UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION TO BEHAVIORAL FINANCE

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, students will be able to:

• Understand why there is a need for behavioral finance.

• Differentiate traditional and behavioral finance.
• Explain why people make irrational financial decisions.
• Discuss the key concepts of behavioral finance.

Overview

Behavioral finance, a subfield of behavioral economics, proposes that psychological

influences and biases affect the financial behaviors of investors and financial practitioners.
Moreover, influences and biases can be the source for explanation of all types of market
anomalies and specifically market anomalies in the stock market, such as severe rises or falls in
stock price.
Behavioral finance can be analyzed from a variety of perspectives. Stock market returns
are one area of finance where psychological behaviors are often assumed to influence market
outcomes and returns but there are also many different angles for observation. The purpose of the
classification of behavioral finance is to help understand why people make certain financial
choices and how those choices can affect markets. Within behavioral finance, it is assumed that
financial participants are not perfectly rational and self-controlled but rather psychologically
influential with somewhat normal and self-controlling tendencies.
One of the key aspects of behavioral finance studies is the influence of biases. Biases can
occur for a variety of reasons. Biases can usually be classified into one of five key concepts.
Understanding and classifying different types of behavioral finance biases can be very important
when narrowing in on the study or analysis of industry or sector outcomes and results.

Lesson Proper

An Introduction to Behavioral Finance

 For decades, psychologists and sociologists have pushed back against the theories of
mainstream finance and economics, arguing that human beings are not rational utility-
maximizing actors and that markets are not efficient in the real world. The field of behavioral
economics arose in the late 1970s to address these issues, accumulating a wide swath of cases
when people systematically behave "irrationally." The application of behavioral economics to the
world of finance is known, unsurprisingly, as behavioral finance.
From this perspective, it's not difficult to imagine the stock market as a person: It has
mood swings (and price swings) that can turn on a dime from irritable to euphoric; it can
overreact hastily one day and make amends the next. But can human behavior really help us
understand financial matters? Does analyzing the mood of the market provide us with any hands-
on strategies? Behavioral finance theorists suggest that it can.

What is Behavioral Finance?

Behavioral finance is the study of the influence of psychology on the behavior of
investors or financial analysts. It also includes the subsequent effects on the markets. It focuses
on the fact that investors are not always rational, have limits to their self-control, and are
influenced by their own biases.

Why is Studying Behavioral Finance Important?

The entire philosophy of value investing is based on the concepts of behavioral finance.
Value investing assumes that in the short run, markets are not efficient. Greed and fear take over
and lead people to make irrational decisions. Hence, if a person pays attention to behavioral
finance, they can identify and understand these triggers. Behavioral finance helps a person from
falling into common psychological traps. Instead, it helps them take advantage of the
overvaluations and undervaluations which happen in the market because a large number of
investors take decisions emotionally.
The ultimate goal of behavioral finance is to help investors make buy or sell decisions
based on facts. This way, they can pre-empt the investors who wait for the market as a whole to
recognize this error. By pre-empting the market and by staying rational, significant gains be can
be made. Financial history is rife with investors who made millions in the dot com bubble, the
housing market collapse, or any other crisis.

Traditional Financial Theory

In order to better understand behavioral finance, let’s first look at traditional financial
theory.
Traditional finance includes the following beliefs:
 • Both the market and investors are perfectly rational
• Investors truly care about utilitarian characteristics
• Investors have perfect self-control
• They are not confused by cognitive errors or information processing errors
 
Behavioral Finance Theory
Now let’s compare traditional financial theory with behavioral finance.
Traits of behavioral finance are:
• Investors are treated as “normal” not “rational”
• They actually have limits to their self-control
• Investors are influenced by their own biases
• Investors make cognitive errors that can lead to wrong decisions
 
Decision-Making Errors and Biases
Let’s explore some of the buckets or building blocks that make up behavioral finance.
Behavioral finance views investors as “normal” but being subject to decision-making
biases and errors. We can break down the decision-making biases and errors into at least four
buckets.
 

Figure 1.1 Decision-Making Errors and Biases

#1 Self-Deception
 The concept of self-deception is a limit to the way we learn. When we mistakenly think
we know more than we actually do, we tend to miss information that we need to make an
informed decision.
#2 Heuristic Simplification
We can also scope out a bucket that is often called heuristic simplification. Heuristic
simplification refers to information-processing errors.
#3 Emotion
Another behavioral finance bucket is related to emotion, but we’re not going to dwell on
this bucket in this introductory session. Basically, emotion in behavioral finance refers to our
making decisions based on our current emotional state. Our current mood may take our decision
making off track from rational thinking.
#4 Social Influence
What we mean by the social bucket is how our decision making is influenced by others.
 
Top 10 Biases in Behavioral Finance
Behavioral finance seeks an understanding of the impact of personal biases on investors.
Here is a list of common financial biases.
Common biases include:
• Overconfidence and illusion of control
• Self-Attribution Bias
• Hindsight Bias
• Confirmation Bias
• The Narrative Fallacy
• Representative Bias
• Framing Bias
• Anchoring Bias
• Loss Aversion
• Herding Mentality
 
Overcoming Behavioral Finance Issues
There are ways to overcome negative behavioral tendencies in relation to investing. Here
are some strategies you can use to guard against biases.
#1 Focus on the Process
There are two approaches to decision-making:
• Reflexive – Going with your gut, which is effortless, automatic and, in fact, is our default
 option
• Reflective – Logical and methodical, but requires effort to engage in actively

Relying on reflexive decision-making makes us more prone to deceptive biases and

emotional and social influences.
Establishing logical decision-making processes can help protect you from such errors.
Get yourself focused on the process rather than the outcome. If you’re advising others, try to
encourage the people you’re advising to think about the process rather than just the possible
outcomes. Focusing on the process will lead to better decisions because the process helps you
engage in reflective decision-making.
#2 Prepare, Plan and Pre-Commit
Behavioral finance teaches us to invest by preparing, by planning, and by making sure we
pre-commit. Let’s finish with a quote from Warren Buffett.
“Investing success doesn’t correlate with IQ after you’re above a score of 25. Once you
have ordinary intelligence, then what you need is the temperament to control urges that get
others into trouble.”

The Importance of Losses Versus Significance of Gains

Here is one experiment: Offer someone a choice of a sure $50 or, on the flip of a coin, the
possibility of winning $100 or winning nothing. Chances are the person will pocket the sure
thing. Conversely, offer a choice of 1) a sure loss of $50 or 2) on a flip of a coin, either a loss of
$100 or nothing. The person, rather than accept a $50 loss, will probably pick the second option
and flip the coin. This is known as loss aversion.
The chance of the coin landing on one side or the other is equivalent in any scenario, yet
people will go for the coin toss to save themselves from a $50 loss even though the coin flip
could mean an even greater loss of $100. That's because people tend to view the possibility of
recouping a loss as more important than the possibility of greater gain.
The priority of avoiding losses also holds true for investors. Just think of Nortel
Networks shareholders who watched their stock's value plummet from over $100 a share in early
2000 to less than $2 a few years later. No matter how low the price drops, investors—believing
that the price will eventually come back—often hold stocks rather than suffer the pain of taking a
loss.
The Herd vs. Self
The herd instinct explains why people tend to imitate others. When a market is moving
up or down, investors are subject to a fear that others know more or have more information. As a
consequence, investors feel a strong impulse to do what others are doing.
 Behavior finance has also found that investors tend to place too much worth on
judgments derived from small samples of data or from single sources. For instance, investors are
known to attribute skill rather than luck to an analyst that picks a winning stock.
On the other hand, beliefs are not easily shaken. One notion that gripped investors
through the late 1990s, for example, was that any sudden drop in the market is a buying
opportunity. Indeed, this buy-the-dip view still pervades. Investors are often overconfident in
their judgments and tend to pounce on a single "telling" detail rather than the more obvious
average. In doing so, they fail to see the larger picture by focusing too much on smaller details.
How Practical Is Behavioral Finance?
We can ask ourselves if these studies will help investors beat the market. After all,
rational shortcomings should provide plenty of profitable opportunities for wise investors. In
practice, however, few if any value investors are deploying behavioral principles to sort out
which cheap stocks actually offer returns that are consistently above the norm.
The impact of behavioral finance research still remains greater in academia than in
practical money management. While theories point to numerous rational shortcomings, the field
offers little in the way of solutions that make money from market manias.
Robert Shiller, the author of "Irrational Exuberance" (2000), showed that in the late
1990s, the market was in the thick of a bubble. But he couldn't say when the bubble would pop.
Similarly, today's behaviorists can't tell us when the market has hit a top, just as they could not
tell when it would bottom after the 2007-2008 financial crisis. They can, however, describe what
an important turning point might look like.
Name : ____________________________________
Year & Section : ____________________________________

Activity 1.1

1. Based on your own understanding, what is the importance of studying Behavioral Finance?
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2. How would you apply the top 10 biases in Behavioral Finance? Give a scenario for each.
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