A STUDY ON LOSS AVOIDANCE AND RISK PERCEPTION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS STUDYING IN THE FIELD OF ACCOUNTING AND FINANCE SCIENCE: THE CASE OF ATATÜRK UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Individuals make various investment decisions in order to obtain income and to increase their income by using the parts of their income that exceed their expenses. It is seen that a number of factors are effective in these investment decisions taken. They prefer to invest by evaluating the risks and current losses that they will be involved in when investing in a company. For this reason, risk and loss factors are considered as very important factors in shaping the investment decisions made. As a result of this, many factors such as age, gender, educational status and the professions they perform are also effective in shaping the risk and loss factor that occurs when making an investment decision. It is also very important in which channels the investments are concentrated and situations such as loss avoidance during the making affect individual decisions. In this context, the main purpose of this study is to examine the perspectives of graduate students studying in the field of accounting and finance on the concepts of risk and loss aversion and to investigate their impact on investment decisions. In this study, which was conducted for Atatürk University students and tried to analyze the case with a science pattern, a semi-structured interview form technique was used. As a result of the analysis related to the study, it was revealed that the education they received and the professions they have are effective in the investment decisions of individuals receiving graduate education, risk perception and loss aversion are effective in the decisions made. Among the reasons for loss and risk aversion, results were obtained such that feelings such as intolerance and regret are more common, losses are generally accepted at 10%, and investments are mostly used in investment instruments such as gold and stock market. In addition, it has been found that various factors such as “religious belief” and “level of return on the owned profession” have an effect on investment decisions made.