The Altruistic Motivation Of Socially Responsible Investment And It’s Nudging Mechanism Based On Visual Disclosure

Socially responsible investment(SRI)is an emerging philosophy that integrates social and environmental impacts into investment considerations,and it has gradually developed into an important form of investment in recent years.With the deepening conceptualization of SRI,Corporate performance in social responsibility has also been more likely considered in actual investment decision-making.Which creates an additional demand for the disclosure of corporate social responsibility reports.From the perspective of traditional economics,the only goal that matters to enterprises is to make profit,while investor’s aim is to maximize their personal returns.However,under the circumstance of SRI,a growing number of investors in addition to consider personal benefits,also begin to pay close attention to their behavior influence on society.Companies are also becoming more proactive in fulfilling and disclosing their social responsibility performance to reflect their social contributions beyond profit.Under the hypothesis of rational economic man,many of these existing investment phenomena are difficult to explain.As an investment which contains both social and economic attributes,SRI may also have some other motives besides economic motivation.Thus,considering that the development of SRI is still in its early stage,it is of great significance to study the motivation of SRI,as well as the motivation-based investment promotion.Previous studies pointed out that altruistic social preference might play an important role in individual economic decision-making.However,the interference of other economic motivations has increased the difficulty of further analysis.Therefore,the relationship between altruistic preference and SRI has not been verified yet.To answer this question,this study,for the first time,adopted a combination of behavioral economy and neuroscience to separate individual altruistic motives.And explored the non-financial motivation of SRI from the aspect of cognitive neuroscience.Furthermore,the nudging theory points out that human cognition is biased and will change with the perceived factors.Therefore,we can consciously design or selectively present information to stimulate individuals’ motivations and prompt them to make behaviors that meet specific goals.On this basis,in combination with individual altruism level and from the perspective of investors’ behavior decision-making,this study further explored how visual disclosure strategy may nudge SRI.First,the study used neuroscience technology to discusses the altruistic motivation in SRI decisions.Through transcranial direct current stimulation(t DCS),we temporarily modulate activity in the r TPJ and tested its effect on charitable donations and SRI behaviors.The study found that anodal stimulation increased the subjects’ donations,while cathodal stimulation decreased them,suggesting that t DCS changed the subjects’ levels of altruism.More importantly,anodal stimulation enhanced the subjects’ willingness to make SRIs,while cathodal stimulation did not have a significant impact.These findings indicate that altruism does play an important role in SRI decision-making,and further verified the charity behavior and SRI behavior in the aspect of neural mechanisms.Next,the study completed a 2 * 3 between-group behavior experiment.To explore the nudging mechanism of SRI under different forms of visual disclosure and its influence among investors at different altruistic levels.The study found that under low environmental performance,compared with text only information and graphs,the use of photographs can easier to create a good "illusion" of the company’s environmental image and enhance high-altruistic investors’ investment willingness.By contrast,low-altruistic investors are not vulnerable to photographs,but more sensitive to quantitative graphs.Under high environmental performance,the use of graphs can strengthen the perception of investors(both high and low altruistic levels)on the good environmental performance of the company.These results indicate that the use of graphs can better serve the information disclosure of high CSR performance enterprises,and promote the investment willingness more effectively.In conclusion,the study verified the existence of altruistic motivation in SRI,and found a significant difference between investors’ willingness-to-invest at high and low altruistic levels.Accordingly,this paper further explored the impact of the visual disclosure on investors at different altruistic levels,and found that the effect and mechanism of visual image information on SRI are also different between individuals with high and low levels of altruism.Specifically,investors at high altruistic levels are vulnerable to be manipulated by visual images(whether photographs or graphs)to make more investment behaviors.However,investors with low altruistic level will be affected by graphs and increase their investment willingness only under the condition of high environmental performance.Photographs will not work for them at any time.These findings suggested that the use of graphs can alleviate the misleading of investment,and thus play a more effective role in promoting SRI.The main contribution of the study lies in its provision of neuroscientific and behavioral experimental evidence regarding the role of altruism in SRI decision-making.Regarding the imperfect social responsibility disclosure standard,this study can provide some certain reference for the disclosure policy of social responsibility information,as well as helps the market and regulatory authorities to conduct effective disclosure standards and SRI guidance.Which might help to promote the implementation of corporate social responsibility,and contribute to the realization of green sustainable development goals.