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Want to save more? Become an introvert



Extraverts have lower savings rates than introverts. Three studies at the University of Toronto in Canada showed that people with higher levels of extraversion are less likely to save for the future. UT researchers also predicted that particular personality traits may have a powerful influence on a country’s economic outlook (Association for Psychological Science, September 15, 2015).

Jacob Hirsch, psychological scientist at the University of Toronto, said previous research showed that higher levels of extraversion were associated with the preference for immediate gratification over delayed rewards. When people were asked to choose between smaller immediate rewards or larger delayed rewards, extraverts were more likely to choose the smaller, but immediate, option. Hirsch wanted to extend the research to record savings habits between extraverts and introverts.

A comparison of American national savings rates with personality traits from 1966 to 1993 revealed that the higher the population’s rate of extraversion, the less likely they tended to save. Data was collected from 16,846 American college students and compared with data on national savings rates. As US savings rates sharply declined, levels of extraversion increased.

A second study looked at state-level data and it showed a similar trend. Data on personality traits were collected online between December 1999 and January 2005 as part of a larger study on personality and geographic location. Hirsch standardized the personality data from the 619,397 online respondents into state-level scores for each of the five major personality dimensions. He calculated household saving behaviour within each state on disposable income, savings, and consumer confidence from the Department of Commerce and Bureau of Economic Analysis. The result showed that households in more ‘extraverted’ states of America tended to save less than households in less ‘extraverted’ states.

The third study examined international data to determine the global trend across 53 countries. It revealed that higher levels of extraversion were associated with lower rates of personal savings.

Across the three studies, the UT findings supported the view that population variation in micro-level personality characteristics can be an important factor in predicting macro-level social outcomes, stated Hirsch. Relatively extraverted populations are more prone to spending than saving.

However Hirsch cautions that just because there was a pattern across the three studies, the results were correlational and no firm causal conclusions could be drawn. Hirsch documented the findings of his research in the journal, Personality and Individual Differences.


http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/minds-business/extraverted-populations-have-lower-savings-rates.html
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