Before discussing the contributions and implications of this study, some limitations must be mentioned. First, the causality
between attitude and behavior is uncertain, and we have not investigated it. Although we found that some attitude variables
were positively or negatively related to revolving credit use or petty installment use, we could not be sure that attitude
induced behavior or that behavior changed attitude. In order to clearly understand the causality between attitude and
behavior, serial research is necessary. Second, in the present research study we separately investigated the impact of demographics,
attitude, personality and credit card features on revolving credit use and petty installment use. In the future, we
hope we can use the current results to choose significant factors in four categories to investigate the combined effect of these
factors and interaction between these factors. Third, we did not have a broad range of provinces in our study. We solely
investigated credit card holders in Shanghai. In the future, researchers should get comparison data from other provinces.
A contribution of this study is that we examined how demographic factors, attitude factors, personality factors, and credit
card feature factors influenced revolving credit and petty installment use and discerned the specific roles of each kind of factors.
Moreover, within the same categories, different factors also had different impacts on revolving credit use and petty
installment use. Within the demographic factors, social class and profession exerted influence on revolving credit use, but
not on petty installment use. Within the attitude factors, money attitudes, credit attitudes, and debt attitudes influenced revolving
credit use and petty installment use, but petty installment use was impacted greatly by the profit–risk–balance
dimension of the risk attitude. Within personality factors, self-control, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and locus of control had
an impact on revolving credit use rather than on revolving credit use. Within credit card features, payment due date influenced
petty installment use rather than on revolving credit use. Credit limit influenced revolving credit use, but not petty
installment use.
These results should help consumers. Consumer educators should help consumers understand the importance of their
attitudes toward money, credit, and debt if consumers are attempting to get out of debt. Moreover, educators may need
to help consumers to identify their personality traits and to help them focus on the decisions involved in revolving credit
use and petty installment use. Just as we mentioned earlier, individuals took payment due dates and profit–risk–balance into
consideration of petty installment plans, which, to some extent, demonstrated that credit card holders used petty installment
more rationally than revolving credit (Baek & Hong, 2004; Sullivan et al., 2000). Revolving credit use was highly correlated
with self-control, which represented an individual’s ability to self manage. To some extent, we can suppose that lack
of self-management and low self-discipline easily induced revolving credit use. So, using generally accepted budgeting practices
(Walker, 1996) (such as setting goals, listing expenses, and developing a spending plan) may help consumers with selfmanagement
issues to control their revolving credit use (Baek & Hong, 2004).
These findings should also provide some implications for banks. First, we found that demographic factors contributed little
(Livingstone & Stone, 1992; Tokunaga, 1993; Walker, 1996). However, many banks use only demographic factors to evaluate
potential credit card holders and to determine credit limits and risk. We suggest that banks should pay more attention
to behavior. Secondly, our results implied that credit card holders used petty installment more rationally than revolving
credit. For banks, the potential risk of petty installment use is much smaller than revolving credit use. Once consumers
use revolving credit, it will become difficult for them to escape debt. If banks want to earn more profit immediately, they
should encourage consumers to use petty installment rather than revolving credit.