Aligning Interventions with Mental Representations: Two Large-Scale Field Experiments to Increase Financial Well-Being

Abstract

Financial well-being depends not only on income, savings, spending, and debt - but on how people mentally represent these domains. In this talk, I present two large-scale field experiments showing that behavioral interventions are most effective when they align with consumers’ mental representations - and when consumers are cognitively receptive to them. First, in partnership with a major fintech firm (N > 1.5 million users), reframing incomplete savings accounts as already “endowed” increased enrollment, but only when paired with a financial incentive, suggesting that framing works best when attention and motivation are already activated. Second, in research with applicants for SNAP benefits (N > 30,000), eliciting income in formats congruent with how people naturally think about their pay reduced cognitive burden and decreased application drop-off by 39%. Across contexts, small changes in information architecture - without altering eligibility or core incentives - substantially improved follow-through when interventions fit how people already think.