*Asst. Professor (Selection Grade), SRM University, Kattankulathur, Kancheepuram, Tamilnadu, India
**Assistant Professor, Department of Social work, Stella Mary's College, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
Online published on 8 October, 2013.
Decision making has been an important arena of study for all the researchers. The parameters involved in decision making, the methods of evaluation have been deliberated on many seminars and platforms. But decision making cannot be categorized as an activity that takes place only using a set of factors. It is an activity that is often driven by emotions and other factors. This study is an attempt to find whether decision making in stock investment too is driven by emotional factors. The findings indicate that the investors are driven by emotions when they take crucial investment decisions. By employing Simple random sampling technique, 123 investors were studied across the Indian subcontinent using a structured questionnaire. The investment process were divided into two and they were the Pre-investment stage and Post-investment stage. The role of emotions on these two stages were studied separately and compared for the influence of emotions on decisions. It was found that emotions do play a significant role in both the stages of investment thus proving the salient role of emotional reasoning (i.e. understanding and regulation of emotions) on decision making. However, emotions alone need not remain a decisive factor in stock investments
