Exploring attentional mechanisms underlying the gender homophily in equity crowdfunding decisions using web-based eye-tracking

Investor characteristics can influence preferences for entrepreneurial investment opportunities, with gender playing a crucial role. Using webcam-based eye-tracking, this study examines the attentional mechanism underlying gender homophily, a tendency to prefer projects led by entrepreneurial teams of one's own gender, in equity crowdfunding (EC). Results confirm gender homophily among female investors, who fixate more quickly and look longer at entrepreneurial teams' gender composition. Such a tendency is moderated by their financial knowledge with inexperience females showing a stronger effect. These findings support a top-down attentional control process, where attention is guided by goal-oriented selection of specific information rather than a bottom-up, stimulus-driven response. Mediation analyses further reveal that increased attention towards female-led teams significantly influences female investors' investment preferences, linking attentional biases to decision outcomes. Male investors do not exhibit comparable gender-based effects. This study advances the understanding of how selective signal processing, shaped by investors' endogenous characteristics such as gender and financial knowledge, influences investment decisions. Our results offer new insights into gender dynamics in entrepreneurial finance, elucidating the cognitive foundations of investor behavior and offering practical implications for EC platform designs and financial literacy interventions.