The strongest personality predictor for future success

“The strongest personality predictor for financial success and accumulation of lifetime wealth is conscientiousness. This personality is unsurprising since the handling of financial matters requires considerable discipline, method and prudence. Conscientiousness during college years is the best predictor for future well-being including income maximisation, low depression, better self-care, and maturity in defences in times of crises, and this especially true for men (Soldz & Vaillant 1999). Conscientiousness is also a strong predictor of financial knowledge and financial preparedness, particularly for retirement age needs (Hershey & Mowen 2008).

These individuals accumulate more earnings in their lifetime; and in the case of couples, the woman’s conscientiousness and education seem to be a key factor for household lifetime earnings (Duckworth & Weir 2011).

High conscientiousness suggests lower risk exposure and more calculative risk-taking. Conscientious people do not like to leave decisions to much chance. As such, more conscientious households accumulate less debt over their lifetime and have lower credit card balances (Brown, Taylor, Peggs and Siekierka 2014). Grit, which is the ability to overcome obstacles and meet goals, is a crucial facet of conscientiousness and a reliable predictor of long-term success even better than intellectual ability (Peterson 2010)”.