Household finances and the ‘Big Five’ personality traits

Sarah Brown () and Karl Taylor

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014, vol. 45, issue C, 197-212

Abstract: Using data drawn from the British Household Panel Survey, we analyse the relationship between personality traits and financial decision-making focusing on unsecured debt and financial assets. Personality traits are classified according to the ‘Big Five’ taxonomy: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. We explore personality traits at the individual level and also within couples, specifically the personality traits of the head of household and personality traits averaged across the couple. We find that certain personality traits such as extraversion are generally significantly associated with household finances in terms of the levels of debt and assets held and the correlation is often relatively large. The results also suggest that the magnitude and statistical significance of the association between personality traits and household finances differs across the various types of debt and assets held in the household portfolio.

Keywords: Big Five personality traits; Financial assets; Unsecured debt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C24 D03 D14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Household Finances and the 'Big Five' Personality Traits (2011)
Working Paper: Household finances and the 'Big Five' personality traits (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:45:y:2014:i:c:p:197-212

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2014.10.006

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