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Thinking in Chinese vs. Thinking in English: Social Preference and Risk Attitudes of Multicultural Minds

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  • Li King King

    () (Strategic Interaction Group, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena)

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    Abstract

    This paper investigates whether language priming activates different cultural identities and norms associated with the language communicated with respect to social preference and risk attitudes. Our contribution is on identifying the conditions where there will be language priming effects. We conduct economic games with bilingual subjects using Chinese and English as instructions. It is found that language priming affects social preference, but only in context involving strategic interactions. In social preference games involving strategic interactions, e.g., the trust game, subjects in the Chinese treatment are more trusting and trustworthy. In individual choice games, such as the dictator game, there is no treatment difference. Further, we also find that language priming affects risk attitudes. Subjects in the Chinese treatment prefer to pick Chinese lucky numbers in Mark Six lottery. These findings suggest that the effect of language priming is context dependent.

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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Max-Planck-Institute of Economics in its series Jena Economic Research Papers with number 2010-061.

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    Date of creation: 20 Apr 2011
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    Handle: RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2010-061

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    Related research

    Keywords: language; bilingual; biculture; social preference; risk attitudes;

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    1. Thinking in Chinese vs. Thinking in English
      by Nicholas Gruen in Club Troppo on 2010-09-20 13:59:04

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