Getting Ahead

Abstract

This chapter assesses how the pervasive influence of the adolescent character provides insight into the workings of another sector of modern life relevant to us all: the economy. Less of a collective undertaking than politics, economic activity is guided primarily by individual decisions and actions in the free market system; so many of the relevant effects are seen first and foremost at the individual level. But these individual effects can multiply and cascade to generate patterns that do have important consequences for the general economic and social fabric. Emotions, misperceptions, intangible costs and benefits, influenced in many instances by underlying character traits, lead people to act in ways that the traditional models do not anticipate. As in other fields, it is only recently that some researchers have started to link personality to economic behavior in interesting and enlightening ways to dig deeper into what makes people tick when it comes to economic decision making and activity. When we combine some of these findings with ideas about the changing contours of character in the adolescent society, we can develop new understandings of some of the more salient economic trends of the past number of years.