‘Emotionally stable people show more spending tendency during vacations’

If you are an emotionally stable person, you are likely to splurge more during the holiday season than those who are nervous with lower stress-threshold (higher neuroticism).

Yes! A new study has found that people’s money spending habits during holidays are of great interest to retailers as well as individuals who are looking to better understand and control their spending habits.

Co-lead author Sara Weston said, “We’ve known for a while that personality is related to what we call ‘broad outcomes:’ how much money you make or how happy you are or how long you live but we know less about why personality is related to those things.”

In the study published in the Journal ‘Social Psychological and Personality Science’, Weston, co-lead author Joe Gladstone and colleagues showed that personality traits are related to more specific spending behaviours, which should, in turn, impact the broad outcomes, like long-term financial goals.

The study showed people, who are more emotionally stable, spend more over the holidays while those high in neuroticism spend less over the same time period. In addition, those with more artistic interests and more active imaginations, those higher in openness, spend less during the holiday season while those low in openness spend more.

The scientists emphasise that personality is only one small part of consumer behaviour, especially at the individual level. From household size to income and many other factors, there are numerous influences at the individual shopping level.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.)

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First Published: Sep 01, 2019 10:30 IST