Article
Demographic Variations in Behavioral Biases and Their Influence on Financial Investment Decisions
Behavioural biases may influence financial decision-making, yet their demographic variation and relationships with investment outcomes remain insufficiently established among higher-education professionals. The present work investigates 6 behavioural biases and their relationship with retirement planning, risk preference and equity-oriented choice within portfolio of 420 higher education employees in the National Capital Region of India. Reliability assessment, comparisons across demographic groups, multiplicity correction, correlation analyses, heteroscedasticity-robust regression, and logistic regression were used to analyse responses from the questionnaires which were collected between January and April 2026. After multiple-testing correction, no demographic differences in behavioural-bias scores survived. There were virtually no correlations between the measured biases and financial literacy and planning for retirement (-0.08 to 0.09). Adding behavioural biases and financial literacy skills to the regression model accounted for just 0.4% of the variation in retirement planning. No focal predictor significantly explained equity orientation or risk tolerance. In the adjusted model, women scored lower than men on the retirement planning scale; but this result should be replicated independently. Most importantly, the chronically low internal consistency of the composite measures limits conclusions about the underlying psychological constructs. The results point the way to the requirement for appropriate measurement tools before a tool for keeping track of demographics and/or targeted financial interventions can be created.