Framing Sustainability: How Positive and Negative Messages Shape Confidence and Green Investment Decisions

This study investigates how positive and negative framing affect sustainable investment behaviour, emphasising the mediating role of investor confidence and the moderating role of intention. An experimental design with 301 participants was employed, comparing control, positive, and negative framing conditions. Participants allocated both simulated and real monetary endowments to a green investment (recycling) project, and the PROCESS macro for SPSS 29 was used to test mediation and moderation models. The results show that positive framing directly increases allocation to sustainable investment, while negative framing operates indirectly by enhancing investor confidence, which in turn drives greater investment. Moderation analysis further demonstrates that negative framing strengthens the link between intention and real monetary commitment, even though the direct effect of framing on actual financial behaviour remains weak. This paper contributes to behavioural finance by clarifying the differential mechanisms of positive and negative framing in investment decisions and highlighting confidence as a key psychological pathway in sustainable finance behaviour. It also differentiates short-term and long-term behaviour to capture the complexity of sustainable investment.