The Influence Of Collective Memory Of Poverty On Willingness To Spend From An Intergenerational Perspective

In recent years,collective memory has become the focus of research in many academic disciplines.In the past,researches on collective memory in psychology mostly focused on its formation,maintenance and transmission mechanism,while few scholars studied the influence and mechanism of collective memory on human psychology and behavior.Therefore,this study puts forward the concept of collective memory of poverty,and focuses on the relationship between it and people’s willingness to spend.Since memory can be divided into implicit memory and explicit memory according to the consciousness of the retrieval stage,this paper argues that there are two mechanisms for the effect of collective memory of poverty on willingness to spend.Based on this,this paper examines how collective memory of poverty,as a stable trait,influences individuals’ willingness to spend,in order to explain the intergenerational differences in financial behavior of different generations in real life.On the other hand,this study also examines how collective memory of poverty affects individual’s current willingness to spend in priming state.Based on this,we seek new ideas to guide people to make reasonable financial management behavior in order to improve people’s financial well-being.Three specific studies were used to prove the research hypothesis.Study 1 was conducted by in-depth interview method,and 54 interviewees of different generations were recruited to explore the contents of collective memory of poverty across generations and to understand how collective memory of poverty has a lasting impact on willingness to spend.The results of study 1 show that:(1)according to the generation division,the collective memory of poverty can be divided into three types: "the collective memory of poverty of the post-60 s and post-70 s with survival needs as the core","the collective memory of poverty of the post-80 s and post-90 s with development needs as the core" and "the collective memory of poverty of the post-00 s with enjoyment needs as the core"(2)Collective memories of poverty can shape individuals’ financial values and have lasting effects on their willingness to spend.The collective memory of poverty of the post-60 s and post-70 s makes the post-60 s and post-70 s pursue a stable life and pay attention to the social value of money,which makes them more willing to save and make relational spending and charitable donations.The collective memory of poverty of the post-80 s and post-90 s makes them pay attention to the individual value of money and hold a positive attitude towards financial management,which makes them more willing to invest.The collective memory of poverty among the post-00 s makes them believe that money has transcendental value,which makes them more willing to make enjoyable consumption.On the basis of study 1,study 2 further examined the lasting impact of collective memory of poverty on willingness to spend,and examined whether collective memory of poverty in the priming state can play a guiding role in the impact of individuals’ willingness to spend.A total of 208 people born in the 60 s,70s and 80 s and 90 s were recruited to manipulate collective memory of poverty by using cue-word technique and recall writing task.The results of quantitative analysis verified the conclusion of study 1,and also proved that the activation of poverty collective memory can have an impact on individuals’ willingness to spend.On the basis of study 2,study 3 introduced the variable of negative emotion to further explore the influence of priming poverty collective memory on individuals’ willingness to spend and its mechanism.A total of 172 participants in their 60 s and70s were recruited to manipulate collective memory of poverty through typical picture and recall writing tasks.The results show that negative emotion plays a partially mediating role in the effect of priming collective memory of poverty on willingness to spend.