IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v52y2014icp23-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Self-attribution bias in consumer financial decision-making: How investment returns affect individuals’ belief in skill

Author

Listed:
  • Hoffmann, Arvid O.I.
  • Post, Thomas

Abstract

Self-attribution bias is a long-standing concept in psychology research and refers to individuals’ tendency to attribute successes to personal skills and failures to factors beyond their control. Recently, this bias is also being studied in household finance research and is considered to underlie and reinforce investor overconfidence. To date, however, the existence of self-attribution bias amongst individual investors is not directly empirically tested. That is, it remains unclear whether good (vs. bad) returns indeed make investors believe more (vs. less) strongly that skills drive their performance. Using a unique combination of survey data and matching trading records of a sample of clients from a large discount brokerage firm, we find that (1) the higher the returns in a previous period are, the more investors agree with a statement claiming that their recent performance accurately reflects their investment skills (and vice versa); and (2) while individual returns relate to more agreement, market returns have no such effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Post, Thomas, 2014. "Self-attribution bias in consumer financial decision-making: How investment returns affect individuals’ belief in skill," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 23-28.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:52:y:2014:i:c:p:23-28
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2014.05.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804314000597
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2014.05.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Glaser, Markus & Weber, Martin, 2009. "Which past returns affect trading volume?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, February.
    2. Utpal Bhattacharya & Andreas Hackethal & Simon Kaesler & Benjamin Loos & Steffen Meyer, 2012. "Is Unbiased Financial Advice to Retail Investors Sufficient? Answers from a Large Field Study," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(4), pages 975-1032.
    3. Hackethal, Andreas & Haliassos, Michael & Jappelli, Tullio, 2012. "Financial advisors: A case of babysitters?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 509-524.
    4. Daniel Dorn & Paul Sengmueller, 2009. "Trading as Entertainment?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(4), pages 591-603, April.
    5. Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Broekhuizen, Thijs L.J., 2010. "Understanding investors' decisions to purchase innovative products: Drivers of adoption timing and range," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 342-355.
    6. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    7. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2002. "Online Investors: Do the Slow Die First?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 455-488, March.
    8. Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Post, Thomas & Pennings, Joost M.E., 2013. "Individual investor perceptions and behavior during the financial crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 60-74.
    9. Clayton Arlen Looney & Andrew M. Hardin, 2009. "Decision Support for Retirement Portfolio Management: Overcoming Myopic Loss Aversion via Technology Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(10), pages 1688-1703, October.
    10. Daniel G. Goldstein & Eric J. Johnson & William F. Sharpe, 2008. "Choosing Outcomes versus Choosing Products: Consumer-Focused Retirement Investment Advice," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(3), pages 440-456, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Caglayan, Mustafa & Talavera, Oleksandr & Zhang, Wei, 2021. "Herding behaviour in P2P lending markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 27-41.
    2. Bannier, Christina E. & Schwarz, Milena, 2017. "Skilled but unaware of it: Occurrence and potential long-term effects of females' financial underconfidence," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168188, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Ritika & Nawal Kishor, 2020. "Development and validation of behavioral biases scale: a SEM approach," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 14(2), pages 237-259, November.
    4. Czaja, Daniel & Röder, Florian, 2020. "Self-attribution bias and overconfidence among nonprofessional traders," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 186-198.
    5. Phan, Thuy Chung & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Wang, Mei, 2018. "What leads to overtrading and under-diversification? Survey evidence from retail investors in an emerging market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 39-55.
    6. Atcha Kamolsareeratana & Roy Kouwenberg, 2023. "Compulsive Gambling in the Stock Market: Evidence from an Emerging Market," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-25, January.
    7. Bannier, Christina E. & Schwarz, Milena, 2018. "Gender- and education-related effects of financial literacy and confidence on financial wealth," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 66-86.
    8. Wookjae Heo & Abed G. Rabbani & Jae Min Lee, 2021. "Mediation between financial risk tolerance and equity ownership: assessing the role of financial knowledge underconfidence," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 26(3), pages 169-180, September.
    9. Li, Zheng & Hensher, David A., 2020. "Performance contributors of bus rapid transit systems: An ordered choice approach," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 154-161.
    10. repec:zbw:bofitp:2019_022 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Hsu, Yuan-Lin, 2022. "Financial advice seeking and behavioral bias," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 46(PB).
    12. Rabeea Sadaf & Aqeel Younis, 2017. "Investor Psychology And Decision Making; Based On Overconfidence And Self Attribution Bias: Evidence From Islamabad Stock Exchange (Ise)," Annals of Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1(1), pages 497-505, July.
    13. Shastry, Gauri Kartini & Shurchkov, Olga & Xia, Lingjun Lotus, 2020. "Luck or skill: How women and men react to noisy feedback," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    14. D’Hondt, Catherine & De Winne, Rudy & Merli, Maxime, 2021. "Do retail investors bite off more than they can chew? A close look at their return objectives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 879-902.
    15. Yulin Liu & Luyao Zhang, 2022. "Cryptocurrency Valuation: An Explainable AI Approach," Papers 2201.12893, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2023.
    16. Caglayan, Mustafa & Talavera, Oleksandr & Zhang, Wei, 2021. "Herding behaviour in P2P lending markets," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 27-41.
    17. Xu, Rong & Liu, Yaodong & Hu, Nan & Guo, Jie (Michael), 2022. "What drives individual investors in the bear market?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(6).
    18. Itzhak Ben-David & Justin Birru & Viktor Prokopenya, 2018. "Uninformative Feedback and Risk Taking: Evidence from Retail Forex Trading [Two methods of reducing overconfidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(6), pages 2009-2036.
    19. Andrzej Baniak & Peter Grajzl, 2016. "Controlling Product Risks when Consumers Are Heterogeneously Overconfident: Producer Liability versus Minimum-Quality-Standard Regulation," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 172(2), pages 274-304, June.
    20. Bregu, Klajdi, 2020. "Overconfidence and (Over)Trading: The Effect of Feedback on Trading Behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    21. Soleman Alsabban & Omar Alarfaj, 2020. "An Empirical Analysis of Behavioral Finance in the Saudi Stock Market: Evidence of Overconfidence Behavior," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 10(1), pages 73-86.
    22. Radoc, Benjamin, 2018. "Case-based investing: Stock selection under uncertainty," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 53-59.
    23. Andrzej Baniak & Peter Grajzl, 2014. "Controlling Product Risks when Consumers are Heterogeneously Overconfident: Producer Liability vs. Minimum Quality Standard Regulation," CESifo Working Paper Series 5003, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. D’Hondt, Catherine & De Winne, Rudy & Merli, Maxime, 2021. "Do retail investors bite off more than they can chew? A close look at their return objectives," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 879-902.
    2. Merkle, Christoph, 2017. "Financial overconfidence over time: Foresight, hindsight, and insight of investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 68-87.
    3. Daniel Hoechle & Stefan Ruenzi & Nic Schaub & Markus Schmid, 2017. "The Impact of Financial Advice on Trade Performance and Behavioral Biases," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(2), pages 871-910.
    4. Magnus Dahlquist & José Vicente Martinez & Paul Söderlind, 2017. "Individual Investor Activity and Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(3), pages 866-899.
    5. 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).
    6. Meyer, Steffen & Urban, Linda & Ahlswede, Sophie, 2016. "Does feedback on personal investment success help?," SAFE Working Paper Series 157, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    7. Meyer, Steffen & Urban, Linda & Ahlswede, Sophie, 2015. "Does a personalized feedback on investment success mitigate investment mistakes of private investors? Answers from large natural field experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112988, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Xu, Rong & Liu, Yaodong & Hu, Nan & Guo, Jie (Michael), 2022. "What drives individual investors in the bear market?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(6).
    9. Arvid O. I. Hoffmann & Thomas Post & Tom Smith, 2017. "How return and risk experiences shape investor beliefs and preferences," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(3), pages 759-788, September.
    10. Hoffmann, Arvid O.I. & Shefrin, Hersh, 2014. "Technical analysis and individual investors," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PB), pages 487-511.
    11. Bauer, Rob & Cosemans, Mathijs & Eichholtz, Piet, 2009. "Option trading and individual investor performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 731-746, April.
    12. Francisco Gomes & Michael Haliassos & Tarun Ramadorai, 2021. "Household Finance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(3), pages 919-1000, September.
    13. Orhan ERDEM & Evren ARIK & Serkan YÜKSEL, 2014. "Trading Puzzle, Puzzling Trade," Iktisat Isletme ve Finans, Bilgesel Yayincilik, vol. 29(345), pages 83-102.
    14. Guo, Fusen & Li, Feng & Lu, Xiaomeng, 2024. "Does financial advisors improve portfolio efficiency for individual investors? Evidence from large-scale microdata," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 400-412.
    15. Markus Glaser & Martin Weber, 2007. "Overconfidence and trading volume," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance Theory, Springer;International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics (The Geneva Association), vol. 32(1), pages 1-36, June.
    16. Oscar A. Stolper & Andreas Walter, 2017. "Financial literacy, financial advice, and financial behavior," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(5), pages 581-643, July.
    17. Sarah Brown & Alessandro Bucciol & Alberto Montagnoli & Karl Taylor, 2020. "Financial Advice and Household Financial Portfolios," Working Papers 2020009, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    18. Merkle, Christoph & Weber, Martin, 2014. "Do investors put their money where their mouth is? Stock market expectations and investing behavior," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 372-386.
    19. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    20. Anne Jones Dorn & Daniel Dorn & Paul Sengmueller, 2015. "Trading as Gambling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(10), pages 2376-2393, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer financial decision-making; Household finance; Investment decisions; Self-attribution bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • G02 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Behavioral Finance: Underlying Principles
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:52:y:2014:i:c:p:23-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.