Gold Investment Decisions Under Fear and Uncertainty: A Systematic Literature Review of FOMO and Behavioral Biases

Abstract

The phenomenon Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) has evolved from social anxiety into a critical driver of irrational investment behavior. While the literature extensively associates FOMO with highly volatile digital assets, its psychological effects on traditional safe-haven instruments remain insufficiently examined. This study seeks to elucidate the relationship between the phenomenon of Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and decisions regarding gold investment, as well as to assess the impact of psychological pressure on the effectiveness of safe-haven assets.. Employing a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach compliant with PRISMA 2020 guidelines, 38 peer-reviewed articles from the Scopus and Emerald databases (2016–2026) were thoroughly analyzed. The findings reveal that FOMO operates as a central psychological mediator, bridging cognitive biases such as herd mentality and loss aversion with impulsive investment decisions. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that the safe-haven utility of gold is crisis-contingent rather than absolute; during extreme systemic liquidity panics, FOMO-induced behavior can erode gold's protective attributes, prompting forced liquidations. The study also identifies Artificial Intelligence advisory tools, financial literacy, and religiosity (including Sharia compliance) as significant moderating factors that effectively mitigate speculative hysteria. This study contributes to the development of a behavioral safe-haven model, indicating that the stability of conservative investments is increasingly shaped by collective emotional responses rather than exclusively by their intrinsic economic characteristics.