The Psychology Behind Investment Decisions (2024)

The Psychology Behind Investment Decisions (1)

  • Report this article

Rob Howland The Psychology Behind Investment Decisions (2)

Rob Howland

Trusted Wealth Manager providing impartial advice for Expats

Published Aug 21, 2023

+ Follow

The decisions we make when investing are often influenced by our cognitive biases and emotions. These can have a significant impact on our investment decisions so it's important to be aware of these:

1. Cognitive Biases Impact Decisions:

Cognitive biases are inherent mental shortcuts that influence how we process information and make decisions. In the world of investments, these biases can lead to misguided choices. Overconfidence can cause investors to underestimate risks and overestimate potential gains. Loss aversion can make us more sensitive to losses than gains, leading to holding onto losing investments longer than we should. Herding behaviour causes individuals to follow the crowd, even when the logic behind a decision is questionable.

2. Emotions Influence Decisions:

Emotions play a significant role in investment decisions. Fear and greed are common emotions that can lead to irrational choices. Fear of missing out might cause an investor to jump into a hot trend without proper analysis, while fear of loss could lead to panic selling during market downturns. Conversely, greed can drive us to hold onto investments for too long, hoping for higher gains despite the signs of an impending downturn.

3. Long-Term Perspective:

One of the critical lessons in investing is the importance of adopting a long-term perspective. Short-term market fluctuations can trigger emotional reactions, but successful investors understand that the market's long-term trajectory is generally upward. Impulsive decisions driven by short-term events can disrupt a well-thought-out investment strategy.

4. Value Investing:

Investing based on the intrinsic value of assets rather than short-term market sentiment is a fundamental principle. By conducting thorough research and analysis, investors can identify opportunities that might be overlooked by the market's emotional swings. This approach involves assessing an asset's actual worth and investing when the market undervalues it.

5. Contrarian Approach:

The contrarian approach involves going against the crowd and making decisions that are opposite to prevailing market sentiment. While it might sound counterintuitive, this strategy can be highly effective. When the majority of investors are driven by irrational behaviour, a contrarian investor can identify opportunities for profit. Warren Buffett's famous saying, "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful," captures this sentiment.

Recommended by LinkedIn

The Psychology of Money: Behavioral Biases and… Azarudeen Samsudeen 10 months ago
Cognitive Biases That Frequently Lead to Investment… Winthrop Wealth 9 months ago
8 PSYCHOLOGICAL BIASES THAT IMPACT UPON YOUR… Alek Trpkoski 3 years ago

6. Investor Behaviour Matters:

Understanding investor behaviour and psychology is arguably more crucial than following market trends or economic indicators. Successful investors recognize that the market is driven by collective human behaviour, and this behaviour can lead to market inefficiencies that they can exploit.

7. Avoid Market Timing:

Timing the market is a challenging endeavor, even for seasoned professionals. Attempting to predict short-term fluctuations often leads to poor decisions. It's wiser to stay invested for the long term, benefiting from the market's overall growth trajectory while minimizing the impact of short-term volatility.

8. Stay Disciplined:

Developing a disciplined approach to investing is essential to counteract emotional reactions and cognitive biases. Creating an investment plan that aligns with your financial goals and risk tolerance can help you stick to your strategy even in the face of market turbulence.

Help improve contributions

Mark contributions as unhelpful if you find them irrelevant or not valuable to the article. This feedback is private to you and won’t be shared publicly.

Contribution hidden for you

This feedback is never shared publicly, we’ll use it to show better contributions to everyone.

Like
Comment

4

To view or add a comment, sign in

More articles by this author

No more previous content

  • Risk, Reward, and the Balance Between Them Feb 27, 2024
  • The Great Debate: Stocks or Real Estate? Dec 7, 2023
  • The Price of Procrastination: The Cost of Delaying Retirement Savings Aug 28, 2023
  • Avoid Paying 40% Tax: The Importance of Trusting Your Life Insurance Policy May 4, 2023
  • Do I need to write a Will? What is Temporary Guardianship for Expats? How important is Life Insurance? Apr 29, 2021
  • Knight Frank City Wellbeing Index 2020 Mar 9, 2020
  • How much money will you need for a comfortable retirement? Feb 3, 2020
  • The British Isle that doesn't belong Oct 22, 2019
  • The madness of UK Inheritance Tax Oct 15, 2019
  • 10 UK State Pension Mistakes People Make Sep 19, 2019

No more next content

See all

Sign in

Stay updated on your professional world

Sign in

By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy.

New to LinkedIn? Join now

Insights from the community

  • Economics You need to make a major investment decision. How can you be sure you’re making the right choice?
  • Economics How can you identify the most profitable investment opportunities?
  • Financial Management What lessons can you learn from past investment failures?
  • Economics How can you understand the risks of different investment options?
  • Financial Management How can you determine the optimal exit timing for an investment?
  • Financial Management What psychological biases can affect your investing decisions?
  • Financial Management What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) for investment gap analysis?
  • Financial Services You're considering a new investment opportunity. How do you know if it's worth the risk?
  • Financial Management How can you evaluate an investment opportunity for long-term success?
  • Private Equity What do you do if your Private Equity investment strategies lack logical reasoning?

Others also viewed

  • The Invisible Influence: How Cognitive Biases Shape Our Investment Decisions Dennis O'Keefe 10mo
  • Are you the greatest threat to your investments ? Sam G. 5y
  • The Psychology of Investing: How Emotions Affect Our Investment Decisions Bamboo 11mo
  • 5 behavioural biases that lead to investment mistakes CMS Wealth Ltd 2y
  • How Behavioural Biases can influence investment decisions? Mayank Goyal, CFA 3y
  • BIASES in Investment Journey. Abhay Mathure 2y
  • Top Behavioral biases impacting Investment Decisions Finvest India 10mo
  • Make better investment choices by understanding and reducing bias. Patrice Moussalli, CIM® FCSI® 3y
  • Cognitive Biases in Investment – and how to Mitigate their Effects Aaron McCracken 4y

Explore topics

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Business Administration
  • HR Management
  • Content Management
  • Engineering
  • Soft Skills
  • See All
The Psychology Behind Investment Decisions (2024)

FAQs

What is the psychological approach in investment decision making? ›

Psychological Approach

It means that stock prices are influenced by the sentiments about a company in the market. If the investors are having positive sentiments in the market, prices of the stock would appreciate even if the company is not reporting good earnings.

What psychological factors affect investment decisions? ›

The study reveals that psychological factors, specifically Social Influence, Fear of Missing Out (FOMO), Herding Behavior, and Overconfidence, have a significantly and positively impact on investment decision-making.

What is the psychological investment theory? ›

What is the investment theory in psychology? Rusbult investment model, developed in 1980, explains why people commit to relationships, exploring how certain factors affect the development and stability of relationships.

What is the psychological approach to investment? ›

Cyclical stocks, as the name suggests, are closely tied to the economic cycle. These stocks tend to rise and fall in tandem with the overall economy, making them a unique and intriguing investment option.

How do emotions affect investment decisions? ›

Emotional Finance examines how emotions affect financial decisions. It shows that investors' decisions can be influenced by their emotions, such as fear, greed, optimism, or regret (Loewenstein et al., 2001). Emotions can sometimes overrule reasoning and lead to judgments, not in the investor's best interests.

What role does psychology play in investing? ›

Investor Psychology: Influences and Effects

Emotions and cognitive biases play a role in even a well-educated investor's choices. That includes the biases listed above, as well as external factors such as cultural influences, which can impact an investor's sense of loss aversion and patience.

What are the 3 investment theories? ›

Accelerator Theory Of Investment, Internal Funds Theory Of Investment, and Neoclassical Theory Of Investment are three major types of investment theories. These theories can be used by representative parties to establish their views on the nature of the financial markets and make decisions to reach their broad goals.

What is the behavioral theory of investment? ›

Behavioral Investment Theory (BIT) is the third key idea in the Unified Theory Of Knowledge. It is a theory of the mind-brain-behavior relation, and it provides the metatheoretical framework for the evolution of Mind, the third plane of existence on the ToK System.

What is the Keynesian theory of investment? ›

Keynes and his theory of investment. Keynes viewed investment as being determined by the MEI, and the rate of interest. The MEI is, in fact, a present discounted value of an expected stream of returns derived from the investment project. Thus investment is governed by the MEI and the MEI is governed by expectations.

What is investor mindset? ›

The investor has to develop an investment mindset if he is serious about investing. The investor should stay invested for a long period of time for the returns to compound. The speed at which the money doubles increases drastically the more time you stay invested. This is one of the properties of compounding.

What is the mentality of an investor? ›

Just remember: the mindset of an investor is a combination of vision, discipline, resilience, and continuous learning. Beyond mere buying and selling, successful investors embody a strategic approach that enables them to navigate the complexities of the financial markets.

What is investment decision technique? ›

Investment decisions, also referred to as capital budgeting decisions, involve determining where and how much capital should be allocated to generate maximum returns.

What is the psychological theory of decision-making? ›

In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either rational or irrational.

What is the concept of psychological approach? ›

A psychological approach is a perspective, based on certain assumptions, about behavior. Each approach holds shared ideas about how to describe, predict, and explain behavior. In this chapter, we will discuss the major psychological approaches that pertain to development.

What is the psychological approach in finance? ›

Financial Psychology: The Individual or Client Perspective

From an individual perspective, financial psychology encompasses practices related to managing one's financial life (that is, personal finance) and draws heavily from developmental, social, cognitive, and consumer psychology.

What is the psychological decision process? ›

When making a decision, we form opinions and choose actions via mental processes which are influenced by biases, reason, emotions, and memories. The simple act of deciding supports the notion that we have free will. We weigh the benefits and costs of our choice, and then we cope with the consequences.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Roderick King

Last Updated:

Views: 6062

Rating: 4 / 5 (51 voted)

Reviews: 90% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Roderick King

Birthday: 1997-10-09

Address: 3782 Madge Knoll, East Dudley, MA 63913

Phone: +2521695290067

Job: Customer Sales Coordinator

Hobby: Gunsmithing, Embroidery, Parkour, Kitesurfing, Rock climbing, Sand art, Beekeeping

Introduction: My name is Roderick King, I am a cute, splendid, excited, perfect, gentle, funny, vivacious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.