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

King King Li

No 2010-061, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

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.

Keywords: language; bilingual; biculture; social preference; risk attitudes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B40 C91 D03 D81 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-04-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cul, nep-evo, nep-exp, nep-hpe and nep-neu
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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