According to new research, millionaires are more risk-tolerant, emotionally stable, open, outgoing, and conscientious than the average population. Money, it is said, has the power to change people. According to European studies, some millionaires may genuinely change for the better. According to researchers from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and the University of Münster, millionaires are more extraverted, open, risk-tolerant, conscientious, and emotionally stable than others.
Millionaires are more risk-tolerant, emotionally stable, open, extroverted, and conscientious than the general population, according to a study conducted by experts from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and the University of Münster. The findings were reported in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
The SOEP, a representative random sample of the German population, provided the data for the analysis of personality traits. A subsample of almost 2,000 high-wealth individuals was introduced to the SOEP in 2019. The SOEP now polls almost 1,100 millionaires, with an average net worth of roughly 4 million euros. “This means that the very affluent are now overrepresented in the SOEP, allowing us to investigate this very small demographic in a meaningful way,” explains Carsten Schröder, the SOEP researcher who initiated the top-wealth subsample.
This is the first study to use robust data to explain the personality of millionaires. Because the wealthy have disproportionate power over societal decision-making processes, and because personality influences how people think and behave, studying millionaires’ personality traits is of enormous social importance.
Mitja Back
Importantly, these characteristics are more noticeable among self-made billionaires, or people who began their lives with far less and had to work hard to achieve their fortune. The SOEP data, which is a representative random sample of the German population, was used by the researchers. In 2019, researchers included a sub-sample of 2,000 wealthy people to the SOEP. Today, the panel routinely polls around 1,100 millionaires with net worths of over four million euros ($4.39 million).
Self-made millionaires exhibit these qualities most often, while other millionaires born into money display “less pronounced” signs of emotional stability and other qualities. Notably, millionaires whose personalities corresponded most closely to the typical profile had the most wealth.
The results show that the typical millionaire personality profile is especially pronounced among self-made millionaires, who see themselves as having made their money on their own rather than through inheritance. The profile is less pronounced among millionaires who attribute their wealth primarily to inheritance.
Among the billionaires in the study, those whose personality traits are most similar to the normal profile have the most money. Individuals who have worked their way up by their own efforts exhibit a weaker form of this personality profile in the rest of the population: although they are not millionaires yet, they perceive themselves as having earned their money on their own and, so, as self-made. “Taken together, the data imply that personality is a relevant component in wealth growth,” says Johannes König, research associate at SOEP and principal author of the study.
Mitja Back, coauthor and University of Münster Professor of Psychological Diagnostics and Psychology Psychology, adds: “This is the first study to use robust data to explain the personality of millionaires. Because the wealthy have disproportionate power over societal decision-making processes, and because personality influences how people think and behave, studying millionaires’ personality traits is of enormous social importance.”
