The Role of Financial Behavior in Mediating the Influence of Socioeconomic Characteristic and Neuroticism Personality Traits on Financial Satisfaction

Abstract

The inherent socioeconomic characteristics and personality traits of individuals can have direct effects on their financial satisfaction. There has been no research that examines the effects of these two factors on financial satisfaction with financial behavior acting as the mediating variable even though it is very important to know whether individuals with certain characteristics and personality traits are able to increase their financial satisfaction by improving their financial behavior. 2. Methods This research involved 600 respondents in Medan, Indonesia. The primary data were obtained from the questionnaire. Data analyses were performed by using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method. 3. Results and findings The test results show that at 5% of alpha, the financial behavior, which consists of investment behavior, debt behavior, and spending behavior, is able to mediate the effects of gender, age, level of education, income, and neuroticism traits on financial satisfaction. In addition, it is also found that the higher the individuals' scores on neuroticism are, the worse their investment, debt, and spending behaviors will be; however, their herding behavior and financial dissatisfaction increase. Moreover, these people are also not financially well-off. Keywords: Debt behavior, financial satisfaction, investment behavior, neuroticism personality traits, spending behavior.