While some market analysts are anticipating real market returns of 1 percent or less over the next decade, investors in a recent survey by Boston-based Natixis are expecting more -- much more.

Respondents said that they would need returns 8.9 percent above inflation to meet their goals, 51 percent higher than the 5.9 percent real returns expectation of financial advisors surveyed by Natixis. When asked in 2016, respondents said that they would need 8.5 percent real annual returns.

While most respondents, 69 percent, said they are willing to take risks to outperform the market, 81 percent said they would choose safety over performance. Respondents with financial advisors were more comfortable with risk than those without.

Investors may associate index funds with lower risk; 66 percent of the survey participants felt that index funds were less risky, and 61 percent said that they help to minimize losses.

The respondents expressed low levels of trust in asset managers. Almost two thirds of them, 64 percent, said that they expect truly active management when they buy an active fund, but 71 percent suspected that most active managers charged high fees for strategies that strayed little from a benchmark index.

Respondents said that they trust professional financial advisors more then themselves, social media, traditional media, friends and families when it comes to making investment decisions; 61 percent of the survey participants indicated that they would prefer to have an expert find investment opportunities for them.

While 87 percent of respondents said that they at least “somewhat” trusted themselves to make investing decisions, 88 percent said the same about financial advisors.  Financial institutions (69 percent) and investment ratings/awards (67 percent) received less trust from the respondents. Three-fifths of the respondents said that they would follow their current advisor if he or she went to a different firm.

Natixis surveyed 750 individual investors with a minimum of $100,000 in investable assets during February 2017.