Pronoun drop and prosocial behavior: experimental evidence from Japan
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Pronoun drop and prosocial behavior: experimental evidence from Japan Tai‑Sen He1 · Yohanes E. Riyanto1 · Saori C. Tanaka2 · Katsunori Yamada3 Received: 9 May 2019 / Revised: 31 October 2019 / Accepted: 8 January 2020 © Economic Science Association 2020
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 pro-social behavior in a dictator game-like setting. To this end, we conducted an online randomized, incentivized experiment with a socially representative sample of 2000 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. Keywords Pronoun drop language · Pro-social behavior · Social-value orientation · Incentivized online experiment JEL Classification C92 · D64 · Z13 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s4088 1-020-00083-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Tai‑Sen He [email protected] Yohanes E. Riyanto [email protected] Saori C. Tanaka [email protected] Katsunori Yamada [email protected] 1
Economics Programme, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 48 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639818, Singapore
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Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute International, Keihanna Science City, Kyoto 619‑0288, Japan
3
Faculty of Economics, Kindai University, 228‑3, Shin‑Kami‑Kosaka, Higashiōsaka 577‑0813, Japan
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T.-S. He et al.
1 Introduction Since Chen’s (2013) seminal study, a growing body of literature in economics has been devoted to exploring the effects of language on economic decision-making. This literature is motivated by the Sapir–Whorf linguistic relativity hypothesis, which posits that the language we speak shapes our thoughts and decisions.1 Most of these existing economic studies focus on the link between the use of future tense and speakers’ future-oriented behavior (Chen et al. 2019; Falk et al. 2018; Pérez and Tavits 2017; Sutter et al. 2018). In this study, we turn to another facet of linguistic structure and investigate the effects of “pronoun dropping” (hereafter, “pro-drop”) on one’s pro-sociality, with a focus on the first-person pronoun “I.” Linguists classify a language as pro-drop if speakers can omit pronouns in a sentence. We consider two competing hypotheses regarding how speaking a pro-drop language affects pro-sociality. The first hypothesis is generally accepted in the existing literature, pioneered by Kashima and Kashima (1998). They proposed that the linguistic licensing of pronoun drop, particularly the omission of the first-person pronoun, is linked to the psychological differentiation be
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