Media release

From: The Royal Society

A relationship between people’s personalities and their incomes may arise because differences in stable personalities produce income differences (between-person effects) or because changes in personality or income are later reflected in the other variable (within-person effects). We used the newly developed random-intercepts cross-lagged panel model to disentangle the two sorts of effects, and data from 6,824 working age adults in New Zealand across four years. We found between-person effects showing higher incomes were obtained by people who were more extraverted, agreeable, and open, and less neurotic. Earning a higher income was associated with later higher neuroticism and lower extraversion.