"Where do these things fundamentally come from?" Siegel asked.
He had a hunch that it has to be some outcome of evolution.
Indeed, in one of the biggest research endeavors into the causes of our financial behavior, Siegel studied some 30,000 identical and fraternal twins from Sweden, and ultimately found that the most powerful determiner was our genes. More than differences in parenting or socioeconomic status, our financial habits are shaped by our DNA.
"I never thought of connecting finance with biology," he said, but added that it only made sense to do so. "We are just another species."
What does it mean, then, if a large share of our financial behavior is inherited and therefore out of our control? It reveals that as important as financial education can be, it should also be paired with tools and structures that help people overcome their tendencies to, say, overspend or delay saving, experts say.