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Demanding or deferring? An experimental analysis of the economic value of communication with attitude

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  • Wang, Siyu
  • Houser, Daniel

Abstract

Research has shown that natural language communication is more effective than intention-signaling in promoting coordination. Our paper studies the reasons behind this finding. We hypothesize that, when communicating with natural language, people use and respond to both intentions and attitudes, with attitude indicating the strength of a message sender's desire to have her message followed. We test our hypothesis using controlled laboratory experiments. We find that: (i) free-form messages include both signaled intentions and attitudes; (ii) people respond to both intentions and attitudes when making decisions; and (iii) the use of attitude in natural language messages significantly improves coordination.

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  • Wang, Siyu & Houser, Daniel, 2019. "Demanding or deferring? An experimental analysis of the economic value of communication with attitude," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 381-395.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:115:y:2019:i:c:p:381-395
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2019.03.002
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Communication; Coordination; Experiment; Attitude; Gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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