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Is There a “Pessimisticâ€\x9D Bias in Individual Beliefs? Evidence from a Simple Survey

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  • Selima Mansour
  • Elyès Jouini
  • Clotilde Napp

Abstract

It is an important issue for economic and finance applications to determine whether individuals exhibit a behavioral bias toward pessimism in their beliefs, in a lottery or more generally in an investment opportunities framework. In this paper, we analyze the answers of a sample of 1,540 individuals to the following question “Imagine that a coin will be flipped 10 times. Each time, if heads, you win $$10\texttt{C}\!\!\!\rule[2.3pt]{.4em}{.3pt}\!\!\rule[3.3pt]{ .4em}{.3pt}$$ . How many times do you think that you will win?â€\x9D The average answer is surprisingly about 3.9 which is below the average 5, and we interpret this as a pessimistic bias. We find that women are more “pessimisticâ€\x9D than men, as are old people relative to young. We also analyze how our notion of pessimism is related to more general notions of pessimism previously introduced in psychology. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006

Suggested Citation

  • Selima Mansour & Elyès Jouini & Clotilde Napp, 2006. "Is There a “Pessimisticâ€\x9D Bias in Individual Beliefs? Evidence from a Simple Survey," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 345-362, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:61:y:2006:i:4:p:345-362
    DOI: 10.1007/s11238-006-9014-2
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    5. M Kannadhasan & S Aramvalarthan & S K Mitra & Vinay Goyal, 2016. "Relationship between Biopsychosocial Factors and Financial Risk Tolerance: An Empirical Study," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 41(2), pages 117-131, June.
    6. Hillenbrand, Adrian & Winter, Fabian, 2018. "Volunteering under population uncertainty," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 65-81.
    7. Bellofatto, Anthony & Broihanne, Marie-Hélène & D'Hondt, Catherine, 2019. "Appetite for information and trading behavior," LIDAM Discussion Papers LFIN 2019002, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain Finance (LFIN).
    8. Luc Arrondel, 2018. "Financial Literacy and Asset Behaviour: Poor Education and Zero for Conduct?," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 60(1), pages 144-160, March.
    9. Sarah Brown & Mark N. Harris & Christopher Spencer & Karl Taylor, 2020. "Financial Expectations and Household Consumption: Does Middle Inflation Matter?," Working Papers 2020002, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    10. Selima Ben Mansour & Elyès Jouini & Jean-Michel Marin & Clotilde Napp & Christian Robert, 2008. "Are risk-averse agents more optimistic? A Bayesian estimation approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 843-860.
    11. Jouini, Elyès & Napp, Clotilde, 2015. "Gurus and belief manipulation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 11-18.
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    14. Chatterjee, Swarn & Finke, Michael & Harness, Nathaniel, 2008. "Self-esteem and Individual Wealth," MPRA Paper 20120, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 16 Aug 2008.
    15. Robert M. Gillenkirch & Achim Hendriks & Susanne A. Welker, 2014. "Effects of Executive Compensation Complexity on Investor Behaviour in an Experimental Stock Market," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 625-645, December.

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