A Theory of Conscientiousness

Abstract: We provide an axiomatic foundation for a personality trait which has important implications for economic behavior, Conscientiousness, and two aspects of that factor, the inhibitive and the proactive. We refer to these two aspects here with the names, probably more intuitive for economists, of control and motivation. The first aspect is commonly associated in analysis of individual behavior with the ability to override impulses and distractions when pursuing a goal. The second is usually associated with the inclination to set ambitious goals. Our setup and analysis closely follow those of standard decision theoretic analysis. In our model an individual is characterized by a preference order over acts, which are maps from states to lotteries over prizes. In the framework of Dreze, we allow the possibility that the individual can affect the probability of the state which is realized, at some cost. The differences in this cost of control make formal the differences in conscientiousness among individuals: a higher cost of control over the probability corresponds to a lower degree of inhibitive side of conscientiousness. The utility in each state deriving from the realization of an outcome is state dependent. An important part of the research reported here is an axiomatic foundation of preferences with moral hazard and state dependent preferences, first treated in Dreze. This utility evaluated by the individual in reference to a subjective benchmark, or aspiration level. An extreme and simple example is given by an individual who sets an aspiration level, which is a point in a partially ordered space, and derives a positive utility when his outcome is larger than the set level, and does not when the outcome is lower. The level of the aspiration set by the individual corresponds to his motivation, which corresponds to the proactive side of Conscientiousness.