Personality traits and economic activity

ABSTRACT

Following Lynn’s (1991) studying showing that the scores of undergraduate students in 43 countries on variables such as work ethic and achievement motivation predicted per capita income and economic growth rates in those countries, the present study explored whether the average scores of residents of the 50 states in the United States were associated with the gross state product. States whose residents scored higher on openness had higher gross state products while those whose residents scored higher in openness and lower on neuroticism had higher gross state products per capita.

KEYWORDS:

• Personality
• GDP per capita
• GDP
• openness

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• E69
• A14
• A13

Notes

¹ It should be noted that not everyone agrees that there are five and only five dimensions. Eysenck (1994) proposed 3 dimensions (extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism) while Cattell (1990) argued that 16 dimensions were necessary. Some theorists have sought to find a causal basis for these dimensions. Eysenck proposed a genetic basis for extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism that mediated these dimensions through brain structures. For example, extraversion, for Eysenck, was determined by the level of activation in the reticular activating system in the brain stern which affects the level of inhibition in the cortex. Cloninger (1986) proposed that the physiological basis for his three dimensions of personality (harm-avoidance, reward dependence and novelty-seeking) was the levels of three neurotransmitters (serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine). This makes these dimensions of personality temperaments, that is, physiologically based differences between people in personality. Others, however, see the causal basis of these personality dimensions in the experiences of child-rearing and, therefore, in the culture.

² Subcultures have also been proposed based on age, as in ‘youth subcultures’ (Wilson and Atkinson 2005), profession (Horsburgh et al. 2006), ethnicity (Guidry 2008) and many other characteristics.