Overloaded and Overconfident: The Hidden Cognitive Drivers of Impulsive Investment Behaviour

Continuous notifications and social media-bombarded financial content have put growing pressure on investors, who are now more likely to be impulsive in their investing behaviour with the growing digitization of retail investing. This study investigates the effect of notification fatigue and the credibility of fin-fluencer on impulsive investing via investment information overload and decision justification bias. A total of 121 active retail investors of major cities of Gujarat (India) participated in the cross sectional survey and data were analysed using the PLS-SEM technique with the aid of SmartPLS 4. Results show that the decision justification bias is a significant driver of the impulsive investment behaviour, whereas the credibility of fin-fluencers is indirectly associated with the investment behaviour by improving the decision justification. Due to notification fatigue, investors get too much investment information and end up taking impulsive investment decisions. The findings indicated that the cognitive overload and psychological rationalisation are more important factors in impulsive investing than direct exposure to digital stimuli. This study proposes a dual-path cognitive theoretical approach that incorporates digital fatigue and social influence, which adds to the body of knowledge in behavioural finance and provides practical implications for regulators, FinTech platforms, and investor education programs to minimize behavioural biases in digital financial markets.