Economic crisis: perceptions and consequences

Journal title RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA
Author/s Elisabetta Lombardi, Anna Maria Ajello
Publishing Year 2017 Issue 2017/1 Language Italian
Pages 31 P. 93-123 File size 298 KB
DOI 10.3280/RIP2017-001005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

The economic crisis offers an opportunity to compare the adolescents’ prior conceptions on a transnational phenomenon. This is not frequent opportunity because many of social conceptions are largely pervaded by cultural aspects that reduce the comparative possibilities; this is also the reason for limited number of studies that investigate the misunderstandings and biases that obstruct a social phenomena’s understanding. The investigations of naïve understandings of economic issues are relatively scarce and the studies’ focus on this topic are relatively recent. The research study to be presented here aims to contribute to filling this gap by exploring adolescents’ naïve understandings of the complex economic phenomena that are underlying the understanding of the crisis. A qualitative research study was conducted through an open question interview with 97 secondary school students (average age: 17 years, 57% male), analyzed according to the model of expertise in knowledge acquisition for social and economic content. Among other results could be find ways of reasoning that are based on an ideal continuum model that goes from everyday cognition to academic/scholastic literacy until expertise that represents a systematic in-depth knowledge. Have been rebuilding the main features of reasoning through non-contradiction principle, the relevance compared to the domain of knowledge and the consistency compared to the content of propositions. The data obtained confirm that the students show serious difficulties to understanding of complex economic phenomena and demonstrate the hard transferability of learned economic knowledge in the understanding of daily economic problems.

Keywords: Economic crisis, secondary school students, economic/financial education, financial literacy, representations.

  1. Ajello, A.M., & Siciliano Berna, M. (1991). Storia e sistemi produttivi: un curricolo per la scuola media. Scandicci: La nuova Italia.
  2. Agnew, J.R., Bateman, H., & Thorp, S. (2013). Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Australia, Numeracy, 6(2), Articolo 7. DOI: 10.5038/1936-4660.6.2.7
  3. Ajello, A.M., & Bombi, A.S. (1987). Studi sociali e conoscenze economiche: un curriculo per la scuola elementare. Scandicci: La nuova Italia.
  4. Ajello, A.M., Bombi, A.S., Pontecorvo, C., & Zucchermaglio, C. (1987). Teaching economics in primary school: The concepts of work and profit. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 10(1), 51-69. DOI: 10.1177/016502548701000104
  5. Ajello, A.M., & Appolloni, M. (1998). Se tu fossi l'assessore al traffico: problem solving ed expertise sociale. Rassegna di Psicologia, 3.
  6. Ajello, A.M. (2002). Apprendimento e competenza: un nodo attuale. Scuola e città, 1, 39-56.
  7. Almenberg, J., & Säve-Söderbergh, J. (2011). Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Sweden, Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, 10(4), 585-598. DOI: 10.1017/S1474747211000497
  8. Aprea, C., & Sappa, V. (2014). Variations of Young Germans’ Informal Conceptions of Financial and Economic Crises Phenomena. JSSE-Journal of Social Science Education, 13(3).
  9. Aprea, C. (2015). Secondary school students’ informal conceptions of complex economic phenomena. International Journal of Educational Research, 69, 12-22.
  10. Arrondel, L., Debbich, M., & Savignac F. (2013), Financial Literacy and Financial Planning in France. Numeracy, 6(2), Articolo 8. DOI: 10.5038/1936-4660.6.2.8
  11. Berti A., Ajello, A.M., Aprea, C., Castelli, I., Lombardi, E., Marchetti, A., Massaro, D., Sappa, V., & Valle, A. (2017). Italian and Swiss adolescents' and young adults' naïve understandings of the economic crisis. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, 13(1), 143-161.
  12. Berti, A.E. (1988). The development of political understanding in children between 6-15 years old. Human Relations, 41(6), 437-446. DOI: 10.1177/001872678804100602
  13. Berti, A.E (1991). Le concezioni infantili sugli scambi economici: sequenze di sviluppo e modalità di apprendimento. In A.S. Bombi (ed.), Economia e processi di conoscenza. Torino: Loescher.

  14. Berti, A.E., & Bombi, A.S. (1988). The Child Construction’s of Economics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  15. Boggio, C., Fornero, E., Prast, H., & Sanders, J. (2014). Seven Ways to Knit Your Portfolio: Is Investor Communication Neutral? CeRP Working Paper, no. 140/14.
  16. Boisclair, D., Lusardi, A., & Michaud, P.C. (2014). Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Canada. NBER Working Paper, no. 20297, forthcoming Journal of Pension Economics and Finance.
  17. Bombi, A.S. (1991). Economia e processi di conoscenza. Torino: Loescher.
  18. Breuer, K. (2013). Internal prerequisites for learning and acting in the domain of financial literacy. Paper presentato alla 15° Conferenza Biennale de European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), Munich, Germania 27‐31 Agosto 2013.
  19. Brown, M., & Graf, R. (2013). Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Switzerland. Numeracy, 6(2), Articolo 6. DOI: 10.5038/1936-4660.6.2.6
  20. Bucher-Koenen, T. (2011). Financial Literacy, Riester Pensions and Other Private Old Age Provision in Germany. Max-Planck-Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, MEA Discussion Paper 250-11.
  21. Bucher-Koenen, T, Lusardi, A., Alessie, R., & van Rooij, M. (2016): How Financially Literate Are Women? An Overview and New Insights, Journal of Consumer Affairs.
  22. Castelli, I., Massaro, D., Bicchieri, C., Chavez, A., & Marchetti, A. (2014). Fairness norms and theory of mind in an ultimatum game: judgments, offers, and decisions in school-aged children. PLoS One 2014; 9, e105024.
  23. Crossan, D., Feslier, D., & Hurnard, R. (2011). Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in New Zealand. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, 10(4), 619-635.
  24. Davies, P., & Lundholm, C. (2012). Students' understanding of socio-economic phenomena: conceptions about the free provision of goods and services. Journal of Economic Psychology, 33, 1, 79-89. 
  25. Davies, P., Syed, F., & Appleyard, L. (2013). Secondary school students’ understanding of the financial system. Paper presentato alla 15° Conferenza Biennale de European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), Munich, Germania 27‐31 Agosto.
  26. Davies, P. (2015). Towards a framework for financial literacy in the context of democracy. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 47(2), 300-316.  DOI: 10.1080/00220272.2014.934717
  27. Edwards, W. (1961). Behavioral decision theory. Annual review of psychology, 12(1), 473-498.
  28. Engeström, Y. (1991). Non scolae sed vitae discimus: Toward overcoming the encapsulation of school learning. Learning and instruction, 1(3). 243-259. DOI: 10.1016/0959-4752(91)90006-T
  29. Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, Attitude, Intention and Behavior: An Introduction to Theory and Research Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley, 6.
  30. Fonseca, R., Mullen, K. J., Zamarro, G., & Zissimopoulos, J. (2012). What explains the gender gap in financial literacy? The role of household decision making. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 46(1), 90-106.
  31. Fornero, E., & Monticone, C. (2011). Financial Literacy and Pension Plan Participation in Italy. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, 10(4), 547-564.
  32. Gabay, A.S., Radua, J., Kempton, M.J., & Mehta, M.A. (2014). The Ultimatum Game and the brain: A meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies. Neuroscience e Biobehavioral Reviews, 47, 549-558.
  33. Hoffman, C., Lau, I., & Johnson, D.R. (1986). The linguistic relativity of person cognition: An English–Chinese comparison. Journal of personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1097.
  34. Jeziorski, A., Legardez, A., & Valente, D. (2014). Taking into Account Knowledge Representations About the Crisis, Uncertainty and Risk in the Teaching Perspective: A Comparative Study of European Students in Economics Programmes. JSSE-Journal of Social Science Education, 13(3).
  35. Katona, G. (1963). The relationship between psychology and economics. In S. Koch (Ed.). Psychology: a study of a science, 6 (pp. 639-676). New York: McGraw- Hill Book Company.
  36. Legardez, A. (2004). Enseigner l’économie: une perspective didactique. Enseigner l’économie. Paris: L’Harmattan.
  37. Leiser, D., Benita, R., & Bourgeois-Gironde, S. (2016). Differing conceptions of the causes of the economic crisis: Effects of culture, economic training, and personal impact. Journal of Economic Psychology, 53, 154-163. DOI 0.1016/j.joep.2016.02.002.
  38. Lofstrom, J., & Van de Berg, M. (2013). Making sense of the financial crisis in economici education: An analysis of the upper secondary school social studies teaching in Finland in the 2010’s. Journal of Social Science Education, 12,  53 -65.
  39. Lombardi, E., Castelli, I., & Marchetti, A. (2015). La sensibilità alla fairness come dimensione dello sviluppo morale. Infanzia e Adolescenza (Dicembre, 2015), 250-273. DOI: 10.1710/2124.23004
  40. Lusardi, A., & Mitchell O.S. (2007). Baby Boomers Retirement Security: the Role of Planning, Financial Literacy and Housing Wealth. Journal of Monetary Economics, 54(1), 205-224.
  41. Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O.S. (2008). Planning and Financial Literacy: How Do Women Fare?. American Economic Review, 98(2), 413-417.
  42. Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O.S. (2009). How Ordinary Consumers Make Complex Economic Decisions: Financial Literacy and Retirement Readiness. NBER Working Paper, 15350.
  43. Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O.S. (2011). Financial Literacy and Planning: Implications for Retirement Wellbeing. In O.S. Mitchell & A. Lusardi (eds.), Financial Literacy: Implications for Retirement Security and the Financial Marketplace (pp. 17-39). Oxford University Press: Oxford.
  44. Marçal, K. (2016). I conti con le donne: Come gli economisti hanno dimenticato l'altra metà del mondo. Ponte alle Grazie.
  45. Marchetti, A., Castelli, I., Massaro, D., & Valle, A. (2016). Combining Development and Education: Why Do Decision-Making and Social Norms Matter for Financial Education?. In C. Aprea, E. Wuttke, K. Breuer, N. Keng Koh, P. Davies, B. Greimel-Fuhrmann, & J.S. Lopus (eds.), International Handbook of Financial Literacy (pp. 69-81). Springer Singapore.
  46. Peterson, J. (2013). Economics Education after the Crisis: Pluralism, history, and Instutions. Journal of Economic Issues, XLVII 2, 401-409. DOI: 10.2753/JEI0021-3624470213
  48. Pisa (2012). Pisa financial literacy assessment framework. www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46962580.pdf. Consultato agosto 2016.
  49. Pliakis, I., Digkas, C., Bousiou-Makridou, D., & Tsopanoglou, S., (2013). The Impact of Economic Crisis on the Perception and Knowledge Level of Students Regarding Economic and Financial Concepts. Journal of Social Science Education, 12(2), 23-30.
  50. Rosenberg, S., Nelson, C., & Vivekananthan, P.S. (1968). A multidimensional approach to the structure of personality impressions. Journal of personality and social psychology, 9(4), 283.
  51. Savadori, L., Nicotra, E., Rumiati, R., & Tamborini, R. (2001). Mental representation of economic crisis in Italian and Swiss samples. Swiss Journal of Psychology/Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Psychologie/Revue Suisse de Psychologie, 60(1), 11. DOI: 10.1024//1421-0185.60.1.11
  52. Sekita, S. (2011). Financial Literacy and Retirement Planning in Japan. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, 10(4), 637-656. DOI: 10.1017/S1474747211000527
  53. Seranis, A. (1997). Il filo di un discorso. Milano: Eura Press Edizioni Italiane.
  54. Simon, H.A. (1957). Models of man: social and rational. Wiley, New York
  55. Voss, J.F., Tyler, S.W., & Yengo, L.A. (1983). Individual differences in the solving of social science problems. In R.F. Dillon & R.R. Schmeck (eds.), Individual differences in cognition (pp. 205-232). New York: Academic.
  56. Voss, J. F., Blais, J., Means, M.L., Greene, T.R., & Ahwesh, E. (1986).Informal reasoning and subject matter knowledge in the solving of economics problems by naive and novice individuals. Cognition and Instruction, 3, 269-302. 


  • Learning to wait and be altruistic: Testing a conversational training in economic education for primary school children Elisabetta Lombardi, Annalisa Valle, Teresa Rinaldi, Davide Massaro, Antonella Marchetti, in Europe’s Journal of Psychology /2021 pp.306
    DOI: 10.5964/ejop.2453

Elisabetta Lombardi, Anna Maria Ajello, Crisi economica: quali percezioni, quali conseguenze in "RICERCHE DI PSICOLOGIA " 1/2017, pp 93-123, DOI: 10.3280/RIP2017-001005