Naked aggression: Personality and portfolio manager performance

We provide evidence that a personality trait, aggression, has a first-order effect on group financial decision making. In a laboratory experiment on group portfolio choice, highly aggressive subjects (measured by a standard psychology test) were much more likely to recommend risky investment strategies consistent with their own personal information, regardless of the information received by other group members. Outside of this group context, aggression had no effect on subject behavior. Thus, our aggression measure appears to capture an aggressive disposition, which seeks to dominate group decisions, rather than simply reflect risk attitudes or cognitive biases.

本研究提供实验证据表明，人格特质攻击性（aggression）对群体金融决策具有一阶效应。在一项群体投资组合选择的实验室实验中，经标准化心理学测试评定的高攻击性受试者，更倾向于推荐与自身私人信息相符的高风险投资策略，且不参考其他群体成员所获取的任何信息。脱离该群体决策情境后，攻击性并未对受试者行为产生显著影响。由此可见，本研究的攻击性测量指标所捕获的，是一种旨在主导群体决策的攻击性倾向，而非单纯反映个体的风险态度或认知偏差。