Digital Capital Market Dynamics: The Influence of Social Media Exposure on Gen Z Investment Decisions Mediated by Herding Behavior (Journal of Hunan University Natural Sciences)

Summary

• A cross-sectional survey covered 400 Generation Z students from 40 higher education institutions with Investment Galleries in West Java, Indonesia.p.1
• Mediation analysis yielded an indirect effect of 0.328, a direct effect of 0.210 and a total effect of 0.538.p.1
• The variance accounted for (VAF) was 60.9%, indicating partial mediation by herding behavior.p.1
• The number of individual capital-market investors in Indonesia reached 24,688,336 by the end of March 2026, according to KSEI.p.2
• Of the 400 respondents, 297 (74.25%) had previously invested and 103 (25.75%) were actively investing.p.7
• The Sobel statistic was 2.433 with a p-value of 0.014, so the indirect pathway is significant at the 5% level.p.9

Key insights

1. Social media exposure is positively associated with herding behavior, and herding behavior is positively associated with investment decisions.p.1
2. Herding behavior partially mediates the link between social media exposure and investment decisions, with both indirect and direct pathways remaining.p.9
3. The structural model showed adequate fit, with CFI and TLI both at 0.998 and RMSEA at 0.016.p.8
4. The observed relationships are statistical associations rather than causal effects because the design is cross-sectional.p.2
5. University investment education should place more weight on recognizing investor behavioral biases such as herding.p.11
6. Investment Galleries can strengthen their role by guiding students in evaluating the reliability of investment-related content from social media.p.11