Banking on variability: A conceptual replication of the association between cognitive dispersion and financial management

This study adopted a retrospective conceptual replication approach to determine whether higher IIV dispersion is associated with poorer financial management skills. <b>Method:</b> Study 1 participants were 112 adults with (<i>n</i> = 76) and without (<i>n</i> = 36) HIV who completed an in-person assessment that included the Cogstate battery, the Web-based Evaluation of Banking Skills (WEBS), and the UCSD Performance-Based Skills Assessment Brief Version (UPSA-B).

Study 2 participants were 120 younger (<i>n</i> = 60) and older (<i>n</i> = 60) adults who completed a brief clinical neuropsychological battery, the Telephone-based Daily Instrumental Activities of Living (T-DIAL), and the money management subscale of the Independent Living Scale (ILS) <i>via</i> telephone. IIV dispersion was derived from the normed <i>T</i>-scores of the cognitive tests using the coefficient of variance (i.e., intra-individual standard deviation divided by the intra-individual mean). <b>Results:</b> At the univariate level, higher IIV dispersion was significantly associated with lower scores on all financial management measures at broadly medium effect sizes (<i>p</i>s < .05), which did not differ meaningfully across studies or measures (<i>p</i>s > .05).