Financial satisfaction and assessment of financial progress: Importance of money attitudes

A survey of 280 males and 279 females living in rural Arizona and California was used to explore the importance of money beliefs (obsession, retention, power/spending, and effort/ability), after controlling for objective indicators of financial well-being (income, value of assets, and amount of debt), in predicting appraisals of financial satisfaction and perception of financial progress. Results of a hierarchical model of stepwise regression suggest that money beliefs contribute more to predicting an individual's financial satisfaction than to perception of financial progress. Results also indicate gender differences in the role of money beliefs in predicting financial satisfaction and perception of financial progress.