Collection consists of data collected within the loan application form that the credit unions use to assess loan applications. The aim was to investigate if contemplation can improve the financial information that credit union loan applicants provide? Our rationale for focusing on this financial behavior in this group was four-fold. Firstly, people generally (see above; Santander, 2016) and this group specifically (as identified by staff at the credit union) have a tendency to underestimate their expenditure. Secondly, contemplation potentially encourages a degree of self-reflection, a process associated with greater self-control and self-regulation (Howell and Shepperd, 2013). This suggests that after contemplation, decision-making will be more thorough, detailed and personally beneficial (Yeung and Summerfield, 2012). In other words, contemplating expenditure may encourage people to give more accurate estimates of expenditure. Thirdly, staff used expenditure to help decide if the client could afford the loan they were applying for. Thus, a more accurate estimate of expenditure would benefit the staff in terms of the expediency of the loan application process. Finally, we propose that using such a sample was a more vigorous test of contemplation than occurred in our earlier studies. In that, the people who went to this credit union likely had more complex financial and social histories than the students and university staff who participated in Studies 1 and 2. For example, ~87% of credit loan applicants were in receipt of child benefit, 58% were not employed (vs. 5.1% National Average; Office for National Statistics, 2016), 63% had been in receipt of a social fund loan, and 67% have used high cost lenders (see Table 1). Unfortunately, an analysis of peoples financial histories and behaviors has identified a relationship between these demographic factors and poor financial management (i.e., ineffective planning for financial event, and having less self-efficacy and confidence in financial management; Money Advice Service, 2015), with financial illiteracy further related to poor financial outcomes (Hastings and Tejeda-Ashton, 2008). Thus, an intervention that improves financial estimations will be of benefit to credit union loan applicants and staff alike. With these points in mind we proposed the following applied hypothesis: Prompting credit union loan applicants to contemplate their expenditure would improve their estimates of expenditure. We expected that this improvement would occur in three areas: (i) Thoroughness: more expenditure information would be provided; (ii) Totals: larger estimates of expenditure, i.e., clients give an estimate of expenditure that more closely matches what they actually spend; (iii) Discrepancies between clients and staff : greater agreement between clients and staff for the above two measures.Despite personal debt being an ever increasing problem within our society the psychological understanding of debt and interventions to the problem remain elusive. The present project provides a novel solution by using insights from those with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, who are known to excessively monitor (eg, "Did I turn the oven off?"), and apply this to those who don’t monitor their finances. The research will examine which cognitive factors explain why debtors fail to adequately monitor their debt. Then examine debtors’ attentional biases with debt-related stimuli and how this relates to how they monitor their finances. This information will be used to modify how debtors interact with debt-related stimuli, and quantify its influence on financial behaviours. Finally, this will be applied to the design of a Manage Your Debt Application System (MYDAS) mobile phone intervention which aims to improve how debtors monitor their debt. This research will have the following implications: (1) Science: By providing an empirical understanding of the thought process of debtors and an intervention to change those thought processes key to debt. (2) Society: By providing new tools to identify problem debtors and interventions (MYDAS) the research will benefit debtors (reduce debt), creditors (repayment) and debt agencies.

The data was collected within the loan application form that the credit union used to assess each applicants loan application request.