Why you have to be slightly nasty to save money: Study

By Pol Allingham via SWNS

You have to be slightly nasty to save money as nice people don't value it, a new study reveals.

Those who are more agreeable are the least likely to save, because they prioritize hanging out with people over money.

The American Psychological Association put this down to agreeable people thinking “nice people” don’t value money.

Meanwhile, highly conscientious people may be more motivated to plan for the future and save funds.

And if your personality matches your saving goals you will keep more cash, the research shows.

Americans save just 2.3 percent of their income, the lowest score in nearly two decades.

However, experts found people will save more with sacrifices to benefit their futures.

The personality-match effect stayed the same for wealthy and poor participants.

Experts found people were 3.57 times more likely to save if they received emails encouraging them to put money away in a tone that matches their personality traits.

Dr. Sandra Matz of Columbia University said: “We tried to think of ways we could motivate agreeable people to save more.

“Could we simply highlight how saving money would help them protect their loved ones? This suddenly makes money a means to an end that they care about.”

Columbia University and Colorado University asked 2,447 UK participants about their “Big Five” personality traits - agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness and extraversion.

Saving ambitions were studied too, including racking up money for a car, a holiday, for a “rainy day” and retirement.

Independent experts compared saving goals with personality traits.

Wealthy participants saved the most, but self-reported saving goals matching participants’ personality traits explained around five percent of the variance across all incomes.

A second experiment included 6,056 participants, each taking part in a saving incentive program through the non-profit money-saving app SaverLife.

Those involved had less than $100 stashed away. They were tasked with saving $100 a month.

Every member took a 30-item personality assessment, and they were divided into five groups.

Over the course of a month, one group received five emails encouraging them to save towards a goal that matched their most prominent personality trait.

Another set was sent emails that did not fit with their personality, and a third team had randomly selected goal messages.

A fourth received emails with a generic statement encouraging savings without a particular aim.

The fifth, a control group, accrued no emails in their inbox.

Everyone did not open their emails. Among those who did, the personality-matched condition had the highest success rate with 11.4 percent reaching their saving goals.

Meanwhile, 7.42 percent saved in the standard messaging group, 7.46 in the random group, and 7.85 percent in the personality-mismatch group.

Only 3.4 percent of those without an email saved, and if they didn’t open their emails this went down to three percent.

In total, those who received the matched emails were 3.57 times more likely to reach the $100 target versus those in the control group.

Remarking on the study in the journal American Psychologist, Dr. Robert Farrokhnia, Colombia University, said: “It was wonderful to see this approach worked.

“It was important for us from the get-go to not only contribute to the existing literature and have a vigorous research study, but also to deploy the findings in the real world and come up with something companies could actually use and implement.

“Given the dire facts about savings in the US, we were particularly interested in helping to alleviate some of the challenges low-income and distressed households face in managing their finances.

“The recent economic downturn, including rising prices and higher challenges around achieving personal savings goals, made this pursuit even more important to us.”