Psychological factors of impulsive savings traits: survey carried out in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam

This paper attempts to answer an interesting but empirically challenging question: do personality, aggressiveness, and mood lead to changes in savings behaviour? This paper has adopted psychometric tests - UPPS Personality Traits, Aggressiveness (AGGR), and Happiness (POMS) - as the instruments, which were tested in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam (ASEAN-4) by using a survey mode with 2,257 respondents. The results show that an individual with aggressive behaviour tends to have compulsive behaviour in consumption by making fewer savings. The mood of an individual also induces savings behaviour. Interestingly, aggressiveness is the mediator to explain the association between mood and savings behaviour. The personality type also affects spending behaviour. However, this moderating effect of personality was only observed in Thailand and Vietnam, not in Indonesia and Malaysia. Regulators can use the findings by controlling inflation through monetary policy following the mood cycles of individuals. The findings can also be used for policymaking.