The lived experience of individual stock investors during decision-making: a phenomenological perspective on investment psychology

PurposeThis study explores how individual stock investors experience and interpret their decision-making processes beyond cognitive bias frameworks. It aims to reveal how investment decisions are shaped through cultural memory, moral values, social identity and digital environments, emphasizing the lived meanings investors attribute to risk, gain, and loss.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative phenomenological design was employed. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 active individual stock investors in Türkiye. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi's seven-step phenomenological method to identify the lived meaning structures underlying investment decision experiences.FindingsInvestment decisions emerged as multidimensional experiences organized around four interrelated domains: cultural roots and collective economic memory, moral and religious tensions, social status and identity construction, and digitalization with emerging economic perceptions. Participants interpreted risk, gain, and investment outcomes through family narratives, moral and religious evaluations, identity-related concerns, and digitally mediated information environments rather than solely through rational calculations.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are based on a limited qualitative sample and therefore cannot be statistically generalized. However, they contribute to a deeper theoretical understanding of investment behaviour by integrating cultural, moral, identity-related, and digital dimensions within a phenomenological behavioural finance perspective. Future research may build on these findings through mixed-method designs and cross-cultural comparisons.Practical implicationsThe findings support investor education programmes, decision-support systems and behavioural policy design by highlighting the experiential and meaning-based dimensions of investment decision-making.Social implicationsThe study demonstrates that investment decision-making is shaped by cultural values, moral interpretations, social identity processes and digitally mediated environments, suggesting that financial decisions are socially embedded rather than purely individual or rational. These findings may contribute to more socially sensitive financial literacy initiatives and policy development.Originality/valueThis study extends behavioural finance by introducing a phenomenological lived-experience perspective, demonstrating that investment decision-making emerges through interacting cultural, moral, identity-related and digital meaning structures rather than solely through cognitive biases.