ABSTRACT
Like many other aspects of life, our role as consumers often requires the exercise of self-control, quite simply because for most people money is a limited resource. The ever increasing amount of consumer debt that Americans have amassed suggests that spending restraint is difficult for many individuals to maintain. For example, the average household credit card debt is over $15,000, on top of average student loan and mortgage debts of $32,953 and $156,333 respectively (U.S. Federal Reserve, 2015). From a historical perspective, the problem of credit card debt has continued to worsen with each generation. For instance, Americans born between 1980 and 1984 maintain an average credit card debt $5,689 more than their parents had at the same age; the difference is even more extreme compared to their grandparents, with an average increase of $8,156 debt (Jiang & Dunn, 2013).
