Psychology Society and Investment Club host collaboration

Keertana Senthilkumar, Staff Writer
November 5, 2021

Psychology Society and Investment Club came together for a special collaboration during eighth period B block on Oct. 20. Officers from the clubs discussed the psychology of investing in the lecture hall.

“Behavioral finance is actually one of the most important topics in both psychology and finance. It helps us understand how behavior can impact our financial decisions in ways we may have not expected them to,” junior Anish Susarla, a Psychology Society officer, said.

Behavioral finance tends to be overlooked when discussing investment, despite its importance.

“We tend to quantify [success] as salary or money and then how to turn that money into more money. But ultimately, for me, what excited me about the collaboration was just seeing psychological principles put into a presentation by students, for students, to better understand how to apply those psychological principles,” Psychology Society sponsor Ms. Hamerick said.

Almost a hundred students ended up showing up to the collaboration.

“That was really nice to see all the people there and being involved. We weren’t trying to teach them all the theoretical nitty gritty [information], we kept it broad and we just wanted a way to get them interested in the field,” senior Arya Grayeli, Investment Club officer, said.

One of the ways they got people interested was including real world applications, such as case studies in the stock market incidents early this year.

“In January 2021, there was a sharp increase in stock price of companies including Gamestop and AMC, and this current event to point out the importance of behavioral finance, as so many new investors were blindsided by [those] losses,” Susarla said.

As part of the presentation, the leaders of Investment Club and Psychology Society explained some of the cognitive biases in behavioral finance.

“I think the main point to take away is that people are irrational and this can directly affect the money that you might be investing,” Grayeli said.

For students interested in psychology and its various applications, this won’t be the last time that Psychology Society covers such topics. Both Psychology Society and Investment Club meet during eighth periods Wednesday B block.

“I hope people will continue to join psychology society in the future, as we’ll be discussing a lot of issues like behavioral finance. We also plan on having more club collaborations to educate more people on psychological issues,” Susarla said.