Workers quickly ditch plans to boost pension contributions when their salary goes up, neuroscientists have found.

A new report claimed the ‘savings bug’ only lasts four weeks.

The Set the Right Goals study from Zurich UK combines research from YouGov of over 2,00 adults with an experiment from neuroscience specialists Mindlab.

This tested a further 900 participants to measure the effect of emotions on savings and took a closer look at the difference between what people say they will do, and their actual behaviour.

The YouGov findings showed that over two fifths (42%) of UK adults say earning more would encourage them to save more into a pension.

However, the Mindlab behavioural study discovered that there is a short period of up to a month where people actually consider saving more following a pay rise.

This means there is just a small window of opportunity for people to change their savings habits when affordability improves, and put a little more aside each month, the authors of the report said.

Duncan Smith, managing director of Mindlab, said: "People think that they will save more of their income if they get a pay rise. Many think that this is the case when they actually increase their savings amount but this research shows that the proportion of income saved, on average doesn't change. When our finances change for the better we need to focus on our future goals and how we can achieve them."

Anne Torry, head of Zurich UK Life, said: “Many people think that they will save more in the future when they get a pay increase but in reality they quickly adjust spending to reflect their new salary and so no longer see the increase as extra money that they can save.”