Typology Of Behavioral Biases And Heuristics

Abstract

The theory of behavioral finance attempts to explain many financial facts, notably risk perception, and in this frame, it has been utilized a large number of biases and heuristics which are taken from psychology. This study investigates whether biases and heuristics concepts that mentioned in finance literature, differentiates according to gender, wealth acquisition manner and risk perception by taking these concepts in the broadest perspective. Results show that while endowment, optimism, self-attribution and hindsight biases are much more observed at active structured people; status quo bias is much more observed at passive structured people. Regret aversion, mental accounting, framing, illusion of control, conservatism and overconfidence are more observed at men rather than women. Individuals who have status quo, loss aversion, regret aversion, availability, confirmation and ambiguity aversion biases display more risk aversion behavior. Also, by considering objective and subjective financial literacy, this study analyses the differentiate levels of especially objective financial literacy according to bias and heuristics risk perception in detail. With regards to these properties, findings of the study represent the first attempt in literature.