Douglas Hershey, born in Berkeley, California, USA, in 1959. Ph.D. from University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Associate Professor of Psychology at the Oklahoma State University, Stillwater.
Fellow (1 September 2007 – 30 June 2008)
PSYCHOSOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF ADAPTIVE RETIREMENT PLANNING DECISIONS
During my stay at NIAS, I was privileged to work on a number of different empirical papers related to financial planning for retirement. This programmatic line of research, which has grown in an interdisciplinary direction over the past few years, seeks to understand what it is that makes some individuals, but not others, plan and save for the post-employment period. Along with collaborators Kene Henkens and Harry van Dalen of the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, I was able to develop theoretical models designed to pinpoint the precise role of psychological, sociological, and economic factors in relation to retirement preparation. This work took on a decidedly cross-cultural flavour, exploring differences in the planning tendencies of Dutch and American workers, as influenced by different saving pressures and pension institutions both here and abroad.