Pronoun drop and prosocial behavior : experimental evidence from Japan

Abstract

We join a growing body of literature suggesting that the languages people speak influence their decision-making. We tested whether dropping the first-person pronoun “I” affects prosocial behavior in a dictator game-like setting. To this end, we conducted an online randomized, incentivized experiment with a socially representative sample of 2,000 Japanese respondents. We provide compelling causal evidence that pronoun-dropping reduces pro-sociality. Given that our results provide little empirical support for previous research findings linking first-person pronoun use and lower pro-sociality, we prescribe caution in using languages as a proxy for culture in several cross-country empirical studies in economics.