Ask Americans anything—about religion, marital problems, sex, race, politics, or even drug addiction. But don’t ask them about money.
Americans don’t want to talk about it. That’s according to a Capital Group survey, which found that out of a dozen topics people don’t generally chat about with their friends, respondents were more willing to talk about any others among them than the three that had to do with money: household earnings, retirement savings and debt.
In fact, just 35% of people—30% of men and 40% of women—have discussed finance-related topics with friends and peers in the last six months. It figures that millennials, at 23%, are almost twice as likely as boomers (just 13%) to talk to their friends about money. And yet more women consider financial topics a social taboo than men.
(Related: Daniel Kahneman: Your Intuition Is Wrong, Unless These 3 Conditions Are Met)
And according to survey findings, those willing to talk about the taboo matter of money are either very confident—it adds, “perhaps too confident”—or very insecure.