Effects of the Pandemic on the Psychology of Traders
What happened in the epidemic? Dealers’ levels of agreement have plummeted, from much higher than students’ levels to much lower. The students’ agreement did not change significantly, so it can be concluded that the epidemic did not have a general effect on everyone.
The impact was much greater for traders who were personally affected in negative ways medically, economically or in their life situation. Curiously, there was a much smaller drop in agreement among students, but only among the students least affected by the pandemic.
Why is it so difficult to predict the future of technology?
The other big change was in a feature the authors call the “control center,” or the extent to which people feel they are in control of events and direct their lives. In this area the traders scored much higher than the students, as it seems that a sense of control is essential to the trading process.
On the other hand, traders should have a high awareness of the randomness of market behaviour, which seems to indicate a decline in the “center of control”. Instead, it seems that traders need a high degree of control in order to muster the psychological strength to make bold bets in the event of uncertainty.
