Have You Dealt with Misers ...?

We all do, in our lives – we encounter misers at work, among friends, relatives, and acquaintances. It always baffles me why they behave the way they do, most times well educated, well placed, and mostly well secured, still misers. It is hard to understand their psyche and mind-set and when faced to deal with one, you find, it can be very frustrating. As it is said sometimes, knowing is redeeming, I have done some deep diving. To understand better, and perhaps help them, or at the least help our hapless selves with some insightful answers.

We don’t choose our parents, our upbringing nor our genes. !

Much of 18 and 19th century work on psychology, found miserliness running through heredity. It is not biological, but a strong parenting and upbringing style that manifests itself in generations of families. Scott Rick, a postdoctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who has done research on what makes people cheap, says that childhood plays a big role. If you have two thrifty parents, you're likely to be thrifty as well.

Well that also not also be the universal rule, where childhood isn't the only factor. George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, says people have innate tendencies. "It's almost like people are born tightwads or cheapskates,”  There is yet another reason, ie circumstances and life experiences that shaped miserliness – the great depression, the world wars, the famines et all have left their toll on human psychology and a long line of misers, who after outliving the circumstances retain much of the famine behaviours. Let look at historically famous world class misers: -

1. English politician John Elwes is thought to be the basis for that most famous miser, Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens novel Christmas Carol. The MP, born in 1714, was worth over $390,000 (approximately $28 million in today's money) but lived like a pauper. He wore threadbare, ragged clothes and went to bed when darkness fell to avoid wasting money on candles, while his home fell into ruins. He died with very few possessions but left his unspent fortune to his two sons, born out of wedlock.

1. Henrietta 'Hetty' Green, born in 1835, was the richest woman in the world in the 1800s. She died with money and assets worth over $100 million (nearly $2 billion when adjusted for inflation) but during her lifetime she refused to open her pockets to the needy, even if they were from her own family! Hetty's son broke his leg as a child but she refused to pay for any treatment and instead tried to get him into a free clinic for the poor. For these reasons, Guinness World Records claim that Hetty was the World's Greatest Miser.

The honors list of misers is indeed very long. Indeed most recently the Swiss Banks released a list of over 50000 names of holocaust period account holders who have in totality have left billions of dollars’ worth of wealth, forgotten and unclaimed by their descendants.

It is indeed sad, pathetic and remorseful to see a miser go. Live poorly to die rich!

Don’t they look and behave like us? … Behavioural anatomy of the Miser:-

Things & Feelings

We all have love for things and have sensitive feelings too. Often feelings come in conflict with things, and it depends on what you give importance too. For a miser feelings are absent, or at best secondly. The only feeling is the need process ‘things’. Things tend to give them security, they can physically touch, count, hold and feel secure. The love of sheer money – cash in bank or in hand is what counts.  

Eternal Postponement

Conservation, preservation, and postponement of consumption, of usage of things is the other dimension. Something good to eat is kept for a better day to have it, a new dress to be worn only on a distant unspecified and uncertain future date, and so on. Postponement gives a sense of security to hold and possess a thing, almost for ever. In short it leads to hoarding. Misers are the biggest hoarders in the world. They cannot discard anything for instance it can come of use in some distant uncertain date.

Money

The focus of all actions is rooted in the need for money. Having and holding on to money in cash or in bank, with a simple note of the amount provides sustenance to a miser to go on adding more, saving more, growing the abstract no as they perpetually live in the fear or joy that they are building a nest egg for an undefined, unknown dry summer in the distant future. Still watching the color of currency is most soothing :) 

Deprivation and abstinence

Somehow, misers thrive through self-imposed deprivation and abstinence. Denying themselves what they need, by such self-denial they derive some high sense of achievement, as they would avoid expending money or consumption of any kind.

Free Indulgence in free-goods

They have a penchant for anything that comes free – indulge, consume, amass just because it comes free. There is no greater joy than a free meal for a miser, no matter his social standing or wealth. Anything that comes free is extremely valuable.

For their lack of real feelings, misers can be extremely self-centred and missionary to achieve their goals, and care little for what others say. In other words they have little shame or self-esteem as they go about practicing their owed miserliness.

Grand Mix-up ! 

Misers are wired up somewhat differently. They truly believe in themselves as doing absolutely right. The difference from sensible thrift to senseless misery is blurred in their minds. Similarly, they tend to behave paradoxically - buy a car but not use it to save on parking or go on a holiday and loose the sight of time value of money, running after cheapest modes of transport or eating places. Life is full of opportunities, where a small top up or premium can give marginally higher returns, misers tend miss it and look at absolute values than relative values .

The science behind it all ….

The science defines a miser as afflicted with HD (Hoarding Disorder). Here are some researched insights on the behavioral causes of misers.

1. Some financial psychologists have identified a miserly relationship with money as being a feature of HD in some individuals. It has been suggested that money hoarders have so much anxiety about not having enough money that they may neglect the most basic self-care activities and have great difficulty enjoying the benefits of accumulating money -Journal of Financial Therapy Volume 4, Issue 2 (2013) ISSN: 1945-7774 CC

1. Forman (1987) described a financial hoarder as having a fear of losing money, distrust of others around money, and trouble enjoying money. Klontz and Britt (2012b) identified a link between money attitudes and hoarding behaviours. They found that money status scripts and money worship scripts predicted compulsive hoarding behaviours. Specifically, individuals who linked net worth to self-worth and held the belief that the key to happiness and the solution to all of their problems was to have more money were significantly more likely to engage in hoarding behaviours (Klontz & Klontz, 2009).

1. In the development of the Klontz Money Behaviour Inventory (K-MBI), Klontz and colleagues (2012) identified the following symptoms in their Compulsive Hoarding scale:

• • I have trouble throwing things away, even if they aren’t worth much.
  • My living space is cluttered with things I don’t use.
  • Throwing something away makes me feel like I am losing a part of myself.
  • I feel emotionally attached to my possessions.
  • My possessions give me a sense of safety and security.
  • I have trouble using my living space because of clutter.
  • I feel irresponsible if I get rid of an item.
  • I hide my need to hold on to items from others.

While this provides a psychological and scientific basis for miserly behaviour there is much more to it.  Such misers, are usually a part of a greater problem than sheer HD. They may be suffering from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) or OCDP (obsessive compulsive disorder personality). While they sound very medical terms, they are simple to grasp.

Looking at the Encyclopaedia of Mental Disorders, one gets a deeper insight: - 

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is a type of personality disorder marked by rigidity, control, perfectionism, and an over concern with work at the expense of close interpersonal relationships. Persons with this disorder often have trouble relaxing because they are preoccupied with details, rules, and productivity. They are often perceived by others as stubborn, stingy, self-righteous, and uncooperative.

Symptoms of OCPD

The symptoms of OCPD include a pervasive over concern with mental, emotional, and behavioural control of the self and others. Excessive conscientiousness means that people with this disorder are generally poor problem-solvers and have trouble making decisions; as a result, they are frequently highly inefficient. Their need for control is easily upset by schedule changes or minor unexpected events. While many people have some of the following characteristics, a person who meets the DSMIV-TR criteria for OCPD must display at least four of them:

• Preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization, or schedules to the point at which the major goal of the activity is lost.
• Excessive concern for perfection in small details that interferes with the completion of projects.
• Dedication to work and productivity that shuts out friendships and leisure-time activities, when the long hours of work cannot be explained by financial necessity.
• Excessive moral rigidity and inflexibility in matters of ethics and values that cannot be accounted for by the standards of the person's religion or culture.
• Hoarding things, or saving worn-out or useless objects even when they have no sentimental or likely monetary value.
• Insistence that tasks be completed according to one's personal preferences.
• Stinginess with the self and others.
• Excessive rigidity and obstinacy.

Causes

No single specific cause of OCPD has been identified. Since the early days of Freudian Psychoanalysis however, faulty parenting has been viewed as a major factor in the development of personality disorders. Current studies have tended to support the importance of early life experiences, finding that healthy emotional development largely depends on two important variables: parental warmth and appropriate responsiveness to the child's needs. When these qualities are present, the child feels secure and appropriately valued. By contrast, many people with personality disorders did not have parents who were emotionally warm toward them. Patients with OCPD often recall their parents as being emotionally withholding and either overprotective or over controlling. One researcher has noted that people with OCPD appear to have been punished by their parents for every transgression of a rule, no matter how minor, and rewarded for almost nothing. As a result, the child is unable to safely develop or express a sense of joy, spontaneity, or independent thought, and begins to develop the symptoms of OCPD as a strategy for avoiding punishment. Children with this type of upbringing are also likely to choke down the anger they feel toward their parents; they may be outwardly obedient and polite to authority figures, but at the same time treat younger children or those they regard as their inferiors harshly.

There is a marked difference between OCD and OCDP, the later which is more embedded and entrenched in the personality, more challenging in terms of therapy.  In both cases miserly behaviours are commonly found. Modern psychiatry treats both OCD ad OCPD through psychotherapy and also medications, however the real challenge is always in belling cat to the table to accept the problem and seek treatment.

Dealing with them…

To turn philosophical, ultimately the other peaceful way to deal with them is to turn to Gautama Buddha who said in his Dhammapada verse 223, which is translated as “Silence the angry man with love. Silence the ill-natured man with kindness. Silence the miser with generosity. Silence the liar with truth.”

By Mr. K V RAO