How to Sample Behavior and Emotions of Traders: A Psychological Approach and an Empirical Example

Abstract

This paper describes an empirical approach based on psychological methodology, which assumes that individual behaviour must be studied within its natural environment. This approach is called experience sampling (ESM). To illustrate the potentials of employing ESM in the stock-trading domain, we report on observations from an explorative pilot study designed to shed light on the following issues: how outcomes of trades are perceived by traders; the reasons traders associate with good and bad trades; and how traders’ moods fluctuate over a trading day.