PlumX Metrics
Embed PlumX Metrics

Playing with words: Do people exploit loaded language to affect others’ decisions for their own benefit?

Judgment and Decision Making, ISSN: 1930-2975, Vol: 17, Issue: 1, Page: 50-69
2022
  • 2
    Citations
  • 0
    Usage
  • 4
    Captures
  • 0
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

Article Description

We report on three pre-registered studies testing whether people in the position of describing a decision problem to decision-makers exploit this opportunity for their benefit, by choosing descriptions that may be potentially beneficial for themselves. In Study 1, recipients of an extreme dictator game (where dictators can either take the whole pie for themselves or give it entirely to the receiver) are asked to choose the instructions used to introduce the game to dictators, from six different instructions known from previous research to affect dictators’ decisions. The results demonstrate that some dictator game recipients tend to choose instructions that make them more likely to receive a higher payoff. Study 2 shows that people who choose descriptions that make them more likely to receive a higher payoff indeed believe that they will receive a higher payoff. Study 3 shows that receivers are more likely than dictators to choose these self-serving descriptions. In sum, our work suggests that some people choose descriptions that are beneficial to themselves; we also found some evidence that deliberative thinking and young age are associated with this tendency.

Bibliographic Details

Valerio Capraro; Andrea Vanzo; Antonio Cabrales

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Decision Sciences; Psychology; Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Provide Feedback

Have ideas for a new metric? Would you like to see something else here?Let us know