Lara Engelbert
Leon Hilbert
Lara Engelbert’s (Social Psychology) Question:
Dear Leon,
Students often have to balance the workload of their studies with a job to finance their education and sometimes even face financial uncertainty. How do financial pressures affect people, and are there effective ways to help?
Lara
Leon Hilbert’s (Work and Organizational Psychology) answer:
Dear Lara,
This is a question close to my heart and to my research. Financial problems don’t just affect your bank account, they also get inside your head (and your body).
When people feel that they have too little money to meet their needs, they can get into a so called “scarcity mindset”. This is a stressful experience and leads them to narrow their attention toward the most pressing financial concerns. Like a tunnel, the mind focuses on what is urgent and immediately needed, while other things fade into the periphery. Research shows that this attentional tunnelling causes people to neglect important but less urgent domains — like long-term planning or, indeed, studying (De Bruijn & Antonides, 2022). It also helps explain why people under financial pressure tend care less about the future. When you are stressed about paying rent, it becomes genuinely harder to think about your exams at the end of the semester, let alone your career in five years (Hilbert et al., 2022).
My research also shows that people experiencing financial scarcity tend to report lower perceived control (Hilbert et al., 2025). This means that people have less “grip on their lives” and think that they will be unable to reach their goals. For students, this can be particularly damaging: if financial stress makes you feel like you have little grip, it becomes harder to believe that studying hard will actually pay off. That sense of helplessness can undermine motivation and goal-directed behaviour at exactly the moment when it matters most.
So what helps? Structural support (like specific grants or a reduced tuition) and reduced living costs (like affordable student housing) would help the most, because they address the root cause. But psychological interventions can also help: reducing the stigma around financial stress and creating low-threshold support systems so students don’t have to navigate financial difficulties alone.
The key insight is that financial stress is not just a practical problem, it’s a cognitive and emotional one too. Treating it as such is the first step toward effective help.
Best, Leon
Leon Hilbert’s question is for Hannes Rosenbusch (Research Methods)
Dear Hannes,
Some people are very funny and we say about them that they have a good sense of humor. What does that actually mean? Also, do you think that LLMs can (or will be able to) write humorous novels? Or is that something that we will continue to need human authors for?
Lara Engelbert’s (Social Psychology) Question:
Dear Leon,
Students often have to balance the workload of their studies with a job to finance their education and sometimes even face financial uncertainty. How do financial pressures affect people, and are there effective ways to help?
Lara
Leon Hilbert’s (Work and Organizational Psychology) answer:
Dear Lara,
This is a question close to my heart and to my research. Financial problems don’t just affect your bank account, they also get inside your head (and your body).
When people feel that they have too little money to meet their needs, they can get into a so called “scarcity mindset”. This is a stressful experience and leads them to narrow their attention toward the most pressing financial concerns. Like a tunnel, the mind focuses on what is urgent and immediately needed, while other things fade into the periphery. Research shows that this attentional tunnelling causes people to neglect important but less urgent domains — like long-term planning or, indeed, studying (De Bruijn & Antonides, 2022). It also helps explain why people under financial pressure tend care less about the future. When you are stressed about paying rent, it becomes genuinely harder to think about your exams at the end of the semester, let alone your career in five years (Hilbert et al., 2022).
My research also shows that people experiencing financial scarcity tend to report lower perceived control (Hilbert et al., 2025). This means that people have less “grip on their lives” and think that they will be unable to reach their goals. For students, this can be particularly damaging: if financial stress makes you feel like you have little grip, it becomes harder to believe that studying hard will actually pay off. That sense of helplessness can undermine motivation and goal-directed behaviour at exactly the moment when it matters most.
So what helps? Structural support (like specific grants or a reduced tuition) and reduced living costs (like affordable student housing) would help the most, because they address the root cause. But psychological interventions can also help: reducing the stigma around financial stress and creating low-threshold support systems so students don’t have to navigate financial difficulties alone.
The key insight is that financial stress is not just a practical problem, it’s a cognitive and emotional one too. Treating it as such is the first step toward effective help.
Best, Leon
Leon Hilbert’s question is for Hannes Rosenbusch (Research Methods)
Dear Hannes,
Some people are very funny and we say about them that they have a good sense of humor. What does that actually mean? Also, do you think that LLMs can (or will be able to) write humorous novels? Or is that something that we will continue to need human authors for?
