A influência das características pessoais de estudantes de graduação e especialização na tomada de decisões na área das finanças

Abstract

Behavioral Finance seeks to understand the relationship between irrationality and decision-making of investors, attributing that part of the decision has a strong emotional influence. The Prospect Theory, developed by Kahneman and Tversky (1979), is an important theoretical basis for understanding the behavior of investors, explaining cognitive biases in the decision-making process. In this sense, the present research aimed to verify whether the academic evolution and the personal characteristics of students in the area of administration, accounting and specialization in Accounting and Financial Management, influence so that emotional agents do not interfere in financial decision-making. The present study was done through the replication of the research developed by Kahneman and Tversky (1979). For this, a survey was employed through a questionnaire created by the authors already mentioned. Subsequently, a descriptive and comparative statistical study was carried out with the results obtained by the precursors and by the authors Silva et. al. (2009) who also replicated this research referring to the studied effects (certainty, isolation and reflex effect). The results obtained indicated that there was no significant influence of the academic evolution, and of the personal characteristics: age, gender and income, in the decision-making process, since students make similar decisions regarding risk and aversion to losses. The only variable that had an influence was the degree of knowledge about the asset market, since students with more knowledge in the area were more prone to risk than the others. Finally, the results of the research were compared with the authors Silva et. al. (2009) and Kahneman and Tversky (1979), it was observed that these were very similar, and confirmed the presence of the behavioral effects described in the Prospect Theory.