Born into a wealthy family is an advantage. Printing a successful business to become a rich person is also an advantage. Living in the privilege of being a rich person of course there are many things that make one person different from the others.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, an author of the short story The Rich Boy (1926), quoted from Forbes, said "Rich people are different from you and me. They have and enjoy early, and it affects them, makes them soft, where we harsh, cynical where we can be trusted to a certain extent, unless you are born rich, it is very difficult to understand this."
In reality, people are not only interested in the things that the rich have, but also their personalities. Unfortunately, there are not many scientific studies that can confirm or refute this thesis.
However, recently, quoted from Forbes, a research team consisting of six German economists and psychologists has conducted a large-scale research. They interviewed 130 wealthy individuals to obtain a psychological profile, which they compared with the population as a whole.
Big Five Test
This study uses the Big Five Test personality test model, with the reason that this model has been the most dominating over the last few decades. Furthermore, this recent wealth study uses a condensed version of the Big Five Test to differentiate between five core personality traits, namely:
Accuracy: Respondents who have a high accuracy value describe people who are thorough, thorough, diligent, efficient, well-organized, punctual, ambitious, and persistent;
Neuroticism: Those with high levels of neuroticism are rated as likely to be nervous and often worry about anything and anything that might go wrong. They tend to react impulsively and, overall, are psychologically unstable;
Conformity: Individuals with a high degree of conformity have a clear desire for harmony; they have a tendency to back away too quickly and are often too trusting;
Extraversion: People with high extraversion are talkative, determined, enterprising, energetic, and courageous;
Open to Experience: Participants who have high levels of this indicator are imaginative, creative, and curious.
If it is associated with respondents who are rich people, then the pattern becomes as follows:
Rich people are more emotionally stable, and therefore less neurotic;
Rich people are very extroverted;
Rich people are more open to new experiences;
Rich people are less agreeable, which means they tend to shy away from conflict;
Rich people are more careful.
In addition to the Big Five tests, the researchers also investigated two other personality traits, which refer to personality disorders, namely narcissism and internal locus of control. The result is known that:
Rich people are more narcissistic;
Rich people exhibit a stronger internal locus of control, indicating they tend to agree with statements such as "I determine how my life changes" rather than "What you achieve in life depends on luck or fate."
What Makes Rich People Different?
This study of the psychology of the super-rich can be concluded that the rich are psychologically very stable. In addition, they also show that they are very open to new experiences, more open, more thorough, but not always pleasant.
In contrast to the recent survey of 130 rich people, studies of the super-rich that involve one to two hours of in-depth interviews show that the super-rich are often non-conformists.
They enjoy life against the current. They also have no problem if they go against the prevailing norms. There's more research showing that the super-rich tend to make decisions based on gut feelings.
In other words, they tend to rely more on intuition than on detailed analysis. In addition, the way rich people deal with defeat is also different. They tend to identify the causes of defeat within themselves.
Finally, rich people become rich because they act, think, and make decisions, differently from other people, and this proves that Fitzgerald's words are true, that "Rich people are different from you and me."