Abstracts Category : Other

Three Essayson Personality Characteristics and FinancialSatisfaction

by Derek Tharp

Little is known about the relationships betweenpersonality characteristics and financial satisfaction. Thisdissertation examines three questions. First, what are therelationships between personality characteristics and financialsatisfaction at the American state level? Second, what are therelationships between personality characteristics and financialsatisfaction at the individual level? Third, what are therelationships between personality characteristics and financialsatisfaction among financially strained households? Essay oneutilizes data aggregated at the state level from two nationallyrepresentative datasets in order to examine the relationshipsbetween Big Five personality traits (openness to experience,conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism)and financial satisfaction at the American state level. Resultsfrom bivariate analyses and a two-block hierarchical regressionmodel indicate that conscientiousness is negatively associated withfinancial satisfaction and extraversion is positively associatedwith financial satisfaction at the American state level. Essaytwo utilizes data from the 2012 wave of the Health and RetirementStudy (HRS) to examine relationships between personalitycharacteristics (Big Five personality traits and positive/negativeaffect) and financial satisfaction at the individual level. Resultsfrom a three-block ordinal logistic regression model indicate thatpersonality characteristics are important predictors of financialsatisfaction. Extraversion is positively associated with financialsatisfaction while neuroticism and agreeableness are negativelyassociated with financial satisfaction when Big Five personalitytraits were the only personality characteristics incorporated intothe model. However, when positive affect and negative affect wereadded to the model, only agreeableness remained negativelyassociated with financial satisfaction, while both positive andnegative affect were positively and negatively associated withfinancial satisfaction, respectively. Essay three utilizes datafrom the 2012 wave of the HRS to examine relationships betweenpersonality characteristics (Big Five personality traits andpositive/negative affect) and financial satisfaction amongindividuals in households exhibiting both objective and subjectiveindicators of financial strain. Results from a series of ordinallogistic regressions indicate that individual level associationsbetween personality characteristics and financial satisfactionremained largely the same among households exhibiting financialstrain, though evidence suggests that interventions aimed atinfluencing positive affect may be an effective means to enhancingwell-being among financially strained populations. Overall,personality characteristics were found to be important predictorsof financial satisfaction which have been largely overlooked inprior models of financial satisfaction. Going forward, a betterunderstanding of the relationships between personalitycharacteristics and subjectiveAdvisors/Committee Members: Martin Seay.