The effectiveness of social norm information in stimulating financial help-seeking behavior: A field experiment

ABSTRACT

Early contact with people who need financial help is key in preventing financial derailment. It can prevent avoidable debt accumulation and accompanying psychological problems. In this field experiment, we investigated whether a descriptive social norm message mentioning an absolute number of customers who had previously reached out for help motivates customers of a Dutch mortgage lender to get in contact when they expect financial problems in the near future. The descriptive social norm letter did not result in more contacts. The results of our research contribute to the literature on social norm communication and debt prevention. Moreover, we present insights into the challenges associated with experimental field research on social influence and provide recommendations for future field work.

KEYWORDS:

• Debt
• problematic debt
• social norm
• debtor communication

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, F.Uhl, upon reasonable request.