Abstract
The sharp increase in consumption over the holiday season has important economic implications, yet the psychology underlying this phenomenon has received limited attention. Here, we evaluate the role of individual differences in holiday spending patterns. Using 2 million transactions across 2,133 individuals, we investigate the relationship between the Big 5 personality traits on spending at Christmas. Zero-order correlations suggest holiday spending is associated with conscientiousness, neuroticism, and extraversion; the relationship with neuroticism persists after accounting for possible confounders including income and demographics. These results improve our understanding of how different personality traits predict how people respond to the environmental demands of the holiday season and have broader implications for how personality relates to consumer behavior.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 775-782 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Social Psychological and Personality Science |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 6 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 1 2019 |
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported, in part, by the National Institute on Aging grants P01-AG043362, awarded to Daniel K. Mroczek, Co-Investigator and Project Leader and R01-AG018436, awarded to Daniel K. Mroczek, Principal Investigator.
Keywords
- Big 5 personality
- consumer psychology
- holiday season
- spending
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
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Dive into the research topics of 'Who Are the Scrooges? Personality Predictors of Holiday Spending'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Datasets
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Supplemental Material, SPPS792883_suppl_mat - Who Are the Scrooges? Personality Predictors of Holiday Spending
Weston, S. J. (Creator), Gladstone, J. J. (Creator), Graham, E. K. (Creator), Mroczek, D. K. (Creator) & Condon, D. M. (Creator), SAGE Journals, 2018
DOI: 10.25384/sage.7087628, https://sage.figshare.com/articles/Supplemental_Material_SPPS792883_suppl_mat_-_Who_Are_the_Scrooges_Personality_Predictors_of_Holiday_Spending/7087628
Dataset
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Who Are the Scrooges? Personality Predictors of Holiday Spending
Weston, S. J. (Creator), Gladstone, J. J. (Creator), Graham, E. K. (Creator), Mroczek, D. K. (Creator) & Condon, D. M. (Creator), figshare, 2018
DOI: 10.25384/sage.c.4232417, https://sage.figshare.com/collections/Who_Are_the_Scrooges_Personality_Predictors_of_Holiday_Spending/4232417
Dataset