Pitch Right: The Effect of Vocal Pitch on Risk Aversion

Gabriel Yong Ping Chua (), Hui Jun Er (), Shao Yi Liaw () and Tai-Sen He ()
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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

Economics Bulletin, 2020, vol. 40, issue 4, 3131-3139

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.

Keywords: Vocal pitch; Risk aversion; Laboratory experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C9 D8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-11-30
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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