What causes people to be contrarian?

Private or public behaviour: people tend to conform more when asked to give their judgement or behave publicly rather than privately. Anonymity has a powerful impact on conformity – hence secret voting. Private investing, when others do not know where, why and how much you invested, may allow more contrarian behaviour.

Is being contrarian bad?

Even Jeff Bezos says, “You have to remember that contrarians are usually wrong.” There’s often a good reason the vast majority of people take one side when it comes to solving a problem or making a decision. It isn’t necessary, or even very helpful, to always take the opposing view.

What is a social contrarian?

The word contrarian derives from the word contra which means against. Apropos, a contrarian is a person who goes against something. The term is used usually in the investment sphere when one wants to define an investor who buys shares of stock when most others are selling and sells when others are buying.

How do contrarians think?

The basic principle of a contrarian is the ability to think for yourself, on any topic, and being able to derive a set of views independent of what other people around you think. That’s very difficult to do because everybody is mainly influenced by the 5 people you spend the most time with.

What are some contrarian views?

A contrarian believes that certain crowd behavior among investors can lead to exploitable mispricings in securities markets. Some contrarians have a permanent bear market view, while the majority of investors bet on the market going up.

What are contrarian opinions?

Anyone who thinks that most of what the public believes is wrong would be called a contrarian. The word may be most common as an adjective; so you may express a contrarian opinion, hold a contrarian view, or pursue a contrarian investment strategy.