# On the importance of measuring personality traits in household surveys

Bishwarupa Kar, Arnaud Natal, Christophe Jalil Nordman

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Bishwarupa Kar, Arnaud Natal, Christophe Jalil Nordman. On the importance of measuring personality traits in household surveys. ODRIIS Policy Brief No. 3, 2025, pp.5. hal-05032232

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# On the importance of measuring personality traits in household surveys

Bishwarupa Kar, Arnaud Natal and Jalil Nordman

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Credit: C. J. Nordman (2016). Orai-yur village, Tamil Nadu, India.

This policy brief highlights the significance of including personality assessments in household surveys in developing countries, linking socio-emotional traits such as conscientiousness and emotional stability to economic behaviours like debt management and labour mobility. It emphasises the importance of obtaining accurate measurements using, for instance, the Big Five model-land addressing potential biases inherent in this method. Policy recommendations include targeted interventions to refine personality traits, particularly during adolescence, to improve outcomes in health and work. However, in developing countries, such interventions should complement, rather than replace, broader policies aimed at addressing basic needs. In addition, policymakers and scholars should encourage the use of culturally adapted methods in household surveys.

## Introduction

Personality traits significantly shape human behaviour, influencing economic decisions, health outcomes and social interactions. Yet they are often overlooked in household surveys, particularly in the Global South. Integrating personality assessments into household surveys can enable researchers to reveal key links between personality and economic outcomes, paving the way for important recommendations for public policy development.

## Why measure personality traits?

It is important to measure personality traits in household and individual surveys in developing countries, as these characteristics can influence economic behaviour, decision-making and well-being. They influence labour market outcomes, educational choices, and health [1]. In the case of rural India, NEEMSIS data reveal several interesting relationships be-
tween cognition and economic outcomes related to household debt and mobility on the labour market.

With respect to household debt, data show that conscientiousness is an advantage in negotiating and managing debt, particularly for non-Dalit women, while emotional stability is a disadvantage in negotiating and managing debt [2]. Locus of control is correlated with debt negotiation, but especially for non-Dalit men [3]. These results therefore suggest that, in a patriarchal rural context, women take advantage of their Big Five personality traits to overcome the constraints of social identity. However, an internal locus is an additional asset in negotiation for individuals who already have a favourable social position (non-Dalit men).

Regarding mobility on the labour market, data reveal that despite the region's highly rigid labour market structure, Big Five personality traits are important determinants of labour mobility, enabling individuals to overcome caste and gender discrimination [4]. However, these personality traits do not contribute to increased income mobility for migrants. Thus, for women, emotional stability and openness to new experiences lead to income gains, while for Dalits, emotional stability and agreeableness play an important role in relative income mobility.

## How can personality traits be measured correctly?

Assessing personality traits involves navigating at least four complex challenges that must be carefully addressed to ensure accurate and reliable conclusions regarding the effects of personality traits.

Firstly, interactions between interviewers and respondents must be carefully managed, as they can lead to various biases that can distort the results. For instance, respondents may answer questions in a way that will be perceived favourably by others without expressing their true feelings (i.e., the social desirability bias). Or respondents may sometimes systematically answer questions in the same direction, even though they have the opposite meaning (i.e., the acquiescence bias). These biases, inherent in household surveys with face-to-face responses, are all the more pronounced when the level of education is low, as is the case in countries from the Global South. These biases can be tackled by allowing breaks in the administration of the questionnaire, by developing a relationship of trust between respondents and interviewers, and by using local vernacular terms to rephrase questions and make them more comprehensible. In addition, acquiescence bias may be corrected by including questions that have exactly the same meaning but are coded in reverse.

Secondly, in relation to the Big Five model, the selection of the item inventory is also an important consideration. While researchers argue that longer inventories tend to be more valid [5], there is an ethical trade-off between validity and the length of the questionnaire administered to participants. Indeed, individuals may not have several hours to dedicate to a socio-economic survey, so some shorter inventories may prove useful and effective [6].

Thirdly, it is crucial to check that the
personality traits that emerge from the data make sense from a social psychology point of view. To do this, it is necessary to construct personality traits on the basis of factor analyses and not on the basis of naive averages. It is also important to check the internal consistency of these measures (i.e., the degree of reliability with which items in a survey designed to evaluate the same concept actually fulfil this role) with, for example, McDonald's omega [7]. These two procedures make it possible to avoid drawing erroneous conclusions about the effects of personality traits. In more statistical terms, this removes the endogeneity arising from measurement errors.

Finally, because personality traits are not always stable over time (most psychologists at least agree on the notion that personality traits are malleable, i.e., that they are not perfectly stable and vary slightly over time), especially in a developing country context, it may be advised to study their stability wherever possible. Indeed, if instability cannot be detected but is present, the conclusions drawn from a study may be wrong. In statistical terms, there would be a strong risk of endogeneity through reverse causality. If instability is found, a lagged measure of personality traits or a variation in personality traits in a panel should be used. If stability cannot be assessed, care should be taken in the assumptions made and in the interpretation of the results.

## What are the benefits for public policy?

The fact that personality traits are malleable suggests the potential for interventions aimed at refining specific traits to improve important life outcomes (e.g. health, work). Such interventions are most effective during adolescence, as they can elicit a succession of positive outcomes [8]. The effectiveness, up to one year after intervention, of a three-month digital intervention aimed at changing personality was verified [9]. Participants who benefited from the intervention reported greater personality changes than those in the control group, and these changes were consistent with the targeted change objectives. In addition, observers such as friends, family members or intimate partners also detected some significant personality changes in the direction desired by the individuals.

However, in the context of developing countries where basic needs are not always met, interventions aimed at improving cognitive skills should not replace broader development policies focused on meeting these basic needs. In the specific case of India, this means, for example, strengthening the mid-day meal programme by increasing budget allocations and enhancing the MGNREGA programme by both increasing its budget and the number of guaranteed job days. This is especially important as budgetary allocations to these programmes have been significantly reduced in recent years, even though they have proven successful [10]. In addition, by incorporating personality assessments into these wel-
fare schemes, policymakers could gain in-
sights into the socio-emotional factors in-
fluencing programme success, enabling
tailored enhancements to improve out-
comes for different demographic groups.

Finally, policymakers and scholars
should encourage the use of culturally
adapted methods in household surveys.
This includes training interviewers to re-
duce biases, using local vernacular to en-
sure comprehension, and applying ad-
vanced statistical techniques to verify the
internal consistency of collected data.

Conclusion

The aim of this note is to demonstrate the
importance of incorporating measures of
personality traits into household and in-
dividual surveys in developing countries.
This is the approach taken by the Obser-
vatory of Rural Dynamics and Inequalities
in South India as part of its NEEMSIS quan-
titative survey of households and individu-
als. To our knowledge, NEEMSIS is the only
survey in India to collect long-term infor-
mation on the personality of individuals (a
similar survey exists for Thailand and Viet-
nam, see the Thailand Vietnam Socio Eco-
nomic Panel survey from the Leibniz Uni-
versität Hannover).

To ensure that NEEMSIS collects reli-
able data on personality, a relationship of
trust was first established between the in-
terviewers and the respondents (i.e., some
members of the research team have been
conducting field surveys for over 15 years
in the study area).<fnref n="1" /> The NEEMSIS survey is
also based on the long version of the Big
Five inventory and makes every effort to

use terms that are appropriate and under-
standable for local people. When analyses
are undertaken with personality data, the
team (i) systematically correct for acquies-
cence bias; (ii) use factorial analyses; and
(iii) systematically check the internal con-
sistency of personality traits.

References

[1] James J. Heckman, T. Jagelka, and Tim Kautz. "Some Contributions of Economics to the Study of Personality". In: *Handbook of personality: Theory and research*. Ed. by O. P. John and R. W. Robins. 4th. New-York, NY: The Guilford Press, 2021, pp. 853–892.

[2] Arnaud Natal and Christophe Jalil Nordman. "Psychology of Debt in Rural South India". In: *The Journal of Development Studies* (2025). DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2025.2451871.

[3] Arnaud Natal and Christophe Jalil Nordman. "Locus de contrôle, identité sociale et endettement en Inde du Sud". In: *Revue d'économie du développement* 31.2 (2022), pp. 95-101. DOI: 10.3917/edd.362.0095.

[4] Sébastien Michiels, Christophe Jalil Nordman, and Suneha Seetahul. "Many Rivers to Cross: Social Identity, Cognition, and Labor Mobility in Rural India". In: *The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science* 697.1 (2021), pp. 66–80. DOI: 10.1177/00027162211055990.

<footnote n="1">¹Interested readers may see the short audiovisual documentary on NEEMSIS data collection methods, available here: https://youtu.be/b68yu1CTW0U (Accessed on January 9, 2025).</footnote>
[5] Marcus Credé et al. "An evaluation of the consequences of using short measures of the Big Five personality traits". In: *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology* 102.4 (2012), pp. 874–888. DOI: 10.1037/a0027403.

[6] Beatrice Rammstedt, Lena Roemer, and Clemens M. Lechner. "Consistency of the Structural Properties of the BFI-10 Across 16 Samples From Eight Large-Scale Surveys in Germany". In: *European Journal of Psychological Assessment* 40.3 (2024), pp. 204–215. DOI: 10.1027/1015-5759/a000765.

[7] Arnaud Natal and Christophe Jalil Nordman. *A Change is Gonna Come: Measure and Stability of Per-sonality Traits in Rural South India*.

submitted. 2024.

[8] Wiebke Bleidorn et al. "The policy relevance of personality traits". In: *American Psychologist* 74.9 (2019), pp. 1056–1067. DOI: 10.1037/amp0000503.

[9] Mirjam Stieger, Christoph Flückiger, and Mathias Allemand. "One year later: Longerterm maintenance effects of a digital intervention to change personality traits". In: *Journal of Personality* 92.5 (2024), pp. 1424–1437. DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12898.

[10] Jean Drèze and Reetika Khera. "Recent Social Security Initiatives in India". In: *World Development* 98 (2017), pp. 555–572. DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.05.035.

Observatory of Rural Dynamics and Inequalities in South India (ODRIIS)

The *Observatory* analyzes over the past 15 years how structural changes in India are reshaping the organization of work, migration, social hierarchies, and household livelihoods. The *Observatory* also observes, measures, and understands inequalities to contribute to the theoretical renewal of the concepts of agriculture and ecology; labour and knowledge; money, debt, and finance. To achieve these objectives, the *Observatory* collects longitudinal data in rural and peri-urban areas of South India using a multidisciplinary approach; shares quantitative data and survey tools; contributes to academic debates and policymaking through publications; and trains social sciences students in research.

The aim of this Policy Brief series is to disseminate the *Observatory's* empirical, methodological and theoretical work to provide the general public and decision-makers with relevant information based on original, evidence-based data.