Prospect Theory in Behavioral Finance

The Prospect Theory was originally conceived by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) and later resulted in Daniel Kahneman being awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. The work by the authors is considered as path breaking in behavioral finance. They introduced the concept of prospect theory for the analysis of decision making under risk. This theory is considered to be seminal in the literature of behavioral finance. It was developed as an alternative model for expected utility theory. It throws light on how individual evaluate gain or losses. The prospect theory has three key aspects.

  1. People sometimes exhibit risk aversion and sometimes risk loving behaviors depending on the nature of the prospect.
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An Introduction to Behavioral Finance

Traditionally, economics and finance have focused on models that assume rationality. The behavioral insights have emerged from the application of insights from experimental psychology in finance and economics.

Behavioral finance is relatively a new field which seeks to provide explanation for people’s economic decisions. It is a combination of behavioral and cognitive psychological theory with conventional economics and finance. Inability to maximize the expected utility (EU) of rational investors leads to growth of behavioral finance within the efficient market framework. Behavioral finance is an attempt to resolve inconsistency of Traditional Expected Utility Maximization of rational investors within efficient markets through explanation based on human behavior.… Read the rest

Confirmation Bias – Understanding Behavioral Biases in Finance

Confirmation bias is the inclination to seek or make sense of news or facts in a way that validates one’s preconceptions. So, during the decision making process for psychologist they will refer to information that supports their decision more favorably. They will rarely give the obvious negative much consideration and since our beliefs and postulations are definitely prejudiced so the tendency to give more attention and weight to data that support our beliefs than we do to contrary data will subtly but gradually have a harmful effect.

An illustration of Confirmation Bias

A very real manifestation of this tendency can be observed in the virtual world.… Read the rest