This Palgrave Pivot develops an interdisciplinary approach to household financial decision-making by integrating behavioral finance, consumer finance, financial planning, and human-centered artificial intelligence. Moving beyond investor- and market-focused traditions, it situates financial risk tolerance, financial stress, and dynamic behavioral signals within the lived contexts of households, advisors, and institutions. The book reconceptualizes risk tolerance as a time-varying behavioral construct, positions financial stress as a core mechanism shaping decision-making and well-being, and introduces a framework of behavioral signals, including consumer complaints, sentiment, and market mood, that may precede price movements.

It further examines how machine learning and AI can interpret these signals while reshaping financial advice, alongside their methodological limits and ethical implications for accountability and client autonomy. By linking psychological states, behavioral data, and advisory practice, the book offers a structured research agenda for behavioral personal finance and contributes to debates on financial well-being, vulnerability, and technology-mediated decision-making. It will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in behavioral finance, financial planning, consumer science, and decision psychology, as well as practitioners and policymakers concerned with AI and household financial behavior.

Wookjae Heo is Associate Professor of Consumer Science at Purdue University. His research focuses on financial risk tolerance, financial stress, consumer financial behavior, and the application of machine learning and natural language processing in personal finance. He has published widely in leading journals in consumer finance and financial planning and is known for advancing behavioral personal finance as an interdisciplinary field linking household decision-making, well-being, and human-centered AI.