IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0284171.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Disposition effect and reference points: An experimental study

Author

Listed:
  • Newton da Costa Jr.
  • Ana Luiza Paraboni
  • Marco Goulart

Abstract

This study calls into question the default computation of the disposition effect that uses the average purchase price as a reference point. We show, through a lab experiment, that the reference price of participants can change depending on the experimental behavioral design that is used. Our results show that for the control group, different reference prices do not show significant differences in the computation of the disposition effect, thus supporting the use of the average purchase price as a reference. However, this is not the case for participants in the treatment group. With the addition of experimental treatment concerning the disclosure of the final balance of the participants, the reference prices to compute the disposition effect showed statistically significant differences. The need to display their results caused these participants to use the first purchase price as a reference point when selling their assets.

Suggested Citation

  • Newton da Costa Jr. & Ana Luiza Paraboni & Marco Goulart, 2023. "Disposition effect and reference points: An experimental study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(4), pages 1-12, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0284171
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284171
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284171
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0284171&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0284171?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lei Feng & Mark Seasholes, 2005. "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?," Review of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 305-351, September.
    2. Rawley Heimer, 2016. "Peer Pressure: Social Interaction and the Disposition Effect," Working Papers (Old Series) 1618, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    3. Philip Brown & Nick Chappel & Ray Da Silva Rosa & Terry Walter, 2006. "The Reach of the Disposition Effect: Large Sample Evidence Across Investor Classes," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 6(1‐2), pages 43-78, March.
    4. Ashraf, Nava & Bandiera, Oriana & Lee, Scott S., 2014. "Awards unbundled: Evidence from a natural field experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 44-63.
    5. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2001. "What Makes Investors Trade?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(2), pages 589-616, April.
    6. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1775-1798 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Lei Feng & Mark S. Seasholes, 2005. "Do Investor Sophistication and Trading Experience Eliminate Behavioral Biases in Financial Markets?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(3), pages 305-351.
    8. Mark Grinblatt & Matti Keloharju, 2000. "What Makes Investors Trade?," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm146, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Nov 2001.
    9. Rawley Z. Heimer, 2016. "Peer Pressure: Social Interaction and the Disposition Effect," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(11), pages 3177-3209.
    10. Shefrin, Hersh & Statman, Meir, 1985. "The Disposition to Sell Winners Too Early and Ride Losers Too Long: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 777-790, July.
    11. Robson Braga & Luiz Paulo Lopes Fávero, 2017. "Disposition Effect and Tolerance to Losses in Stock Investment Decisions: An Experimental Study," Journal of Behavioral Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 271-280, July.
    12. Shapira, Zur & Venezia, Itzhak, 2001. "Patterns of behavior of professionally managed and independent investors," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 1573-1587, August.
    13. Goulart, Marco & da Costa, Newton C.A. & Andrade, Eduardo B. & Santos, André A.P., 2015. "Hedging against embarrassment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 310-318.
    14. Li, Yan & Yang, Liyan, 2013. "Prospect theory, the disposition effect, and asset prices," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 715-739.
    15. Nadège Bault & Giorgio Coricelli & Aldo Rustichini, 2008. "Interdependent Utilities: How Social Ranking Affects Choice Behavior," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(10), pages 1-10, October.
    16. 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.
    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. Dorn, Daniel & Strobl, Günter, 2023. "Rational disposition effects: Theory and evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    2. Gemayel, Roland & Preda, Alex, 2018. "Does a scopic regime erode the disposition effect? Evidence from a social trading platform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 175-190.
    3. Hermann, Daniel & Mußhoff, Oliver & Rau, Holger A., 2019. "The disposition effect when deciding on behalf of others," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    4. Talpsepp, Tõnn & Vaarmets, Tarvo, 2019. "The disposition effect, performance, stop loss orders and education," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    5. Dalla Costa, Aldo Fortunato & Mollica, Vito & Singh, Abhay, 2021. "Payment methods and the disposition effect: Evidence from Indonesian mutual fund trading," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    6. Kahya, Evrim Hilal & Ekinci, Cumhur, 2022. "Disposition bias among Borsa Istanbul investors: What do we know about type, size and trading frequency?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C).
    7. Goulart, Marco & da Costa, Newton C.A. & Andrade, Eduardo B. & Santos, André A.P., 2015. "Hedging against embarrassment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 310-318.
    8. Sarmiento, Julio & Rendón, Jairo & Sandoval, Juan S. & Cayon, Edgardo, 2019. "The disposition effect and the relevance of the reference period: Evidence among sophisticated investors," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    9. De Winne, Rudy, 2021. "Measuring the disposition effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    10. Lukas Menkhoff & Maik Schmeling & Ulrich Schmidt, 2010. "Are All Professional Investors Sophisticated?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(4), pages 418-440, November.
    11. Li, Jianbiao & Niu, Xiaofei & Li, Dahui & Cao, Qian, 2018. "Using Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation to Test the Role of Self-Control in Investor Behavior," EconStor Preprints 177890, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    12. da Silva, Paulo Pereira & Mendes, Victor, 2021. "Exchange-traded certificates, education and the disposition effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C).
    13. 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.
    14. Barber, Brad M. & Odean, Terrance, 2013. "The Behavior of Individual Investors," 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 1533-1570, Elsevier.
    15. van Dooren, Bono & Galema, Rients, 2018. "Socially responsible investors and the disposition effect," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 42-52.
    16. Muhl, Stefan & Talpsepp, Tõnn, 2018. "Faster learning in troubled times: How market conditions affect the disposition effect," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 226-236.
    17. Hincapié-Salazar, Juliana & Agudelo, Diego A., 2020. "Is the disposition effect in bonds as strong as in stocks? Evidence from an emerging market," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    18. Minh-Lý Liêu, 2021. "Peer attention and the disposition effect," Working Papers Dissertations 81, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    19. Tekçe, Bülent & Yılmaz, Neslihan & Bildik, Recep, 2016. "What factors affect behavioral biases? Evidence from Turkish individual stock investors," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 515-526.
    20. Deaves, Richard & Kluger, Brian & Miele, Jennifer, 2018. "An exploratory experimental analysis of path-dependent investment behaviors," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 47-65.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0284171. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.