Do you feel intense pain at the prospect of spending money? Or do you spend more than you’d actually like to spend because you’re thoroughly “unconflicted” about shelling out the dough? If so, you’re either a tightwad or a spendthrift, according to new research from The Wharton School.
 
According to the data culled from 13,327 respondents over a 31-month period, the researchers found that men are bigger tightwads than women, the young spend more than the old, and the more degrees you have, the more you’ll keep your money in your wallet.
 
The point of all this, according to the study, is for retailers to more accurately target potential shoppers.
 
“It could help stores determine which of their customers will be more sensitive to sales and/or to marketing schemes, or which customers are more likely to put items in their shopping cart online, but then not bother to check out,” said Scott Rick, a visiting professor of operations and information management at Wharton, one of the developers of the spendthrift-tightwad scale.
 
Some tidbits from the survey: New York Times readers were “very tight” with their money, while college-age tightwads tend to be math, computer science or engineering majors.
 
And lastly, those who are in the middle of the tightwad-spendthrift scale are the happiest. Why? “If you are in the middle, you don’t have this strong inner conflict,” Rick said.

Click here for the full research report.