IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v113y2024ics2214804324001265.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Individual differences in Bitcoin investment: The role of personality, attitudes, and knowledge

Author

Listed:
  • Müser, Sinja
  • Hemmerich, Moritz
  • Schmitz, Florian

Abstract

Cryptocurrencies have found their way into the financial market as a serious alternative in recent years. In particular, Bitcoin is increasingly coming into focus. Currently, however, little is known why people invest in cryptocurrency or not. The present study seeks to shed light on individual difference variables potentially associated with these investment decisions. This includes personality traits, knowledge, and attitudes toward the social and political environment. The effective sample comprised 603 respondents who completed an online survey. Based on the proportion of their financial portfolio invested into Bitcoin, participants were divided into three groups: Non-Bitcoiners, Bitcoin Enthusiasts, and Bitcoin Maximalists. Group comparisons and prediction models indicated that Bitcoiners differed substantially from Non-Bitcoiners in justice-related attitudes as well as in specific knowledge about this cryptocurrency. By contrast, general political attitudes or reinforcement sensitivity did not differ much, and there was hardly a difference in basic dimensions of personality and general knowledge.

Suggested Citation

  • Müser, Sinja & Hemmerich, Moritz & Schmitz, Florian, 2024. "Individual differences in Bitcoin investment: The role of personality, attitudes, and knowledge," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:113:y:2024:i:c:s2214804324001265
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2024.102289
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804324001265
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2024.102289?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. Rao, Aniruddha S. & Lakkol, Savitha G., 2022. "A review on personality models and investment decisions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    2. Conlin, Andrew & Kyröläinen, Petri & Kaakinen, Marika & Järvelin, Marjo-Riitta & Perttunen, Jukka & Svento, Rauli, 2015. "Personality traits and stock market participation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 34-50.
    3. Juneman Abraham & Dian Utami Sutiksno & Nuning Kurniasih & Ari Warokka, 2019. "Acceptance and Penetration of Bitcoin: The Role of Psychological Distance and National Culture," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, July.
    4. Pavel Ciaian & d’Artis Kancs & Miroslava Rajcaniova, 2021. "The economic dependency of bitcoin security," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(49), pages 5738-5755, October.
    5. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2009. "Sensation Seeking, Overconfidence, and Trading Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(2), pages 549-578, April.
    6. Justin Chumbley & Ernst Fehr, 2014. "Does General Motivation Energize Financial Reward-Seeking Behavior? Evidence from an Effort Task," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-6, September.
    7. Honaker, James & King, Gary & Blackwell, Matthew, 2011. "Amelia II: A Program for Missing Data," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i07).
    8. Muehlfeld, Katrin & Weitzel, Utz & van Witteloostuijn, Arjen, 2013. "Fight or freeze? Individual differences in investors’ motivational systems and trading in experimental asset markets," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 195-209.
    9. Gambetti, Elisa & Giusberti, Fiorella, 2019. "Personality, decision-making styles and investments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 14-24.
    10. Ji Luo & Qingning Cao & Shuguang Zhang, 2023. "How do personality traits affect investors' decision on crypto market including cryptocurrencies and NFTs?," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 16(4), pages 600-619, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Bajo, Emanuele & Cecchini, Marco & Oliver, Barry, 2023. "Psychological profile and investment decisions," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(PA).
    2. Firth, Chris & Stewart, Neil & Antoniou, Constantinos & Leake, David, 2023. "The effects of personality and IQ on portfolio outcomes," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    3. Wang, Jianxin & Houser, Daniel & Xu, Hui, 2018. "Culture, gender and asset prices: Experimental evidence from the U.S. and China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 253-287.
    4. Thomas Dudek & Eric R. Ulm & Ilan Noy, 2021. "Demand for Multi-Year Catastrophe Insurance Contracts: Experimental Evidence for Mitigating the Insurance Gap," CESifo Working Paper Series 9442, CESifo.
    5. Julio J. Rotemberg, 2010. "A Behavioral Model of Demandable Deposits and its Implications for Financial Regulation," NBER Working Papers 16620, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Prokudina, Elena & Renneboog, Luc & Tobler, Philippe, 2015. "Does Confidence Predict Out-of-Domain Effort?," Discussion Paper 2015-055, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    7. Chang, Xiaochen & Guo, Songlin & Huang, Junkai, 2022. "Kidnapped mutual funds: Irrational preference of naive investors and fund incentive distortion," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    8. Robert A. Jackson & Matthew Pietryka, 2022. "The influence of becoming a parent on political participation in the United States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(3), pages 565-580, May.
    9. Barberis, Nicholas & Xiong, Wei, 2012. "Realization utility," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(2), pages 251-271.
    10. Kruyt, Bert & Lehning, Michael & Kahl, Annelen, 2017. "Potential contributions of wind power to a stable and highly renewable Swiss power supply," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 1-11.
    11. Cohen, Joseph N, 2010. "Neoliberalism’s relationship with economic growth in the developing world: Was it the power of the market or the resolution of financial crisis?," MPRA Paper 24527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Kenneth Yung & Yen-Chih Liu, 2009. "Implications of futures trading volume: Hedgers versus speculators," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(5), pages 318-337, December.
    13. Da Ke, 2021. "Who Wears the Pants? Gender Identity Norms and Intrahousehold Financial Decision‐Making," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1389-1425, June.
    14. Ricardo Crisóstomo, 2021. "Estimating real‐world probabilities: A forward‐looking behavioral framework," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(11), pages 1797-1823, November.
    15. Vesa Pursiainen & Jan Toczynski, 2023. "Retail Investors’ Cryptocurrency Investments," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 23-51, Swiss Finance Institute.
    16. Joon Mahn Lee & Jung Chul Park & Guoli Chen, 2023. "A cognitive perspective on real options investment: CEO overconfidence," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 1084-1110, April.
    17. Carlos M Parra & Ranjita Poudel & Matthew Sutherland, 2021. "Towards an Understanding of Low-Income Individuals’ Financial Resiliency: Exploration of Risk Preferences, Personality Traits, and Savings Behavior," Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies, AMH International, vol. 13(5), pages 32-54.
    18. Matei Demetrescu & Christoph Hanck & Robinson Kruse‐Becher, 2022. "Robust inference under time‐varying volatility: A real‐time evaluation of professional forecasters," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(5), pages 1010-1030, August.
    19. Valente, Thomas W. & Pitts, Stephanie & Wipfli, Heather & Vega Yon, George G., 2019. "Network influences on policy implementation: Evidence from a global health treaty," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 222(C), pages 188-197.
    20. Daisuke Kato & Ichiro Kawachi & Junko Saito & Naoki Kondo, 2021. "Complex Multimorbidity and Incidence of Long-Term Care Needs in Japan: A Prospective Cohort Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-11, October.

    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:soceco:v:113:y:2024:i:c:s2214804324001265. 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/620175 .

    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.