Evaluation of investment decisions of individual investors in terms of behavioral finance: The case of Kocaeli

The concept of "behavioral finance" is an approach developed to explain the irrational behavior of investors. Behavioral finance argues that individuals cannot always make rational choices, but can also engage in non-rational behaviors. Individuals who invest according to behavioral finance can make investment decisions based on social and psychological factors while investing. The purpose of this research is to determine whether non-professional investors in Kocaeli have biases or tendencies in their financial decisions as suggested by behavioral finance. In addition, in the study, it has been tried to determine whether the financial and demographic characteristics of individual investors cause a change against behavioral finance tendencies. For this purpose, the survey technique was used in the research and it was applied to 401 individual investors residing in Kocaeli. Based on the scores of the financial profile scale and behavioral finance tendencies scale, in the profile evaluations of the investors; T test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) test were used. The resulting data were analyzed with SPSS. As a result of the research; It has been determined that individual investors in Kocaeli are affected by behavioral finance tendencies.