The Impact of Psychological Preparation Information on Retirement Planning Intention and Retirement Conceptualization

Abstract

The research aim was to find out whether providing information on psychological preparation would produce changes in pre-retirees retirement planning intentions and advance retirement concepts. In the experiment, we divided the pre-retirees (N = 567, mean age of 54.91, SD = 3.55 years, working full-time) into four groups (with and without pre-test, with and without the information provided). There were no differences between the pre-test and post-test conditions. However, the results showed that participants acknowledged the need to prepare for retirement even before the intervention. The participants also rated themselves as psychologically prepared for retirement. The results also indicated which pre-retirees could benefit from psychological preparation: those who believe they would have a disadvantageous and unfavorable retirement transition. The next group is the ones who tend to conceptualize their retirement as an imposed disruption as they also perceive their psychological resources for a successful transition as insufficient.