What does this research mean for the field?

Cultural attitudes against a behavior, such as debt, can lead to the creation of intermediating institutions that paradoxically increase that behavior through a process of 'institutional inversion'. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.NOVEL_FINDING. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.CHALLENGES_CONSENSUS.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To explore how historical attitudes toward debt affect contemporary behaviors through intermediary institutions.

January 28, 2021

Attitudes, behavior, and institutional inversion: The case of debt.

Key Points

To explore how historical attitudes toward debt affect contemporary behaviors through intermediary institutions.
Analyzed the relationship between attitudes toward debt in historically Protestant versus Catholic regions.
Examined how cultural attitudes can lead to the creation of institutions affecting borrowing behaviors.
Investigated the role of supply-side factors in shaping the attitude-institution-behavior causal chain.
In Protestant areas, historical anti-debt attitudes correspond with current high household debt levels.
Institutions formed from these cultural attitudes facilitate borrowing rather than inhibit it.
Findings reveal unintended consequences of cultural norms and institutional functions on debt behavior.

Abstract

Psychologists often posit relatively straightforward attitude-behavior links. They also often study cultural arrangements as manifestations of attitudes and values writ large. However, we illustrate some difficulties with scaling up attitude-behavior principles from the individual-level to the cultural-level: Historical attitudes and values can lead to the creation of intermediating institutions, whose value-expressive functions may be at odds with the behavioral outcomes they produce. Through "institutional inversion," institutions may facilitate rather than inhibit stigmatized behavior. Here we examine attitudes and behavior related to debt, contrast historically Protestant versus Catholic places, and show how cultural attitudes against debt may lead to the creation of institutions that increase-rather than decrease-borrowing. Historical antidebt attitudes in Protestant places have led to contemporary households in Protestant cultures now carrying the highest debt loads. We discuss the importance of supply side factors, attitude → institutions → behavior causal chains, and some blind spots that lead to unintended consequences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

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