The road to financial satisfaction: testing the paths of knowledge, attitudes, sense of control and positive financial behaviors

A goal of financial therapies is to increase clients’ financial satisfaction by helping them to perform positive financial behaviors. The present study argues that the success of such therapies can be further enhanced by considering the individual factors that underlie such behaviors. To identify the possibly most promising factors, data from the 2018 MAS Financial Capability Survey (n = 2,133) were used and three sets of individual factors were examined: knowledge factors (financial knowledge and financial confidence), attitudinal factors (future orientation and attitude toward money), and sense of control factors (spending self-control and perceived behavioral control). Path analysis findings indicated that all factors were associated with financial satisfaction via one or more positive financial behaviors. All factors except for attitude toward money were also directly related to financial satisfaction. Financial confidence was the most promising individual factor to improve clients’ financial satisfaction, followed by future orientation and perceived behavioral control.