The Effect of Chatbot Cognitive Reappraisal on Perceived Decision Quality among Risk-Averse Female Investors in Their 20s and 30s Facing Investment Losses

As young women in their 20s and 30s increasingly participate in stock investment despite generally conservative risk preferences, they face heightened emotional strain when encountering investment losses in volatile market environments. Existing research has tended to focus on the effects of emotional empathy messages on user experience, offering limited discussion of how users’ judgment experiences can be supported in goal-oriented decision-making contexts accompanied by negative emotions. Addressing this gap, the present study explores the effect of chatbot-based cognitive reappraisal messages on perceived decision quality among risk-averse female investors in their 20s and 30s under loss conditions. Using a scenario-based experiment with 48 participants, the study compares emotional empathy messages with three cognitive reappraisal messages—perspective taking, cognitive reinterpretation, and positive reappraisal—across dominant negative emotions of fear and anger. The results show that all three cognitive reappraisal messages yielded higher perceived decision quality compared to the emotional empathy message, and no significant interaction with emotional state was observed. These findings suggest that chatbot messages providing cognitive support may positively influence the subjective judgment experiences of young female investors in the investment loss context and may provide an initial basis for the design of financial chatbot messages and future research.