ISSEP-2025-16

GRANT ID#: ISSEP-2025-16

GRANT TITLE: Dying in debt: Toward a cultural existential psychology of financial debt.

GRANTEE: Skidmore College

PRIMARY INVESTIGATOR: Harrison Schmitt.

GRANT AMOUNT: USD $14,766.67

DURATION OF GRANT PROJECT: December 15, 2024 – Dec 31, 2026.

Description of the Project

 

Executive summary:

There is currently more financial debt in the United States (US) than at any time in history, with people relying on debt for both basic necessities and material comforts. No research has yet applied a cultural-existential psychology lens (Sullivan, 2016) to an analysis of the psychological implications of the contemporary debt crisis in the US. Pilot studies to date show that types of debt used disproportionately by the poor are stigmatized (e.g., credit cards, payday loans) while those used by the wealthy are glorified (e.g., mortgages). Use of these culturally “good” and “bad” debts are reliably associated with self-esteem, financial shame, and existential anxiety. Extending this work, I propose two studies exploring how the stigmatization of different debts results in a bifurcated experience of debt for lower- and higher-class individuals with key existential implications. In Study 1, I will test whether an experimental manipulation of debt salience results in lower self-esteem, higher financial shame, and higher death thought accessibility for lower class (vs. higher class) participants. In Study 2, I will recruit a large geographically representative sample of US residents to test whether state-level cultural and political variables predict amplified class-based disparities in debt-related psychological impacts.

Itemized budget:

The entirety of the budget for this project will go toward participant payment on the two proposed studies, as follows:

  • Study 1 Participant Payment: 500 Prolific Workers × $1.75 (8-minute survey=$13.12/hr) + $291.67 Prolific fees = $1,166.67

  • Study 2 Participant Payment: 5,100 Prolific Workers × $2.00 (10-minute survey=$12.00/hr) + $3,400.00 Prolific fees = $13,600.00

  • Total: $14,766.67

The total amount approved for this project is USD $14,766.67.

Kenneth Vail