Emotionally stable people spend more at Christmas

People who are more emotionally stable spend more during the Christmas season, while those who are high in neuroticism spend less, according to new research by UCL and Northwestern University. Those with more artistic interests, more active imaginations and who are more open minded spend less, whereas those who are more conscientious, plan ahead and are organised spend more in the lead-up to Christmas. Researchers also found a positive correlation between extraversion and conscientiousness with Christmas spending. For the study, published today in Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers aggregated more than two million individual transactions from 2,133 participants' bank accounts, matching spending records to individual survey responses measuring personality. Data was collected anonymously in collaboration with a money management app, whose customers were invited to take part in the survey and consent to matching their survey responses to their transaction data. Researchers then compared the relationship between the Big Five personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) with spending habits, showing that personality traits are related to more specific spending behaviours which could impact broad outcomes such as long-term financial goals. Dr Joe Gladstone (UCL School of Management), who co-lead the research project, said: "These findings can help us understand how people's personality shapes their spending.