Could social interaction reduce the disposition effect? Evidence from retail investors in a directed social trading network

With data collected from a directed social trading network, this paper investigates how social interaction affects the disposition effect. We constantly observe a negative association between them: After being exposed to social interaction, a trader’s odds ratio to sell a paper gain stock decreases by 9% to 10%, depending on different model settings. We then test the mechanisms of social interaction by decomposing it into three channels: learning intensity (willingness to learn), learning quality (information advantage through learning), and public scrutinization (exposure of trading outcome to others). We find that all three channels contribute to a smaller disposition effect. Specifically, our findings support the claim that public scrutinization promotes self-consciousness and reduces disposition effect. Also, our results extend previous studies on investors’ information advantage by suggesting that it could also help to mitigate the disposition effect through the reduction of uncertainty. Overall, this paper suggests a positive role of social trading platforms in helping investors make better decisions.