Behavioural Aspects of the Financial Decision-Making

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Behavioural finance is a relatively new, but rapidly evolving field that provides explanations of an economic decision-making by cognitive psychology, conventional economic and financial theory. Behavioural finance searches the influence of psychology on the behaviour of financial practitioners and the subsequent effects on the financial markets. The purpose of the paper is the research on behavioural aspects of financial decision-making as they help explain why and how markets might be inefficient. Design/Methodology/ Approach: Fuzzy logic is an excellent tool for working with linguistic variables that are often found when working with behavioural data. Thus, we analyse the financial decision-making process from the perspective of behavioural finance aimed at better understanding of the decision-making process of investors applying the principles of fuzzy logic to solve various financial problems. Results: The results of the study indicate that fuzzy logic is applicable when solving problems of financial management and financial decision-making problems. The urgency of the fuzzy logic application for managerial and financial decisions should be emphasized. Research in this area indicates that in some cases, as in the case of behavioural financing, the use of fuzzy logic is far more suitable than the use of other methods (Peters, Aguiar and Sales). Conclusion: The novelty of the paper is to extend the application of fuzzy sets in the area of financial decision-making. The paper demonstrates that despite the fact, that fuzzy logic is currently used mainly in technical directions, it is applicable also in financial management, especially, in cases where it is necessary to consider the influence of human and the occurrence of linguistic variables. Keywords: behavioural economics; behavioural finance; fuzzy transform; fuzzy sets