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Pitch Right: The Effect of Vocal Pitch on Risk Aversion

Author

Listed:
  • Gabriel Yong Ping Chua

    (Economics Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University)

  • Hui Jun Er

    (Economics Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University)

  • Shao Yi Liaw

    (Economics Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University)

  • Tai-Sen He

    (Economics Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University)

Abstract

During interpersonal interactions, individual perceptions and judgment are unavoidably influenced by speech cues, such as vocal pitch. This paper experimentally examines the effect of vocal pitch on risk attitudes. In a lottery-choice task, subjects made a series of binary choices between a 50–50 lottery and a sure outcome option and were asked to listen to a voice recording verbalizing the payoff information of these options. We manipulated the vocal pitch of the voice recordings and administered three treatment conditions: control, low-pitch, and high-pitch. We found that a higher-pitched voice increased risk aversion, while a lower-pitched voice raised risk tolerance. As a relatively small sample size was employed, the results should be considered preliminary; future replications are indeed necessary to confirm the robustness and generalizability of the findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriel Yong Ping Chua & Hui Jun Er & Shao Yi Liaw & Tai-Sen He, 2020. "Pitch Right: The Effect of Vocal Pitch on Risk Aversion," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 3131-3139.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-20-00753
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Crosetto, P. & Filippin, A., 2017. "Safe options induce gender differences in risk attitudes," Working Papers 2017-05, Grenoble Applied Economics Laboratory (GAEL).
    2. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 2008. "Men, Women and Risk Aversion: Experimental Evidence," Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, in: Charles R. Plott & Vernon L. Smith (ed.), Handbook of Experimental Economics Results, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 113, pages 1061-1073, Elsevier.
    3. Alain Cohn & Jan Engelmann & Ernst Fehr & Michel André Maréchal, 2015. "Evidence for Countercyclical Risk Aversion: An Experiment with Financial Professionals," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 860-885, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Batsaikhan, Mongoljin & He, Tai-Sen & Li, Yupeng, 2021. "Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors: Evidence from Singapore," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vocal pitch; Risk aversion; Laboratory experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

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