The impact of social influence on the relationship between personality traits and perceived investment performance of individual investors

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Akhtar ◽  
K.S. Thyagaraj ◽  
Niladri Das

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between an individual investor’s personality trait and his perceived investment performance. It proposes a novel conceptual framework that integrates social influence (as a moderating construct) and outlines the role of personality in determining the perceived investment performance during the investment decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to collect responses from 396 individual investors through stratified and quota sampling approach. The collected data were then analysed using both hierarchical regression analysis and structural equation modelling to evaluate the strength of the relationship between the constructs, namely, personality trait, perceived investment performance and social influence. Findings This study suggests that social influence positively moderates the relationship between extraversion-perceived investment performance, whereas it negatively moderates the relationship between agreeability-perceived investment performance. Research limitations/implications This study has certain limitations. First, this work follows a modelling approach which is more centred towards the prediction of relationships. Second, because of choosing a research approach (since the study has been conducted in one country, i.e. India), the results of the study may lack generalisability. Therefore, further studies could be encouraged to test the proposed hypotheses. Practical implications Insights from this study suggest that investors should look in for their personality traits while making an investment decision. In fact, psychologically modified portfolios should be developed as per the personality traits of the investors. Originality/value The study, perhaps, is the only study to apply social influence in a framework using Big Five personality traits as a possible factor to understand the individual differences in terms of perceived investment performance.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 333-352
Author(s):  
Fatima Akhtar ◽  
Niladri Das

Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyse the mediation effect of psychological biases, namely, financial risk tolerance (FRT) and financial overconfidence on the relationship between personality traits of individual investors and their investment performance (perceived) in the context of a developing financial market such as Indian Capital Markets. Design/methodology/approach The study uses both quantitative and cross-sectional approach to collect response from 983 individual investors through a questionnaire. The questionnaire had segments that were designed to assess their personality traits, investment performance and psychological traits. The personality traits were assessed through Big-Five personality inventory (TIPI), the psychological traits, i.e. FRT was measured through FRT scale, whereas financial overconfidence was measured through three basic concepts, namely, over-precision, over-placement and overestimation. Investment performance was assessed through perceived investment performance measures. The collected data was then analysed through AMOS and SPSS to validate the hypothesised relationship. Findings Findings of the study depict that personality traits of individual investors are related with their FRT, financial overconfidence and perceived investment performance. In addition, FRT and financial overconfidence are negatively related to perceived investment performance. Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that the two psychological traits were found to fully mediate the relationship between personality traits and investment performance. Research limitations/implications There are still certain limitations of the present study. First, the questionnaire pre-testing and sampling technique allowed for only for those investors who had an experience of investment in financial markets; however, the quantification of actual investment performance for each investor was impossible, and thus the actual investment performance was not determined. Second, this study focusses on the mediating role of financial overconfidence and financial risk-taking, as such it is known that levels of financial overconfidence and risk-taking depend on many other extraneous factors such as socio-economic status and financial knowledge. Practical implications The findings of the present study is useful for financial companies, policymakers as well as issuers of financial securities, who can keep a watch on these behaviour-related traits before issuing a security in the financial market and for the financial service providers; this study would be beneficial to design a “behavioural portfolio” according to the personality and psychological traits of their clients. Social implications Through this study, the investors can recognise their personality traits and psychological biases and take sound and good investment decisions and can also maximise their level of overconfidence. This increased level of overconfidence will propel them further to actively and frequently participate in financial markets and make financial gains. Originality/value The essence of this paper lies in the identification of personality traits and psychological traits of individual investors, and their relationship with investment performance. Studies such as this are less prevalent in the context of a developing country such as India. Moreover, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is first of its kind to study the meditating effect of psychological biases in the relationship between personality traits and investment performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Akhtar ◽  
Niladri Das

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand investment intention of prospective individual investors in a developing country (i.e. India) by using the “Theory of Planned Behaviour” (TPB) (where perceived behavioural control has been replaced with financial self-efficacy, FSE) and two additional constructs, i.e. financial knowledge and personality traits (i.e. risk-taking propensity and preference for innovation) have been introduced.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses quantitative and cross-sectional approach wherein questionnaire based survey was done to collect responses from prospective individual investors (920 usable responses). AMOS and SPSS have been used to establish the hypothesised relationship between the constructs.FindingsThe results of the study suggested that attitude was responsible for partial mediation between the relationship of financial knowledge and investment intention, whereas financial self-efficacy was exerting a dual role on the relationship between personality traits and investment intention. Subjective norms, on the other hand, exerted a weak positive effect on investment intention.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited to measure the investment intention in financial markets in case of prospective individual investors; it does not incorporate the actual investment behaviour, the study also fails to include demographic factors which play a vital role in investment decision making. Furthermore, the study has only considered objective dimension of financial knowledge.Practical implicationsThe findings will be useful for financial service providers who need to enhance the FSE and financial knowledge and design a “behavioural portfolio” according the personality traits of their clients.Social implicationsThe up-liftment of financial confidence among individuals in order to motivate them to participate in financial markets and enjoy “short-cuts” towards financial success.Originality/valueThis study is one of the initial attempts in the context of the Indian Stock Market to introduce FSE as a dual (both mediating and moderating) construct between personality traits and investment intention using TPB, moreover, this study also provides the necessary impetus to analyse the relationship between financial knowledge and investment intention with attitude as the mediating variable.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aqsa Ameer ◽  
Farah Naz ◽  
Bushra Gul Taj ◽  
Iqra Ameer

Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of conscientiousness and extraversion personality traits on project success. The relationship is mediated by affective professional commitment, whilst the relationship between personality traits and project success is moderated by organizational project management maturity. Design/methodology/approach The deductive approach is used to achieve the objectives of this study. Data were collected through a purposive sampling technique from 250 respondents with the help of questionnaires from information technology sectors. The structural equation modelling (SEM) in partial least squares-SEM and SPSS is used to analyse the data and to examine the hypothesis. Findings The outcomes demonstrate the partial mediating impact of affective professional commitment between the relationship of conscientiousness and extraversion personalities with project success. Additionally, it proves the moderating effects of project management maturity between the relationship of conscientiousness and extraversion personalities with project success. Practical implications This study reflects that employee personality appears to be a reliable indicator of how an employee is faithful to his profession. This faithfulness or duty decides the employee’s execution in terms of offering a successful project. Thus, achieving employee commitment needs to be done by completing the project successfully by the organizations in the presence of project management maturity systems. Originality/value It is the first study of its kind to provide experimental proof of the impact of a manager’s personality traits on project success in the presence of affective professional commitment (mediator) and organizational project management maturity (moderator).


Kybernetes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (8) ◽  
pp. 1894-1912
Author(s):  
Samra Chaudary

Purpose The paper takes a behavioral approach by making use of the prospect theory to unveil the impact of salience on short-term and long-term investment decisions. This paper aims to investigate the group differences for two types of investors’ groups, i.e. individual investors and professional investors. Design/methodology/approach The study uses partial least square-based structural equation modeling technique, measurement invariance test and multigroup analysis test on a unique data set of 277 active equity traders which included professional money managers and individual investors. Findings Results showed that salience has a significant positive impact on both short-term and long-term investment decisions. The impact was almost 1.5 times higher for long-term investment decision as compared to short-term decision. Furthermore, multigroup analysis revealed that the two groups (individual investors and professional investors) were statistically significantly different from each other. Research limitations/implications The study has implications for financial regulators, money managers and individual investors as it was found that individual investors suffer more with salience heuristic and may end up with sub-optimal portfolios due to inefficient diversification. Thus, investors should be cautious in fully relying on salience and avoid such bias to improve investment returns. Practical implications The study concludes with a discussion of policy and regulatory implications on how to minimize salience bias to achieve optimum and diversified portfolios. Originality/value The study has significantly contributed to the growing body of applied behavioral research in the discipline of finance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Tuan Hamidon ◽  
Sampath Kehelwalatenna

Individual investors trading at the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE), Sri Lanka, behave irrationally despite objective finance models available for them to refer in making rational decisions. Therefore this paper examines the irrationality by testing whether behavioural finance factors (BF), stock broker’s recommendations (SBR) as a contextual factor, and individual investor’s existing knowledge of the stock market (EK) as a demographic factor affect individual investor’s investment performance (IP). Heuristic behaviour, prospect behaviour and market factors were conceptualised as independent variables of the study whereas SBR and EK act as moderators on the relationship between BF and IP. Data of 221 individual investors of CSE during first half of 2019 were analyzed using structural models to draw empirical evidence to test hypotheses of the study. Results of the study reveal that market information and past stock trends as market factors have a significant bearing on investment decision making, which ultimately affect IP, while the aggregate effect of BF upholds a significant impact on IP. The results expose some novel findings such as: investors receive inferior financial returns when imitating other investors’ trading behaviour whilst trading on SBR; receive lower returns once trading on market factors whilst resuming SBR; and receive mediocre returns when EK is affirmative whilst following other investors’ decisions; and suffer losses when trading on market factors whilst exploiting EK. The findings imply that the stock brokers should not merely consider the output of objective finance models, but market wide herding, market manipulations, market factors and EK in investment recommendations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 545-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zubair Tauni ◽  
Zia-ur-Rehman Rao ◽  
Hong-Xing Fang ◽  
Minghao Gao

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the key sources of information, namely, financial advice, word-of-mouth communication and specialized press, on trading behavior of Chinese stock investors. The study also analyzed if the association between the key sources of information and trading behavior is influenced by investor personality. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopted the Big Five personality framework and examined the survey results of individual stock investors (n=541) in China. Personality traits of investors were measured by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 1989). The authors performed probit regression analysis to evaluate the moderating influence of investor personality traits on the association between sources of information and stock trading behavior. Findings The results of the study confirm the previous findings that the key sources of information used by investors as a foundation of their financial choices have a significant influence on their trading behavior. The study also provides empirical evidence that investor personality traits moderate the relationship between the key sources of information and trading behavior. Financial advisors tend to increase the frequency of trading in investors with openness, extraversion, neuroticism and agreeableness personality traits, and tend to decrease the intensity of trading in investors with conscientiousness trait. On the other hand, financial information acquired from word-of-mouth communication is more likely to enhance trading frequency in extraverted and agreeable investors, and is more likely to reduce trading frequency in investors with openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism traits. Finally, the use of specialized press leads to more adjustment in portfolios of the investors with openness and conscientiousness traits than those with other personality traits. An alternative mediated model was not supported. Originality/value This research contributes to information search literature and behavioral finance literature and provides empirical evidence that the psychological characteristics of investors are significant predictors of the variations in information-trading link. The study offers new theoretical insights of investors’ behavior due to the characteristics of Chinese stock market which are unique from other stock markets in the world. To the authors’ best knowledge, no previous study has been conducted so far in Chinese stock market to explore variations with regards to the impact of the key sources of information on trading behavior by the Big Five investor personality and this paper seeks to fill this gap.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Sarika Keswani ◽  
Vippa Dhingra ◽  
Bharti Wadhwa

Market anomalies and irrational behavior caused investors changes in the stock market, and this has led to an investigation into the impact of various behavioral biases and factors affecting decision-making for individual investors. The purpose of this study was to find out the effect of the four factors, heuristic, prospect, market, herding on decisions of investors at NSE. Data are collected from the questionnaire on the basis of a likert scale. To determine the reliability of the questionnaire, the Cronbach alpha factor, which was 0.728, was used. EFA and multiple regression tests have been applied. Cronbach-alpha was used to check the interal consistency of the element. Cronbach alpha emphasized to each factor: Heuristic, Prospect, Market, Herding, Investment performance and Investors decisions that consistency at an acceptable level. The result of the analysis is that the four variables have greatly influenced the investment decision and return on investment. All behavioral variables have a significant impact on the decision-making process of investors, which led to the acceptance of all assumptions regarding the level of influence of behavioral factors in decision making for individual investors.


2019 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Kent Baker ◽  
Satish Kumar ◽  
Nisha Goyal

Purpose This paper examines the relation between the Big Five model of personality traits and behavioral biases (overconfidence, disposition effect, anchoring, representativeness, metal accounting, emotional bias and herding) of Indian individual investors when making investment decisions. Design/methodology/approach The authors use a structured questionnaire to obtain responses from 515 stock investors in India between August 2016 and January 2017. Based on components identified through factor analysis, the authors use structural equation modeling to examine the effect of specific personality traits. Findings The findings indicate a significant association between the traits of neuroticism, extroversion and conscientiousness as well as behavioral biases of individual investors. Openness has a significant relation with only mental accounting and the agreeableness trait has no relation with the behavioral biases examined. Research limitations/implications The findings imply that understanding investor personality differences and investment psychology can help financial advisors and wealth managers modify products and services to better suit client needs. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has examined the impact of the Big Five model of personality traits on various behavioral biases among Indian investors.


2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishal Mishra ◽  
Sridhar Vaithianathan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of customer personality and customer relationship proneness (CRP) on customer’s relationship satisfaction (CS) with the firm in emerging economies context. In the study, the authors state that the relationship proneness of the customer (CRP) would be influenced by personality trait of the customer. To examine the argument on personality trait, the authors have adopted Big Five personality trait theory in this study. The authors also argue that CRP would influence CS. Furthermore the authors put forth that customer’s perception of marketer’s relationship orientation (RMO) would mediate the relationship between CRP and CS. Design/methodology/approach – Data for the study were collected through structured questionnaire. A sample of 428 respondents was obtained through questionnaire survey (response rate 41.19 percent) and the hypotheses depicting the aforementioned relationships were empirically tested in the context of banking services in India. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used for data analysis. Findings – The results confirm that personality traits influences CRP. Further, customer’s perception of RMO is found to have a mediating effect. Research limitations/implications – The study utilizes cross-sectional data, so the results of the study might vary depending upon the context (country/sector). Practical implications – The outcomes of the study can be utilized by the marketers, particularly in the emerging economies like India for formulating targeted strategies in accordance with the personality type of the customers. Originality/value – The relationship between CRP, personality traits and CS of the customer using Big Five personality theory has been empirically analysed in the context of an emerging economy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haritha P.H. ◽  
Rashmi Uchil

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between the factors influencing investors sentiment and investment decision-making (DM) of the individual investors. This paper proposes a unique conceptual framework that incorporates the herding, market and awareness factors that are leading to investor sentiment (IS) and decision-making process of the individual investors. Design/methodology/approach This study has conducted a questionnaire-based survey to collect data from 875 individual investors through the convenience sampling method. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the relationship between factors, namely, market effect, herd behavior, media, social interaction and advocate recommendation that influences IS and DM. Findings The present study found that market effect and herding are the most significantly influencing factors of investors sentiment. Among the sources of awareness, the internet has the lowest influence when compared to media, social interaction and advocate recommendation. Practical implications This study will help individual investors to avoid the problems faced while making an investment decision. The study could help investors to select a suitable investment aid and avoid repeating expensive errors, which arise due to investors’ sentiment. It is recommended to increase the awareness regarding investors’ sentiment among individuals, so as to increase their understanding about the financial settings and to make them confident while investing. The present study also sheds light upon the behavior of Indian individual investors so that policymakers can take appropriate measures to provide the proper guidance. Policymakers can conduct awareness campaigns to increase investors’ knowledge on the market condition and to enhance proper investment DM among them. Originality/value To best of the authors’ knowledge, previous studies have focused on limited factors at a time. The present study has investigated how factors influencing investors sentiment, namely, market factors (MF), herding as well as awareness would influence investment DM among individual investors in India. The influence of these factors has never been studied simultaneously in the context of Indian individual investors’ DM.


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