It’s easy to make the wrong assumption about credit scores — they have something to do with credit cards specifically, and money in general; right?
Well, no. Your credit score might seem like a digital dollar amount, but it’s anything but. Not only does your credit score bounce around a complicated digital network, but the lenders that use your credit scores don’t have the same information. A credit score doesn’t look at how much money you have; a credit score looks at how much you can borrow from someone for an asset (cars, homes, credit cards, personal loans, etc).
As such, credit scores can tell you about you. Remember that big government study showing how credit scores were strong predictors for how good a boyfriend/girlfriend you are?
Is the same true of personality? It’s important to boil down credit scores to their most essential component; they are scores assessing risk, first and foremost. If you have a low credit score, lenders think it’s because you are too risky, and have a financial history of instability. If you have a high credit score, lenders believe it’s because you are not a risk, and have a financial history of being stable. Starting to get the picture?
Believe it or not, companies have explored the connection between personality and credit scores. FICO is the company that takes all that info the credit bureaus give them, and processes the relevant info into a credit score. They’ve partnered with a company named EFL who has been attempting to create an alternative to credit data using psychometrics. Psychometrics are an attempt to gauge and value the mental process (think an IQ test). One of the first assessments the EFL put together was a test on impulsiveness.
EFL data has shown that applicants who move faster with an impulse to finish the application and get wrong answers are more risky borrowers than those that take more time to answer with fewer errors.
In other words, if we’re using the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, who are the risky borrowers? Probably those who are: outgoing, spontaneous, enthusiastic, idealistic, supportive, and action-oriented. Though it looks like extroverts are primarily at risk for bad credit, don’t start celebrating just yet introverts. According to a personality and credit card misuse study in the Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, introversion was associated with credit card misuse (and thus an increased risk of bankruptcy) in a survey of 254 college students.
We know what you’re thinking — but my personality doesn’t guarantee that I’ll have bad credit!
Of course not. But let’s put credit into perspective. Ever see that episode of Black Mirror where a single score defines your worth to the rest of society?
Credit may seem like just a small feature of our financial life. But in 2014, the State Council of China found a way to turn credit — a financial system that profiles us to determine how risky we are as borrowers, and thus how attractive we are to lenders — into a baseline trust score. People with low ratings are not allowed into certain restaurants, get lower internet speeds, and can’t event travel by plane or train in some cases.
Credit is all about data, and this is the data age. Credit scores have been used to track whether or not you take your medicine as directed. Credit cards themselves can make you forgetful, lead to weight gain, and according to some brain studies, “anaesthetize against the pain of payment.” Something we covered with impatient people and low credit scores, personality and credit scores may not be strongly connected, but that’s not to say the signs should be ignored.
For a FREE credit evaluation that keeps your personality in good spirits and your credit in good limits, contact us by visiting us at our committed offices at 6989 Alamo Downs Pkwy, San Antonio, TX 78238, or call us at 210-520-0444.
