Abstract:

In traditional finance theories, people are considered rational and therefore act rationally in all financial decisions. According to behavioral finance, there are various factors that guide people's financial investment decisions and prevent them from acting rationally. Due to these factors, it is not possible for people to act rationally in every situation. Behavioral finance, which argues that it is not correct to evaluate human beings only within the concept of rational human (homoeconomicus), ignoring the emotional and psychological side of human beings, has challenged traditional finance with this argument and brought a new dimension to the field of finance. This study examines the impact of behavioral tendencies and psychological biases that prevent rational behavior in financial investment decisions of individual investors residing in Bartın province. The relationship between the socio-demographic factors and financial profiles of the same investors and various behavioral tendencies that guide their financial investment decisions is also investigated. For this purpose, a questionnaire was applied to 382 people having previous investment experience and collected data were analyzed using the chi-square method. As a result of the study, it has been determined that individual investors in Bartın province have the behavioral tendencies and psychological biases found in the literature to a large extent. It has been also found that there is a relationship between some of these tendencies and the socio-demographic characteristics and financial profiles of investors.

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