Project description
Seeing yourself as a senior citizen
Once the cool stuff of science-fiction movies, augmented reality (AR) is a tool used by pension funds and policymakers to increase public awareness about pensions. The aim is to strengthen the financial well-being and outcomes for older adults through the stimulation of the imagery of the future self in pension plan consumers. The EU-funded AUGMENTPENSION project will investigate the impact of AR on the imagery of the future self and the downstream effects on pension awareness and engagement to understand how to improve pension communication with AR. The project will apply findings from recent AR research in consumer behaviour and laboratory studies with field evidence from one of the world's largest pension providers.
Objective
Elderly poverty is a prominent problem, and financial well-being in elderly is often considered low. A common cause for elderly poverty is a lack of sufficient pension awareness and engagement, especially at a young age. Independent of the pension scheme in a particular country, pension funds and policymakers around the world struggle to increase the engagement of pension plan consumers that would affect a consumer's future financial well-being positively. An often-proposed intervention to overcome the present bias that leads to not engaging with pension communications is to stimulate the imagery of the future self in pension plan consumers. Yet, current pension communications fall behind expectations in stimulating imagery of the future self and thus fail to improve pension awareness and engagement. In light of recent evidence on a new technology coined Augmented Reality (AR), this project proposes an experimental approach to investigate the impact of AR on the imagery of the future self and the downstream effects on pension awareness and engagement. Building on a series of laboratory, online, and field experiments, I apply findings from recent AR research in consumer behavior to find evidence and theoretically explain the effects AR can have on pension awareness and engagement. Combining findings from laboratory studies with field-evidence from the world’s third largest pension provider (APG) will shine light on how to improve pension communication with AR to improve future financial well-being. The proposed results are societally relevant as they can help to promote pension engagement that results in future financial well-being. My strong background in experimental consumer behavior research with a focus on AR technology and consumer engagement, combined with my supervisor’s expertise in pension and financial well-being research, and the strong research and training environment at Maastricht University (UM) will guarantee a successful project completion.
Fields of science
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
6200 MD Maastricht
Netherlands