The effect of self-referencing on risk behaviours : evidence from Amazon mechanical turk

Abstract

Language, a tool of communication in everyday life, has been extensively explored in the field of sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. However, the minor yet significant impact of variations in linguistic elements on the perceptions of the human mind is not extensively explored in the field of economics. Specifically, there are little researches that examine the effect of language use on individual’s attitude towards risks. Thus, this report aims to identify how linguistic variables affect risk preferences through self-reference effect. This was done through a 10-decision-making lottery- task experiment by utilising three personal pronoun treatments, namely first-person “I”, second- person “You”, and absence of pronoun “No Pronoun”. The Mann-Whitney U test results and OLS regression analysis showed that subjects in “I” treatment made more Safe decisions as compared to their counterparts in “You” or “No Pronoun” treatment. The self-reference effect of pronouns is the also the strongest for “I” followed by “You”, whereas “No Pronoun” has the weakest self-reference effect. The findings have implications for the government in addressing issues of the society by influencing desirable behaviours.