Accent and Trust: a Lab Study in Australia

I conduct a lab experiment to investigate how accent affects trust. Participants listen to an audio message from their opponent before they make decisions in the trust game. The audio clips are fictitious such that they are exact in text but delivered in different accents. I include the Australian accent and the Chinese accent as accent variations in this study. They represent the majority group and the largest minority group in language according to Australian Census 2016. To minimize the influences of other-regarding effects, I limit the sample to male students who were either born in Australia or in China. Participants play the trust game in genuine pairs but with opponent’s accent determine by the place of birth. I found that both Australian and Chinese participants rated all personal attributes of the Chinese accented speaker lower than the Australian accented speaker. While the negative stigma translates to lower trust among Chinese participants, Australian participants show similar levels of trust towards both accents. The mistrust towards Chinese accent among Chinse participants is likely to be a joint effect of an English proficiency based social group sub-division and the ingroup bias.I conduct a lab experiment to investigate how accent affects trust. Participants listen to an audio message from their opponent before they make decisions in the trust game. The audio clips are fictitious such that they are exact in text but delivered in different accents. I include the Australian accent and the Chinese accent as accent variations in this study. They represent the majority group and the largest minority group in language according to Australian Census 2016. To minimize the influences of other-regarding effects, I limit the sample to male students who were either born in Australia or in China. Participants play the trust game in genuine pairs but with opponent’s accent determine by the place of birth. I found that both Australian and Chinese participants rated all personal attributes of the Chinese accented speaker lower than the Australian accented speaker. While the negative stigma translates to lower trust among Chinese participants, Australian participants show similar levels of trust towards both accents. The mistrust towards Chinese accent among Chinse participants is likely to be a joint effect of an English proficiency based social group sub-division and the ingroup bias.

Date & time

Fri 21 Sep 2018, 1.30–2.30pm

Location

Jean Martin Room, Level 3 Beryl Rawson Building

Speakers

James (Jilu) Zhang

Contacts

Maddie LeLievre
61251301

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