IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ehbiol/v29y2018icp1-16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decision-making, financial risk aversion, and behavioral biases: The role of testosterone and stress

Author

Listed:
  • Nofsinger, John R.
  • Patterson, Fernando M.
  • Shank, Corey A.

Abstract

We examine the relation between testosterone, cortisol, and financial decisions in a sample of naïve investors. We find that testosterone level is positively related to excess risk-taking, whereas cortisol level is negatively related to excess risk-taking (correlation coefficient [r]: 0.75 and −0.21, respectively). Additionally, we find support for the dual-hormone hypothesis in a financial context. Specifically, the testosterone-to-cortisol ratio is significantly related to loss aversion. Individuals with a higher ratio are 3.4 times more likely to sell losing stocks (standard error [SE]: 1.63). Furthermore, we find a positive feedback loop between financial success, testosterone, and cortisol. Specifically, financial success is significantly related to higher post-trial testosterone and cortisol by a factor of 0.53 (SE: 0.14). Finally, we find that in a competitive environment, testosterone level increases significantly, leading to greater risk-taking than in noncompetitive environment. Overall, this study underscores the importance of the endocrine system on financial decision-making. The results of this study are relevant to a broad audience, including investors looking to optimize financial performance, industry human resources, market regulators, and researchers.

Suggested Citation

  • Nofsinger, John R. & Patterson, Fernando M. & Shank, Corey A., 2018. "Decision-making, financial risk aversion, and behavioral biases: The role of testosterone and stress," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 1-16.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:29:y:2018:i:c:p:1-16
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2018.01.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X17301466
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ehb.2018.01.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lisa A. Kramer & Mark J. Kamstra & Maurice D. Levi, 2000. "Losing Sleep at the Market: The Daylight Saving Anomaly," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1005-1011, September.
    2. Gilles Hilary & Lior Menzly, 2006. "Does Past Success Lead Analysts to Become Overconfident?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(4), pages 489-500, April.
    3. David Hirshleifer & Tyler Shumway, 2003. "Good Day Sunshine: Stock Returns and the Weather," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(3), pages 1009-1032, June.
    4. Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Inference by Believers in the Law of Small Numbers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 775-816.
    5. Terrance Odean, 1998. "Are Investors Reluctant to Realize Their Losses?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1775-1798, October.
    6. Teixeira, Anderson M. & Tabak, Benjamin M. & Cajueiro, Daniel O., 2015. "The 2D:4D ratio and Myopic Loss Aversion (MLA): An experimental investigation," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(C), pages 81-84.
    7. Alexander Kempf & Stefan Ruenzi, 2008. "Tournaments in Mutual-Fund Families," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(2), pages 1013-1036, April.
    8. Bailey, Warren & Kumar, Alok & Ng, David, 2011. "Behavioral biases of mutual fund investors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 1-27, October.
    9. Joseph Engelberg & Christopher A. Parsons, 2016. "Worrying about the Stock Market: Evidence from Hospital Admissions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(3), pages 1227-1250, June.
    10. R. Mark Isaac & Duncan James, 2000. "Asset Markets: How They Are Affected by Tournament Incentives for Individuals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 995-1004, September.
    11. Camelia Kuhnen & Brian Knutson, 2005. "The Neural Basis of Financial Risk Taking," Experimental 0509001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2000. "Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 773-806, April.
    13. Blume, Marshall E & Friend, Irwin, 1975. "The Asset Structure of Individual Portfolios and Some Implications for Utility Functions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 30(2), pages 585-603, May.
    14. Amos Nadler & Peiran Jiao & Cameron J. Johnson & Veronika Alexander & Paul J. Zak, 2019. "The Bull of Wall Street: Experimental Analysis of Testosterone and Asset Trading," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4032-4051, September.
    15. Dominique J.-F. de Quervain & Benno Roozendaal & James L. McGaugh, 1998. "Stress and glucocorticoids impair retrieval of long-term spatial memory," Nature, Nature, vol. 394(6695), pages 787-790, August.
    16. Alex Edmans & Diego García & Øyvind Norli, 2007. "Sports Sentiment and Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1967-1998, August.
    17. Joshua D. Coval & Tobias J. Moskowitz, 1999. "Home Bias at Home: Local Equity Preference in Domestic Portfolios," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2045-2073, December.
    18. Alok Kumar & Sonya Seongyeon Lim, 2008. "How Do Decision Frames Influence the Stock Investment Choices of Individual Investors?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(6), pages 1052-1064, June.
    19. Ravi Dhar & Ning Zhu, 2006. "Up Close and Personal: Investor Sophistication and the Disposition Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(5), pages 726-740, May.
    20. Nofsinger, John R. & Varma, Abhishek, 2013. "Availability, recency, and sophistication in the repurchasing behavior of retail investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2572-2585.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kalwij, Adriaan, 2018. "The effects of competition outcomes on health: Evidence from the lifespans of U.S. Olympic medalists," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 276-286.
    2. Zunxin Zheng & Donghui Li & Tingyong Zhong & Tian Wang & Ling He, 2023. "CEO facial structure and stock price crash risk," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(S1), pages 873-905, April.
    3. Hughes, Amanda & Kumari, Meena, 2019. "Testosterone, risk, and socioeconomic position in British men: Exploring causal directionality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 129-140.
    4. John R. Nofsinger & Corey A. Shank, 2019. "DEEP sleep: The impact of sleep on financial risk taking," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(1), pages 92-105, January.
    5. Schipper, Burkhard C., 2023. "Sex hormones and choice under risk," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    6. Mak, Kevin & McCurdy, Thomas H., 2019. "Simulation-based learning using the RIT market simulator and RIT decision cases," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 12-22.
    7. Gelman, Sergey & Kliger, Doron, 2021. "The effect of time-induced stress on financial decision making in real markets: The case of traffic congestion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 814-841.
    8. Anbar, Adem & Eker, Melek, 2019. "The Effect of Sociodemographic Variables and Love of Money on Financial Risk Tolerance of Bankers," Business and Economics Research Journal, Uludag University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, vol. 10(4), pages 855-866, July.
    9. Finley, Brian & Kalwij, Adriaan & Kapteyn, Arie, 2022. "Born to be wild: Second-to-fourth digit length ratio and risk preferences," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    10. Hossain, Md Noman & Rabarison, Monika K. & Ater, Brandon & Sobngwi, Christian K., 2023. "CEO marital status and dividend policy," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    11. Michael Cary & Heather Stephens, 2023. "Gendered Consequences of COVID-19 Among Professional Tennis Players," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(2), pages 241-266, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    2. Cary Frydman & Nicholas Barberis & Colin Camerer & Peter Bossaerts & Antonio Rangel, 2012. "Using Neural Data to Test a Theory of Investor Behavior: An Application to Realization Utility," NBER Working Papers 18562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Brian C. Payne & Jiri Tresl & Geoffrey C. Friesen, 2018. "Sentiment and Stock Returns," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(6), pages 843-872, August.
    4. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    5. Itzhak Venezia, 2018. "Lecture Notes in Behavioral Finance," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 10751, January.
    6. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    7. Weiqiang Tan & Jian Zhang, 2021. "Good Days, Bad Days: Stock Market Fluctuation and Taxi Tipping Decisions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 3965-3984, June.
    8. Brice Corgnet & Camille Cornand & Nobuyuki Hanaki, 2020. "Negative Tail Events, Emotions & Risk Taking," Working Papers 2016, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    9. Green, T. Clifton & Jame, Russell, 2013. "Company name fluency, investor recognition, and firm value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(3), pages 813-834.
    10. Kelly, Patrick J. & Meschke, Felix, 2010. "Sentiment and stock returns: The SAD anomaly revisited," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1308-1326, June.
    11. Levy, Ori & Galili, Itai, 2008. "Stock purchase and the weather: Individual differences," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 755-767, September.
    12. Jiekun Huang & Nianhang Xu & Honghai Yu, 2020. "Pollution and Performance: Do Investors Make Worse Trades on Hazy Days?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(10), pages 4455-4476, October.
    13. Bailey, Warren & Kumar, Alok & Ng, David, 2010. "Behavioral Biases of Mutual Fund Investors," Working Papers 10-23, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, Weiss Center.
    14. Michael Nofer & Oliver Hinz, 2015. "Using Twitter to Predict the Stock Market," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 57(4), pages 229-242, August.
    15. David Hirshleife, 2015. "Behavioral Finance," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 133-159, December.
    16. Warren Bailey & Alok Kumar & David Ng, 2008. "Foreign Investments of U.S. Individual Investors: Causes and Consequences," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 443-459, March.
    17. Nofsinger, John R. & Varma, Abhishek, 2013. "Availability, recency, and sophistication in the repurchasing behavior of retail investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2572-2585.
    18. John Y. Campbell, 2006. "Household Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1553-1604, August.
    19. Bernard, Sabine & Loos, Benjamin & Weber, Martin, 2021. "The disposition effect in boom and bust markets," SAFE Working Paper Series 305, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    20. Amos Nadler & Peiran Jiao & Cameron J. Johnson & Veronika Alexander & Paul J. Zak, 2019. "The Bull of Wall Street: Experimental Analysis of Testosterone and Asset Trading," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(9), pages 4032-4051, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Testosterone; Cortisol; Stress; Risk aversion; Disposition effect;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:29:y:2018:i:c:p:1-16. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622964 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.