How Framing Susceptibility Is Associated with Investment Grip: Evidence from Japanese Retail Investors

This study builds on the concept of loss tolerance by introducing investment grip, a behavioral interpretation that captures investors’ commitment to long-term objectives under adverse market conditions. While loss tolerance traditionally measures the maximum financial loss an investor can withstand, investment grip focuses on the behavioral and psychological dimensions of maintaining long-term investment objectives when facing short-term setbacks, thus providing a more behaviorally grounded and operationalizable approach for evaluating client risk profiles. The investment grip framework integrates insights from self-control theory, emotional regulation research, and goal-commitment models. Using data from 92,792 Japanese retail investors in the 2025 “Survey on Life and Money,” we examine how gain-framed and loss-framed messages are associated with investment grip, controlling for digital financial literacy and demographic, socioeconomic, and psychological factors. Our findings reveal that loss framing is robustly associated with stronger investment grip, whereas gain framing demonstrates no statistically meaningful effect. These findings offer new insights into Japanese household financial behavior, explaining why conservative savings patterns persist despite the availability of better investment alternatives. The results underscore the role of information framing in shaping household investment behavior, with implications for investor protection and financial communication policy.