Paying into a pension is supposed to be dull. A promising fund is selected, money drips in each month, a pot grows quietly and one day, with the hope that it is large enough, it stands ready to support us. Yet when we look closely at how people actually invest for financial security in later life, the picture is anything but steady. Contributions rise and fall. Schemes are joined, paused, abandoned, restarted. The process, intended to be monotonous and mechanical, ends up reflecting something deeply human: nuanced, often inconsistent, full of paradox.
Why do we behave this way? The answers may lie not only in the here and now but in patterns more ancient than we realise. Spreadsheets and pension statements may look modern, yet the behaviours they capture are anything but. What is often portrayed — often by less than kind actors, perhaps with vested interests — as a lack of grit, financial literacy or even rationality is, in many cases, little more than the resurfacing of patterns shaped long before financial markets existed. Patterns that once ensured survival on the hostile savanna now sit poorly alongside the slow discipline of retirement saving.
Saving patterns
To make sense of these irregularities, and to find ways of addressing what is fast becoming one of the most pressing challenges of an ageing society, it may be necessary to look backwards as much as forwards. By tracing our present behaviours to the conditions in which our species first took shape, we may discover paths towards more sustainable and financially secure futures. A closer examination of personality — shaped and refined for survival long before pensions or spreadsheets were conceived — may be the most promising point of departure.
Personality is infinitely complex, but unlike so many of our pension pots, it is also remarkably stable and resists easy reduction to numbers. Decades of research show that the core traits shift only gradually, even as circumstances change around us. Behaviours — the ways these traits manifest — are a different story. These behaviours adapt across the lifespan as we learn from experience, but they remain bound by an overarching capacity for self-regulation — the psychological machinery that directs, sustains or redirects our efforts.
Self-regulation is what allows personality to move from abstract trait to lived behaviour. It governs whether effort is sustained, intensified or abandoned. Within this process, researchers have described three recurring rhythms of behaviour: flux, pulse and spin. These are not new traits in themselves but patterns in how self-regulation unfolds — shifts in effort, bursts of activity or cycles of stopping and starting. Their significance becomes clearer when we look at how they play out in daily life, at times supporting our goals and at times standing in their way.
Margaret, 63
Margaret has always thought of herself as careful with money — not rigid, never austere, but steady. From her early twenties she paid into her workplace pension, a habit she never abandoned even when life pressed hard. When her children were small she cut back her hours, which meant less money for childcare and in turn less for her pension. For a time she reduced her contributions, telling herself she would catch up later. And she did. When the pressure lifted she raised her payments again, sometimes adding more than before as her salary increased. Years later, when the children went to university, she helped with their living costs and eased off her pension once more — another temporary adjustment. When her husband fell ill, household bills rose and she paused the extras again for a short while, but never withdrew entirely. Now, as she approaches retirement, the result is a pension pot strong enough to carry her forward with confidence.
Her pension record tells the story — uneven in places, but unmistakably persistent. Psychologists would call her pattern flux: contributions that rise and fall with circumstance but remain anchored to a course. In ordinary life, this adaptability is a strength, showing flexibility and resilience, the ability to bend without breaking. In pensions, though, the arithmetic is less forgiving. Each pause, however brief, takes a little away from the compounding that rewards strict regularity. Yet Margaret’s story makes clear that fluctuation is not failure. What matters is the return — the instinct to pick up again, to restore the habit, to let contributions flow with patience and to keep sight of the long term.
Robert, 41
Robert’s working life has always moved in bursts. When a big project lands, he throws himself into it with energy — long hours, late nights, all focus on the task at hand. When the deadline passes he eases back, catching his breath until the next surge arrives. His retirement saving has followed a similar rhythm. After each promotion or bonus he channels a large amount into his pension, proud of the discipline it seems to show and reassured by the visible jump in his balance. Yet in the months that follow his regular contributions shrink or pause altogether as everyday expenses reclaim his attention — a holiday, home improvements, school fees. Each surge leaves a mark, but so too do the gaps that follow, and the pattern repeats itself again and again.
Robert’s pattern is known to psychologists as pulse — behaviour that channels effort in bursts rather than spreading it evenly over time. In many parts of life this approach can be effective, allowing energy to be mobilised when opportunities appear and results are needed most. Retirement saving, however, does not reward bursts in quite the same way. A single surge — we often call them lump sums — may not fully offset months of absence, and the compounding that builds wealth works best when contributions are steady. Robert’s story shows that bursts can provide a helpful boost, but it is quiet consistency that carries the greatest weight over the long term.
Steven, 28
Steven, like so many at the start of their careers, is still working out how to balance today’s needs with tomorrow’s promises. Twice he has joined his workplace pension scheme and twice he has opted out again. Each time he convinced himself it was the sensible choice: one month fired up by an article on compound interest, the next worried about rent, travel or simply wanting more room in his pay packet. Sensible parents encourage him to think long term; colleagues tell him the employer contributions are too good to miss. He agrees, briefly, then changes his mind. Each decision feels reasonable in the moment, but over time the pattern is unmistakable — enthusiasm, retreat and then another uncertain return.
This rhythm is described as spin — behaviour that circles between starts and stops without finding a steady direction. In early adulthood, this kind of trial and error has its advantages. It gives room for exploration, for testing options, for learning by doing while the future still feels far away. But pensions are not built for circling. Each restart wastes time, and time is the ingredient retirement saving depends on most. Steven’s story shows that experimentation can teach valuable lessons, but unless the habit settles into permanence, the years have a way of slipping quietly past.
Evolutionary echoes
Personality is, by and large, one of the most stable aspects of our psychology. Margaret’s steadiness, Robert’s bursts, Steven’s circling — these are not passing moods but enduring rhythms of how their lives unfold. What does shift, and shift constantly, is behaviour: the ways in which those stable dispositions are expressed as circumstances change. Seen through the lens of evolution, it is less a puzzle than an echo of strategies once honed for survival, replayed now in unfamiliar settings.
Our ancestors — the ones who lived before capitalism made supermarkets and global supply chains possible — lived with fluctuating resources and unpredictable threats: one season abundant, the next scarce. Often, satisfying immediate needs was the wiser path — eating today rather than risking food lost tomorrow. At other times patience and restraint secured survival through leaner months. Flexibility often trumped rigidity, as those who could shift camp or change strategy outlived those who clung to a failing plan. Flexibility too was a double-edged trait: some survived by leaving for greener grasslands, while others wasted energy chasing opportunities that never came. Even variability within the group was protective: some hunted reliably, others explored new grounds; some gathered steadily, others gambled on bigger prey. Diversity of approach increased the odds of survival, but in pensions the very same tendencies complicate saving.
The instincts that once kept us alive in the wild are poorly matched to the slow arithmetic of compounding, leaving us with a modern mismatch — stone-age rhythms clashing with a system that rewards monotony. And yet, if evolution has taught us anything, it is that adaptation is possible. We cannot re-engineer personalities, but we can reshape the environments in which they play out.
Reshaping the environment
If we cannot rewrite personalities, we can at least shape the environments in which they unfold. Evolution has never been sentimental; traits that failed to serve survival faded away, while those that helped endured. With psychology as a guide, the same adaptations that once kept us alive may yet be recruited to help secure our financial future.
Flux appears uneven on paper, yet in practice it is the natural rhythm of adapting to circumstance. However, over the course of evolution we acquired another predisposition: loss aversion. This tendency to experience losses more strongly than gains — about twice as much, in fact — can be turned into a quiet ally. When a pause in contributions is framed not as ‘saving less’ but as ‘losing ground’ and ‘robbing future self’, the instinct to repair the loss becomes motivating. The small catch-up lump payment or the extra percentage added may feel less like sacrifice and more like restoration. In pensions, where the arithmetic of compounding punishes gaps, this psychological tilt towards recovery helps close the distance — not perfectly, but enough to keep the long-term trajectory intact.
Pulse can look impressive on the statement — sudden leaps when promotions or bonuses arrive — but in practice it is a rhythm of fits and starts. Beneath it lies action bias, the urge to demonstrate progress through decisive gestures. Evolution may have wired us this way: in moments of uncertainty, doing something often felt safer than doing nothing at all. When it comes to pensions, though, bold gestures are rarely enough. Compounding rewards patience more than drama, steady presence more than spectacular arrivals. Yet each predisposition, including the one that urges action, can be turned into advantage. Action bias can be activated by framing each monthly contribution as a purposeful act — a visible step forward rather than a background deduction. This channels the same urge that drives dramatic surges into smaller, recurring gestures, ensuring money flows steadily into the pension rather than leaking towards more immediate distractions.
Spin, with its cycles of starting and stopping, wastes the very ingredient pensions rely on most: time. Yet here, too, psychology can be enlisted. Status quo bias — our tendency to stick with the current state rather than make extra effort — can be activated to counteract the urge to keep switching. If staying enrolled is the default, the path of least resistance is to remain. Likewise, a conscious choice to pre-commit to a small auto-escalation — even just 1% — allows future contributions to rise without further intervention. The paperwork and friction that might have derailed fresh decisions now work in our favour, turning inertia into a quiet engine of progress.
What looks like poor discipline is often little more than ancient adaptations surfacing in the wrong setting. These rhythms of flux, pulse and spin once served survival well, and their occasional misfiring today is simply part of being human. Yet being human also means we are not bound entirely by biology shaped long before retirement was on the agenda. With consciousness, conscientiousness and a bit of reflection we can step back, lean on psychology as a guide, and shape environments that work with rather than against our natural instincts. In doing so, the very patterns that once kept our ancestors alive may be redirected to secure our futures.
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