Is being a cheapskate genetic?

Yes:

Despite numerous folk sayings about miserly people, the genetic and environmental architecture of the character trait of miserliness has been very rarely studied to date. We administered six items of the miserliness scale to 1110 pairs of South Korean twins aged 12- to 25-years (M = 18.0, SD = 3.3). Model-fitting analyses indicated that 28% (95% CI: 21–34%) and 72% (95% CI: 66–79%) of individual difference in miserliness were attributable to genetic and unique environmental influences, respectively. Common family environmental effects were negligible, consistent with a large body of behavioral genetic literature on personality. Sex differences in the magnitude of genetic and environmental factors in miserliness were not significant.

Highlights

► We fit univariate genetic model to the miserliness data collected from 1110 twin pairs.

► Genetic and environmental influences on individual difference in miserliness were 28% and 72%, respectively.

► Environmental influences on miserliness were predominantly nonshared variety.

► Rearing environmental influences were negligible in the origin of miserliness.

Source: “Miserliness is heritable” from Personality and Individual Differences

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