Behavioral biases simulation where students test themselves

A behavioral biases simulation is a timed activity where students generate the evidence rather than read about it. In the Finsimco Behavioral Biases in Investment Decisions Simulation, each student answers forty bets under a timer, twenty pairs of which are arithmetically identical and differently framed, has their own loss aversion coefficient and probability weighting fitted from the answers, and then designs an investment committee process intended to constrain what their own data has just shown. Unlike a lecture, the demonstration is personal.

Undergraduate and postgraduate students on Behavioural Finance, Investments, Decision Science, Managerial Economics or Portfolio Management courses, and MBA programmes. Difficulty is adjustable, so the same session can run with twenty bets and simple framing, or with forty bets, a reference point manipulation, an ambiguity treatment and a committee design that has to work under time pressure for Masters and MBA cohorts.

None, and it works better without it. Prospect theory, loss aversion, probability weighting, framing and reference points are introduced after the answers have been collected, with worked examples in the tool tips.

Early module, and deliberately before prospect theory is taught, so the fitted curves arrive as a finding. It also works as the opening session in an investments module.

The Investor Psychology simulation infers biases from ordinary portfolio decisions taken over thirty months. This one measures them directly, with paired bets designed to isolate a parameter, and then asks what to do about it.

A case study describes an experiment somebody else ran. Here each student is the subject, the parameters are theirs, and the design task follows from their own numbers. You get the answers, the fitted curves and the reasoning behind the process design, rather than a written summary.

Most behavioural teaching shows the classic experiments on a slide and asks students to agree that people are irrational. The Finsimco Behavioral Biases Simulation is different because the student is the data. The timer stops the pairs being recognised, the curves are fitted to their own answers, and the final task is to design a control rather than describe a bias. It suits modules that want the theory arrived at rather than announced.

It can sit alongside one or replace it. A seminar exercise demonstrates the effect in aggregate. This gives every student their own coefficient and a design task attached to it.

They take the choice, measurement and design roles in turn, answer forty bets under a timer in twenty arithmetically identical pairs, have a value function and a probability weighting curve fitted to their answers, read the reversals between pairs, and design an investment committee process that would constrain the bias their own data shows.

Every student holds all three. Choice wants honest answers, measurement wants the parameters and design wants a process that actually binds. Nothing is submitted until all three are satisfied, so the student has to reconcile them rather than pick a favourite.

No. There is no correct answer to any individual bet. What scores badly is a process design that warns about a bias rather than constraining it, or an account of the results that confuses loss aversion with risk aversion.

Single-player. Every student runs the same case independently, so there is no team formation, no minimum cohort size and no group-work marking to untangle. It runs equally well with one student or several hundred.

About three hours with the default timings, and the timings are yours. Every stage can be lengthened or shortened from the professor panel, though the bets stage is deliberately timed and is best left as it is.

Yes. It pauses and resumes without losing submitted data. Two configurations work well: two sessions, with Briefing and Forty Bets in the first and Your Parameters, The Assessment and the debrief in the second; or three sessions, one per working stage. Briefing can also be set as pre-reading if you would rather open on the bets.

Yes to all four. Because students work independently inside the platform, a remote or asynchronous run behaves exactly like an in-room one, which also makes it straightforward to set as homework. Delivery is covered across our simulations for universities.

As much or as little as you like. The simulation is self-running and coaching is optional. You control the timeline, can adjust stage timings, and can monitor student inputs live. See how a Finsimco session runs for the setup, controls and first-delivery support.