Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: The Effect of Affective Experience in Investment Decision Making

目前参与投资的美国人比以往任何时候都多——大约有1.25亿人。尽管投资越来越受欢迎，投资世界中情绪的起伏不定，但情绪对投资行为的实际影响一直不是科学研究的主要课题。这个项目的目的是探索和检验情绪在投资行为中的作用。研究重点是情感与投资决策的两个维度（防卫-攻击性和过度反应-反应不足）之间的关系。具体来说，据预测，积极的情感状态可能会促进激进的投资决策，定义为倾向于主要关注获得可能的收益，而不是防止决策中可能的损失（例如，集中投资于一组高回报资产），而消极的情感状态将促进防御性的投资决策。定义为在决策中主要关注避免可能的损失而不是获得可能的收益的倾向（例如，分散资产或追求低风险资产）。另一个预测是，积极的情绪可能会促进反应不足的反应模式，定义为在做决定时对市场信号相对不敏感的倾向（通常不能对有意义的信号做出反应），而消极的情感状态可能会促进反应过度的反应模式，定义为对市场信号过于敏感的倾向（通常对无意义的信号做出反应）。研究人员计划在一个基于互联网的股票投资游戏中结合经验抽样程序来检验这些假设。因此，本研究将以生态有效的方式探讨情感在决策中的作用。如果成功，它将具有理论和实践意义。通过探索情感经验在决策过程中的关键作用，本研究将丰富在本质上过于认知的决策文献。它还可以帮助投资者加强对情感体验如何、何时以及为何影响投资决策的理解。

More Americans than ever before - about 125 million - are currently participating in acts of investing. In spite of the growing popularity of investing and of the constant ebbs and flows of emotions in the world of investing, the actual effect of emotion on investment behaviors has not been a major subject of scientific research. The purpose of this project is to explore and examine the role of emotion in investment behaviors.The research focuses on the relationship between affect and two dimensions that can be used to describe investment decision making: defensiveness-aggressiveness and overreaction-underreaction. Specifically, it is predicted that positive feelings may promote aggressive investment decisions, defined as a tendency to focus primarily on obtaining possible gains rather than preventing possible losses in decision making (for example, concentrating investment on a set of high-return assets), whereas negative affective states will foster defensive investment decisions, defined as a tendency to focus primarily on avoiding possible losses rather than obtaining possible gains in decision making (for example, diversifying assets or pursuing low-risk assets). Another prediction is that positive feelings may promote a response pattern of underreaction, defined as a tendency of being relatively insensitive to market signals in making decisions (often failing to respond to meaningful signals), whereas negative affective states may foster a response pattern of over-reaction, defined as a tendency of being overly sensitive to market signals (often responding to meaningless signals). The investigators plan to test these hypotheses in an Internet-based stock investment game combined with an experience-sampling procedure. Thus, the study will investigate the role of affect in decision making in an ecologically valid way. If successful, it will have both theoretical and practical implications. By exploring the critical role of affective experience in decision making process, this research will enrich the decision making literature that has been overly cognitive in nature. It also may help investors enhance their understanding of how, when, and why affective experience influences investment decision making.