The Minds and Mind-Sets of Younger and Older Investors Regarding Information: A Mind Genomics Cartography

We present a new way to understand the mind of the investor, moving away from technical models of investing to determining in simple terms of type of information that the person feels to be important when deciding to invest. The experiment identifies the relative importance of different types and sources of information to which a person might pay attention. The approach, Mind Genomics, combines simple messages or elements to create vignettes, concepts which present several different aspects of the news and information. The respondent rates these different combinations in terms of the degree to which the combination reflects the respondent. Mind Genomics reveals three clearly different mind-sets of individuals, from those who focus on the source of the information, those who focus on the story and information, and those who focus on what their friends are saying and their own insights from mathematical models. Mind Genomics presents a new approach to understanding decision making under uncertainty, based upon the nature of the mind of the person.