A study in understanding the saving behavior: Frugality and materialistic behavior of college students

This thesis aims to investigate the saving behavior of college students by taking into account personality traits and attitudes. Data used in this study were obtained from students in Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University between January to February in 2020. 263 students participated the survey. The questionnaire consisted of thirty-eight items and we use "a 5-point Likert scale" in answer sheet. The survey questions, in broad sense, aim at focusing on important determinants of saving behavior outlined in the literature; including, frugality, materialism, overspending, saving, the effect of parents, and the impact of economic hardship scales. To find underlying attitudes or traits, factor analysis with Varimax rotation was employed, PCA was chosen as an extraction method. The factor analysis brings us four distinct variables differentiating personality traits and attitudes including; lavishness, pretentiousness, self-control, and impact of economic hardship. Furthermore, binary logistic regression analyzes were conducted to explore the relationship between saving behavior, personality traits, attitudes, and variables that contains demographic information of college students. The results indicate that students who have self-control are more likely to save, whereas pretentious and lavish students are less likely to show saving behavior and tendency. In addition, impact of economic hardship and family income do not influence saving behavior of students. Furthermore, students who have optimistic expectations about economic conditions of country in the future are less likely to spend their money. On the contrary, pessimistic students in this regard are more likely to engage in spending behavior. However, it has been observed that today's expectations have no effect on students' saving and spending behaviors.