This study reports on the development and validation of a new questionnaire to measure money attitudes and beliefs. In all, 268 participants from diverse backgrounds, who were recruited online, completed a 30-item questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses verified a five-factor model. The factors were labeled: Achievement and Success, Power and Status, Mindful and Responsible, Saving Concerns, and Financial Literacy Worries. Results showed that demography (sex, age, and education), ideology (politics and religious practices), and self-rated happiness, success, and adjustment were related to all five factors, particularly the first two. Worries about Financial Literacy is an important and neglected factor in money attitudes research, which has implications for consumer well-being and protection. Limitations and implications are noted.

A number of forces and factors shape a person’s attitude to, beliefs about and behavior concerning money. Over the past three decades, various measures of attitudes to money have been developed (Furnham, 2014). This study set about developing and validating a new measure that could be used internationally to assess modern money attitudes. It adds the dimension of financial literacy to this literature.

One of the earliest psychometrically valid money-related measures developed was the Money Attitudes Scale (Yamauchi & Templer, 1982), comprising five factors: power-prestige, retention time, distrust, quality, and anxiety. Later, Furnham (1984) identified six money beliefs: obsession, power/spending, retention, security/conservative, inadequate, and effort/ability. For many years researchers in the area used either or both of these measures. Later, the Money Ethics Scale was developed which also had six factors consisting of affective components (good, evil), cognitive components (achievement, respect, and freedom), and a behavioral (budget) component (Tang, 1992).

The last 20 years has seen the development of other scales but not all have attracted researchers to...