Morningstar
Fund Insight

How your personality affects your investment choices

Neuroticism and extraversion are the most influential traits.

Ashley Redmond 11 September, 2014 | 6:00PM
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn
Font-Size

If you invest regularly you've probably made investment mistakes. Maybe you sold a winning stock too early or held on to a losing stock too long. Mistakes are common in investing and here at Morningstar we are constantly trying to help you avoid them. However, there are mistakes that seem to haunt all of us, the ones where you went against your advisor or followed your gut to no avail.

Mark Smeez, 33, from Hamilton, Ont., knows this all too well. He says that during the 2008 crash he sold all of his stocks and mutual funds. "I didn't have an advisor, but I did have assistance from someone in the financial industry and they told me that the storm would pass."

The confidant told Smeez to hold on to his assets. Unfortunately, he did the opposite and lost about $7,500 in the process. "I don't know why I didn't listen. I was worried and I was afraid of losing money."

Robert Durand, professor of finance at Curtin University in Australia, attributes these decisions to personality traits.

Durand and two colleagues concluded in a Journal of Behavioral Finance article that personality traits are associated with a wide range of investment decisions and outcomes. The research for that article and Durand's ongoing research is based on the five-factor model of personality traits (Big Five), which is the leading paradigm in personality research.

It's an efficient model because it dismisses hundreds of personality traits in favour of the "Big Five":

  1. extraversion
  2. agreeableness
  3. conscientiousness
  4. neuroticism
  5. openness to experience/intellect

Durand says personality traits are remarkably stable once you reach the age of 30. Therefore, if you determine your personality traits early on in your investing career and understand how they'll affect your decision-making then you should be able to avoid some mistakes.

Big Five personality traits

Extraverts are social, enthusiastic, talkative and assertive. In general, they tend to take on more risk in order to fulfill their need for excitement.
Advantage: They tend to have a higher risk tolerance, which can mean potentially higher returns. Disadvantage: They may take on too much risk and lose money.

Conscientiousness persons are thorough, careful and diligent. They have the ability to delay immediate gratification in favour of long-term goals.
Advantage: Long-term investors can be patient and restrain themselves from impulsive risk-taking.
Disadvantage: They are too risk-averse.

Neurotic individuals are emotionally unstable. They are prone to psychological distress including depression, anxiety and anger.
Advantage: They are drawn to risk because of its emotional appeal, and similar to the extravert advantage, higher risk tolerance can potentially equal higher returns.
Disadvantage:They are impulsive; therefore, they are prone to making emotional financial decisions.

Those high in agreeableness are trusting, altruistic and optimistic. They need to get along with other individuals.
Advantage: They are cooperative when working with advisors on their portfolio.
Disadvantage: They do not like to offend others and may be hesitant to raise any red flags that they see.

Individuals high in openness to experience/intellect are imaginative, curious and open to new ideas. They actively seek new experiences. This trait is highly correlated to intelligence. There is no advantage or disadvantage listed because openness to experience/intellect is the least studied of all the traits.

  

For a complete personality diagnosis, Durand suggests seeing a professional who can properly administer the test.

However, to obtain a rough idea of your personality you can complete this test online. Durand is not associated with this website. It is administered by Dr. Tom Buchanan, department of psychology at University of Westminster, U.K., who is collecting data for online l research.

There are 41 personality questions in the test. Once you've completed it, your scores are ranked into three categories for each of the Big Five. The categories are: relatively low meaning you are in the bottom 30%, relatively high meaning you score in the top 30% and about average meaning you are somewhere in the middle.

For example, I scored relatively high in extraversion. According to the test: "This trait reveals preference for, and behaviour in, social situations. People high in extraversion are energetic and seek out the company of others. Low scorers (introverts) tend to be more quiet and reserved. Compared to others who have taken this test, your score on this dimension (39) is relatively high."

In fact, Durand says that two of the five factors, neuroticism and extraversion, seem to play a larger role compared to the other traits.

He says investors scoring highly in neuroticism are attracted to risk, but they seem to find it disturbing. They want to do something about it, but seem incapable of doing so; they will sell risky stocks only to buy others.

Regardless, neuroticism is associated with heightened emotion. Smeez completed the personality test and scored relatively high in neuroticism, so that could be why he sold everything in 2008 .

Higher extraversion scores are associated with higher returns, even after adjusting for risk. Durand says, "Extraverts are attracted to higher risk, but they manage it better, getting higher returns for higher risk, which should be the case according to standard finance theory."

The idea for this article is derived from the chapter "Personality Traits" by Lucia Fung and Robert Durand pages 99-115 in the textbook "Investor Behavior The Psychology of Financial Planning and Investing" by H. Kent Baker and Victor Ricciardi.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn
Font-Size

About Author

Ashley Redmond

Ashley Redmond  Ashley Redmond is a Vancouver-based freelance writer.

© Copyright 2024 Morningstar, Inc. All rights reserved.

Terms of Use        Privacy Policy       Disclosures        Accessibility

The Morningstar Star Rating for Stocks is assigned based on an analyst's estimate of a stocks fair value. It is projection/opinion and not a statement of fact. Morningstar assigns star ratings based on an analyst’s estimate of a stock's fair value. Four components drive the Star Rating: (1) our assessment of the firm’s economic moat, (2) our estimate of the stock’s fair value, (3) our uncertainty around that fair value estimate and (4) the current market price. This process culminates in a single-point star rating that is updated daily. A 5-star represents a belief that the stock is a good value at its current price; a 1-star stock isn't. If our base-case assumptions are true the market price will converge on our fair value estimate over time, generally within three years. Investments in securities are subject to market and other risks. Past performance of a security may or may not be sustained in future and is no indication of future performance. For detail information about the Morningstar Star Rating for Stocks, please visit here

Quantitative Fair Value Estimate represents Morningstar’s estimate of the per share dollar amount that a company’s equity is worth today. The Quantitative Fair Value Estimate is based on a statistical model derived from the Fair Value Estimate Morningstar’s equity analysts assign to companies which includes a financial forecast of the company. The Quantitative Fair Value Estimate is calculated daily. It is a projection/opinion and not a statement of fact. Investments in securities are subject to market and other risks. Past performance of a security may or may not be sustained in future and is no indication of future performance. For detail information about the Quantiative Fair Value Estimate, please visit here

The Morningstar Medalist Rating is the summary expression of Morningstar’s forward-looking analysis of investment strategies as offered via specific vehicles using a rating scale of Gold, Silver, Bronze, Neutral, and Negative. The Medalist Ratings indicate which investments Morningstar believes are likely to outperform a relevant index or peer group average on a risk-adjusted basis over time. Investment products are evaluated on three key pillars (People, Parent, and Process) which, when coupled with a fee assessment, forms the basis for Morningstar’s conviction in those products’ investment merits and determines the Medalist Rating they’re assigned. Pillar ratings take the form of Low, Below Average, Average, Above Average, and High. Pillars may be evaluated via an analyst’s qualitative assessment (either directly to a vehicle the analyst covers or indirectly when the pillar ratings of a covered vehicle are mapped to a related uncovered vehicle) or using algorithmic techniques. Vehicles are sorted by their expected performance into rating groups defined by their Morningstar Category and their active or passive status. When analysts directly cover a vehicle, they assign the three pillar ratings based on their qualitative assessment, subject to the oversight of the Analyst Rating Committee, and monitor and reevaluate them at least every 14 months. When the vehicles are covered either indirectly by analysts or by algorithm, the ratings are assigned monthly. For more detailed information about these ratings, including their methodology, please go to here

The Morningstar Medalist Ratings are not statements of fact, nor are they credit or risk ratings. The Morningstar Medalist Rating (i) should not be used as the sole basis in evaluating an investment product, (ii) involves unknown risks and uncertainties which may cause expectations not to occur or to differ significantly from what was expected, (iii) are not guaranteed to be based on complete or accurate assumptions or models when determined algorithmically, (iv) involve the risk that the return target will not be met due to such things as unforeseen changes in changes in management, technology, economic development, interest rate development, operating and/or material costs, competitive pressure, supervisory law, exchange rate, tax rates, exchange rate changes, and/or changes in political and social conditions, and (v) should not be considered an offer or solicitation to buy or sell the investment product. A change in the fundamental factors underlying the Morningstar Medalist Rating can mean that the rating is subsequently no longer accurate.

For information on the historical Morningstar Medalist Rating for any managed investment Morningstar covers, please contact your local Morningstar office.

For more detailed information about conflicts of interest, including EU MAR disclosures, please see the “Morningstar Medalist Rating Analyst Conflict of Interest & Other Disclosures for EMEA”here

Select Your Site Edition To make sure the site is relevant to you, we need to know if you’re an individual investor or a financial professional.