Journal of Financial Planning: July 2019
Executive Summary
- Prior research has shown that behavioral biases may inhibit investors from identifying and prioritizing investing goals that are important to them.
- A nationally representative study was conducted to understand if a simple behavioral technique would
nudge investors away from using unreliable, top-of-mind notions when it comes to creating investing goals; and if a more sophisticated technique is better at prioritizing investment goals than a simple one. - Asking people to self-report their investing goals is insufficient. About 26 percent of the participants in the study changed their top goal when prompted with reminders about other goals.
- On average, using a more sophisticated ranking technique did not lead to any appreciable difference in how investment goals were ranked, suggesting that when it comes to prioritizing multiple goals, a straightforward rank ordering suffices.
Topic
General Financial Planning Principles