Behavioral Finance: A Study on Gender Based Dilemma in Making Investment Decisions

According to various conventional financial theories human beings behave rationally while making financial decisions. However, various studies have brought out that there are situations wherein human behavior gets influenced by moods and emotions which make humans behave in an unpredictable or irrational manner affecting their decision making. Whether the demographic and psychographic characteristics of the individuals in any way influence the behavioral investment decision making remains an unexplored area. This research takes up an important demographic variable gender and attempts to investigate the extent to which the variable influences investment decision making. The objective of the study is to find out whether gender differentiation plays an important role in influencing investment decisions and up to what extent men and women investors are influenced by behavioral bias. The study has implications for the finance industry as it attempts to analyze how behavioral and psychological factors influence different investors based on their basic gender differentiation and would also help to customize the portfolio with regard to their investment preferences.