Nice people may be at greater risk of bankruptcy and other financial hardships compared with their less agreeable peers, not because they are more cooperative, but because they don’t value money as much, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
Nice people may be at greater risk of bankruptcy and other financial hardships compared with their less agreeable peers, not because they are more cooperative, but because they don’t value money as much, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
“We were interested in understanding whether having a nice and warm personality, what academics in personality research describe as agreeableness, was related to negative financial outcomes,” said Sandra Matz, PhD, of Columbia Business School and lead author of the study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology®. “Previous research suggested that agreeableness was associated with lower credit scores and income. We wanted to see if that association held true for other financial indicators and, if so, better understand why nice guys seem to finish last.”
Matz and her co-author, Joe Gladstone, PhD, of University College London, analyzed data collected from more than 3 million participants using multiple methods:
- Two online panels.
- A national survey.
- Bank account data.
- Publicly available geographic data.
Their analyses investigated whether the reason agreeable individuals were more likely to experience financial hardship was because of their more cooperative negotiation style or instead the lower value they assign to money.
Read more at American Psychological Association
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