American International Journal of Social Science

The Role of Emotional Regulation, Self-Efficacy, Heuristics and Risk Appetite on Financial Decision-Making Process. A Study on Groups of Senior and Junior Investors
Mario Filippo Paolo Bellomo, Monica Pellerone

Abstract
This study analyzes the role that four variables – self efficacy, emotion regulation, and heuristics and risk appetite - play on tendency to trade stocks in a group of 80 investors: 40 senior investors and 40 students of Faculty of Economics. They completed: Emotion Regulation Questionnaire to measure differences in the use of emotion regulation strategies; General Self-Efficacy Scale to assess the general sense of perceived self-efficacy; General Decision Making Style to value individual decisional style; Questionnaire for collecting anamnestic data to measure experience, knowledge of stocks and its risks, capital and debts, risk appetite, availability heuristic and experience. The results show that, in both groups, men have more optimism than women, whilst the latter have a lower financial risk appetite. In senior investors’ group, experience influences affect reaction, availability, risk appetite and optimism. In both group, auto-efficacy is predictor of overconfidence and risk appetite.

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