The Nollywood Nudge : An Entertaining Approach to Saving
This paper investigates the immediate and medium-term behavioral response to an emotional trigger designed to affect biases in intertemporal financial decisions. The emotional trigger is provided by a narrative portraying the catastrophic consequen...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/468251561642192667/The-Nollywood-Nudge-An-Entertaining-Approach-to-Saving http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31986 |
| Summary: | This paper investigates the immediate
and medium-term behavioral response to an emotional trigger
designed to affect biases in intertemporal financial
decisions. The emotional trigger is provided by a narrative
portraying the catastrophic consequences of poor financial
choices. Even when people are fully aware of the most
appropriate action to take, cognitive biases may prevent
this knowledge from translating into action. The paper
contributes to the literature by directly testing the
importance of linking emotional stimulus to financial
messages, to influence borrowing and saving decisions, and
identifying the interaction between emotional stimulus and
the opportunity to act on this stimulus. The study randomly
assigned individuals to a featured production -- a Nollywood
(the Nigerian Hollywood) movie -- on the financial
consequences of poor borrowing and saving behavior. This
treatment is interacted with the option of opening a savings
account at the screening of the movie. At the exit of the
screening, individuals in the financial education movie
treatment are more likely to open a savings account than
individuals in the placebo movie treatment. However, the
effects dissipate quickly. When savings and borrowing
behavior is measured four months later, the study finds no
differences between treatments. The paper concludes that
emotional triggers delivered in the context of a one-time
feature film might not be enough to secure sustained changes
in behavior. |
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