In today’s episode we’re diving into ten behavioral biases that negatively impact your investment decision-making. Throughout the episode, we explore the psychological background of these ten behaviors, how they get in the way of sound investment decision-making, and how you can be conscious about your financial decisions so that you won’t make mistakes because of them.

 

 

Show Notes

[3:10] Oversimplification – Grant explains our first of several behavioral biases and shares what happens when our brains are overwhelmed and are trying to process information in the most efficient way by oversimplifying complex scenarios in an attempt to break them down into bite-sized pieces, ultimately leading to poor investment decisions.

[6:15] Restraint – When we come across an opportunity that we think is beneficial to us, it’s very hard to show restraint. The problem that gets in the way of our sound investment decision-making is our overestimation of our ability to show restraint. Grant explains how this practically affected the cryptocurrency market.

[8:53] Familiarity – People naturally trend toward investments that they know and are familiar with. Grant dives into how this can negatively affect your investments and how to avoid falling into this trap.

[11:20] Incentive Bias – How some of the systemic features in our financial systems, in some cases, lead people to make poor decisions and how the general public can identify these incentives that could potentially lead them toward poor investment decisions.

[14:40] Self Attribution Bias – Grant dives into one of the behaviors in which our egos play a major role. He explains how this behavior is largely visible among day traders and how to be aware of this trait of human brains.

[18:05] Information Bias – Picking reliable data is crucial for making savvy investment decisions. For instance, not being able to grasp the difference between correlation and causation can lead to disastrous investment decisions. We talk about why we need to be vigilant about the information we consume.

[20:55] Groupthink – Since humans naturally like to be in groups, it can be extremely uncomfortable to make a decision that severely deviates from what everyone else is doing. In investments, succeeding in some scenarios may require exactly that. Grant explains how we can grow beyond the herd mentality while being open to new ideas to make savvy investment decisions.

[24:30] Anchoring Bias – When we take time and energy to research something and come to a decision, we like to be anchored on that decision, making us less open to ideas that are contrary to our decision. This tendency to remain anchored on our original decision is something that simply gets in the way of making sound decisions.

[26:50] Loss Aversion – The losses in our investment accounts feel worse than the gains feel good. And because of that, people make investment decisions very commonly, in an attempt to avoid the losses, without appreciating the opportunity for potential gains in the same manner. Grant explains why you should try to avoid this behavior in your decision-making.

[28:40] Confirmation Bias – How our minds tend to cherry-pick certain information in an attempt to process information efficiently, how it affects our investment decisions and how to avoid making mistakes that occur due to confirmation bias.

Resources

Investing Myths #3: You Need To Keep Up With the Financial News: growmoneybusiness.com/podcast/ptkre5734rgwc