Leveraging psychological fit to encourage saving behavior

Despite their best intentions, most people fail to save enough for the future. In this research, we demonstrate that people are more successful at saving when their savings goals are aligned with their Big Five personality traits. Study 1 uses a nationally representative sample of 2,447 U.K. citizens to test whether people whose self-declared savings goals more closely match their Big Five personality also report higher levels of savings. We apply specification curve analyses to minimize the risk of having arbitrary analytical decisions produce false-positive results. As our findings show, person-goal fit significantly predicted savings across all 48 specifications. Study 2 expands these findings by testing whether psychological fit can influence savings even if the saving goals are not formulated by the individuals themselves but instead suggested by a technology service designed to help them save. In a field experiment with 6,056 U.S.-based low-income users of a nonprofit Fintech app (with < $100 in current savings), we show that people who were encouraged to save $100 over the course of a month were more likely to achieve this target if they were encouraged to save toward personality-matched goals. Our research provides support for the theory of psychological fit, showing that an alignment between an individual's Big Five personality traits and the personality appeal of a saving goal can help increase savings, even among those who struggle the most. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).