PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Glass houses: Your personality helps predict your real estate choices

Tel Aviv University research finds personality traits affect home-buying decisions on both micro and macro levels

2014-12-03
(Press-News.org) Do you consider yourself a conscientious person? Then sign up for a fixed-rate mortgage. Neurotic? You'll probably opt for home ownership over renting.

According to a new study published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, personality traits are strong indicators of real-estate decisions. The research, by Dr. Danny Ben-Shahar of Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Management and doctoral candidate Roni Golan of the Technion Institute of Technology, finds a correlation between personality and individual real estate choices, and a follow-up study by the same team finds an identical link between local personality types in America and statewide real estate trends.

"This research falls within the scope of a much larger discussion in the social sciences in general, and in economics in particular, about what constitutes decision-making: the rational view versus that affected by emotional and cognitive biases," said Dr. Ben-Shahar. "My work shows that people in the real estate framework act 'irrationally,' as economists say, and not according to traditional economic assumptions."

The "Big Five" and Home Ownership

In their first study, the researchers administered a widely-used personality assessment test called the "Big Five" to a diverse sample of 1,138 respondents. The test asks takers to rate themselves on a scale from 1 to 5 on questions that measure standard personality traits: Openness (artistic, curious, imaginative), Conscientiousness (efficient, organized), Extroversion (sociable, outgoing, energetic), Agreeableness, (forgiving, undemanding) and Neuroticism (tense, discontented).

Once the researchers established the personality types of the respondents, they asked five questions about their real estate preferences -- such as the type and duration of a mortgage, whether to rent or buy, and whether to invest in real estate or stocks. The findings were controlled for a series of variables including, among others, level of education, homeownership, age, gender, and income.

The results showed a clear link between personality and real estate decisions. Neurotic people, for example, prefer homeownership over renting. When they do buy, they opt for a mortgage with a lower "loan-to-value" (LTV) ratio, which means the loan amount is low compared to the price of the home.

"It turns out, not surprisingly to psychologists and behavioral economists perhaps, that there are very significant correlations between personality traits and preferences in real estate," said Dr. Ben Shahar.

State-by-State

In the follow-up study, Dr. Ben-Shahar examined the results of the Big Five personality test with respect to a much larger sample of 1.6 million Americans. By matching predominant "personality types" of US states with housing data from the US Census and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the team found that here, too, personality was associated with real estate choices. The so-called "personality" of a state was defined by previous studies in which researchers averaged the responses of individuals on the Big Five test for each state.

The neurotic state of New York, for example, tended to choose lower loan-to-value ratios on mortgages, whereas states with relatively high marks for openness, like South Carolina, leaned toward a relatively greater share of fixed-rate mortgages. Vermont, on the other hand, scored relatively highly on openness and tended to choose lower LTVs. "While not every state's real estate profile lined up exactly with its predominant personality, we saw the macro level reflect trends detected at the micro level," Dr. Ben-Shahar said.

INFORMATION:

Dr. Ben-Shahar is currently working on other models of non-rational decision making in the real estate market.

American Friends of Tel Aviv University supports Israel's most influential, most comprehensive and most sought-after center of higher learning, Tel Aviv University (TAU). US News & World Report's Best Global Universities Rankings rate TAU as #148 in the world, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings rank TAU Israel's top university. It is one of a handful of elite international universities rated as the best producers of successful startups, and TAU alumni rank ninth in the world for the amount of American venture capital they attract.

A leader in the pan-disciplinary approach to education, TAU is internationally recognized for the scope and groundbreaking nature of its research and scholarship -- attracting world-class faculty and consistently producing cutting-edge work with profound implications for the future.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Does your boss find you proactive... or pushy?

2014-12-03
Those wishing to prove themselves as "doers" must not only be hands-on and demonstrate proactive behavior but also have social acumen and a feel for favorable opportunities. Those who rely on personal initiative alone will quickly be standing there as an isolated troublemaker. This is what psychologists from the University of Bonn and their colleagues from Florida State University (USA) have discovered through surveying a variety of occupational categories. The results have been published online in the renowned "Journal of Management". The printed version will be published ...

Parasites and the evolution of primate culture

2014-12-03
Learning from others and innovation have undoubtedly helped advance civilization. But these behaviours can carry costs as well as benefits. And a new study by an international team of evolutionary biologists sheds light on how one particular cost - increased exposure to parasites - may affect cultural evolution in non-human primates. The results, published Dec. 3, 2014, in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that species with members that learn from others suffer from a wider variety of socially transmitted parasites, while innovative, exploratory ...

Colorful nano-guides to the liver

Colorful nano-guides to the liver
2014-12-03
This news release is available in German. (Jena/Germany) Jena scientists have been successful in producing highly specific nanoparticles. Depending on the bound dye the particles are guided to the liver or to the kidney and deliver their payload of active ingredients directly to the targeted tissue. Moreover, the dyes enable the tracking of the transport processes by intravital microscopy or, in a non-invasive way, by multi spectral optoacoustic tomography. The reduction of cholesterol production induced by siRNA served as the proof-of-principle for the developed ...

Taming neural excitations

2014-12-03
What do lasers, neural networks, and spreading epidemics have in common? They share a most basic feature whereby an initial pulse can propagate through a medium - be it physical, biological or socio-economic, respectively. The challenge is to gain a better understanding - and eventually control - of such systems, allowing them to be applied, for instance to real neural systems. This is the objective of a new theoretical study published in EPJ B by Clemens Bachmair and Eckehard Schöll from the Berlin University of Technology in Germany. Ultimately, with a better theoretical ...

Movements help measure child sleep problems

2014-12-03
New research from the University of Adelaide has helped to shed light on the complexities of child sleep, and could lead to improved diagnosis of children with sleep-related breathing problems. For his PhD in the University's School of Medical Sciences, Scott Coussens has been investigating how to accurately measure the level of sleep disturbance being experienced by children, to show whether or not they require treatment. "Quality sleep is extremely important for children, especially at critical times of development. It can impact on the health of the brain and plays ...

Sexting and pornography or music video viewing among adolescents: Is there a link?

Sexting and pornography or music video viewing among adolescents: Is there a link?
2014-12-03
New Rochelle, NY, December 3, 2014--Are adolescents who view pornography or music videos more likely to engage in sexting, in which they share sexually explicit content via text, photo, or video using cell phones, email, or social networking sites? A study of the media consumption and sexting behavior of more than 300 teens is published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website. In "The Associations ...

Bioplastic -- greener than ever

Bioplastic -- greener than ever
2014-12-03
Plastic waste is one of today's major environmental concerns. Most types of plastic do not biodegrade but break up into ever smaller pieces while remaining a polymer. Also, most types are made from oil, a rapidly dwindling resource. But there are promising alternatives, and one of them is polylactic acid (PLA): it is biodegradable and made from renewable resources. Manufacturers use PLA for disposable cups, bags and other sorts of packaging. The demand for PLA is constantly rising and has been estimated to reach about one megaton per year by 2020. The research groups ...

'Mirage Earth' exoplanets may have burned away chances for life

2014-12-03
Planets orbiting close to low-mass stars -- easily the most common stars in the universe -- are prime targets in the search for extraterrestrial life. But new research led by an astronomy graduate student at the University of Washington indicates some such planets may have long since lost their chance at hosting life because of intense heat during their formative years. Low-mass stars, also called M dwarfs, are smaller than the Sun, and also much less luminous, so their habitable zone tends to be fairly close in. The habitable zone is that swath of space that is just ...

People in unhappy places are depressed more than a week a month

2014-12-03
People in the country's unhappiest communities spend about a quarter of the month so far down in the dumps that it can harm their productivity, according to economists. "This is a real concern not just in the United States, but across the world," said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural economics and regional economics, Penn State, and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development. "Poor mental health can result in considerable economic costs, including losses of billions of dollars to lower productivity and this doesn't even include the staggering ...

Brain activity after smokers quit predicts chances of relapsing, Penn study suggests

Brain activity after smokers quit predicts chances of relapsing, Penn study suggests
2014-12-03
PHILADELPHIA--Quitting smoking sets off a series of changes in the brain that Penn Medicine researchers say may better identify smokers who will start smoking again--a prediction that goes above and beyond today's clinical or behavioral tools for assessing relapse risk. Reporting in a new study published this week in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, James Loughead, PhD, associate professor of Psychiatry, and Caryn Lerman, PhD, a professor of Psychiatry and director of Penn's Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Nicotine Addiction, found that smokers who relapsed ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Study tracks chromium chemistry in irradiated molten salts

Scientists: the beautiful game is a silver bullet for global health

Being physically active, even just a couple of days a week, may be key to better health

High-fat diet promote breast cancer metastasis in animal models

A router for photons

Nurses and AI collaborate to save lives, reduce hospital stays

Multi-resistance in bacteria predicted by AI model

Tinker Tots: A citizen science project to explore ethical dilemmas in embryo selection

Sensing sickness

Cost to build multifamily housing in California more than twice as high as in Texas

Program takes aim at drinking, unsafe sex, and sexual assault on college campuses

Inability to pay for healthcare reaches record high in U.S.

Science ‘storytelling’ urgently needed amid climate and biodiversity crisis

KAIST Develops Retinal Therapy to Restore Lost Vision​

Adipocyte-hepatocyte signaling mechanism uncovered in endoplasmic reticulum stress response

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

PKU Scientists simulate the origin and evolution of the North Atlantic Oscillation

[Press-News.org] Glass houses: Your personality helps predict your real estate choices
Tel Aviv University research finds personality traits affect home-buying decisions on both micro and macro levels