmer, and the Virtual Vita team were highlighted in two National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences Impact Statements.
Two FHCE students Linda Olvera and Caleb Ray have been selected to be inducted into the UGA Blue Key National Honor Society.
Celebrations!
Dr. Karen Tinsley was inducted into the Honor Hall of Recognition at the 43rd Annual Alumni Awards event on March 26 at the Classic Center.
Eliza Paris Harrison received the Pacesetter Award at the 43rd FACS Annual Alumni Awards. This award is given to a graduate of the last 10 years who actively promotes the beliefs and values of family and consumer sciences. Eliza graduated in 2014 with a degree in Consumer Journalism. She was a successful member of the investment banking team at UBS Financial Services in New York with a strong record of volunteerism and mentorship. Prior to her death in June 2021 following a 3 1/2 year battle with cancer, she appeared on CNN, the Today Show and in People Magazine advocating for immuno-compromised people.
Research
Warmath, D., Bell, D. R., & Winterstein, A. P. (2022). The Role of Athlete Competitiveness in High School Sport Specialization in the United States. Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, 10(3), 23259671221079670. https://doi.org/10.1177/23259671221079670
This study examined the role of athlete competitiveness (enjoyment of competition and competitive contentiousness) as a characteristic associated with propensity to specialize in the United States. We hypothesized that, at the high school level, athletes would be more likely to engage in sport specialization owing to enjoyment of competition versus competitive contentiousness. Study findings indicated that, while athlete competitiveness is associated with sport specialization, the nature of that competitiveness determined the association. Being an argumentative contrarian may predispose athletes to lower levels of sport specialization, whereas enjoying competition may encourage higher levels of specialization.
White, K. J., Ouyang, C., Machiz, I., McCoy, M., & Qi, J. (2022). An Application of Financial Resilience to Retirement Planning by Racial/Ethnic Status. The Journal of Retirement. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3905/jor.2022.1.111
A great majority of Americans are underfunded and/or financially stressed about their retirement future. Black and Hispanic individuals have a greater risk for inadequate retirement savings and experience higher levels of financial stress in their retirement age. This study investigates which factors increase financial resilience among Black and Hispanic individuals in terms of their retirement preparedness. Results from the 2018 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 indicate that all four components of the financial resilience framework (economic resources, access to retirement resources, retirement knowledge, and social capital) are predictors of individuals’ subjective retirement preparedness. Results and implications are examined separately for Black, Hispanic and non-Black, non-Hispanic individuals to help financial professionals decrease the retirement planning racial and ethnic gap.