How heuristics in judgement influence the securities investment decision process

Abstract Heuristics and biases are a widely researched topic in the field of behavioral finance. Yet, most studies only investigate effects heuristics under laboratory conditions consequently do not consider that financial decisions likely to be made quite differently than real life. Therefore, purpose our study is on securities investment decision-making process real-life advice conversations. To this end, we analyze buying behavior 200 individually observed retail customers German bank. Specifically, fifteen advisors were instructed actively induce measure how these cognitive distort customers' decision making with respect purchase probability, one-time amount, monthly savings plans. Our results indicate judgement affect likelihood product at all, but they seem amount or level