The Effect of Perceived Regional Accents on Individual Economic Behavior: A Lab Experiment on Linguistic Performance, Cognitive Ratings and Economic Decisions

Abstract

Does it matter if you speak with a regional accent? Speaking immediately reveals something of one’s own social and cultural identity, be it consciously or unconsciously. Perceiving accents involves not only reconstructing such imprints but also augmenting them with particular attitudes and stereotypes. Even though we know much about attitudes and stereotypes that are transmitted by, e.g. skin color, names or physical attractiveness, we do not yet have satisfactory answers how accent perception affects human behavior. How do people act in economically relevant contexts when they are confronted with regional accents? This paper reports a laboratory experiment where we address this question. Participants in our experiment conduct cognitive tests where they can choose to either cooperate or compete with a randomly matched male opponent identified only via his rendering of a standardized text in either a regional accent or standard accent. We find a strong connection between the linguistic performance and the cognitive rating of the opponent. When matched with an opponent who speaks the accent of the participant’s home region—the in-group opponent –, individuals tend to cooperate significantly more often. By contrast, they are more likely to compete when matched with an accent speaker from outside their home region, the out-group opponent. Our findings demonstrate, firstly, that the perception of an out-group accent leads not only to social discrimination but also influences economic decisions. Secondly, they suggest that this economic behavior is not necessarily attributable to the perception of a regional accent per se, but rather to the social rating of linguistic distance and the in-group/out-group perception it evokes.

A Short note on Accent–bias, Social Identity and Ethnocentrism

“…Perception of nonnative accent and the discriminatory and inflammatory consequences thereafter are centered around the socially constructed identity of individual listeners. Group affinity based on ethnocentrism is endorsed as individuals with the same accent tend to cooperate more when presented with a common task (Heblich, Lameli & Riener, 2015). On the other end, more competitiveness is observed when an individual is paired with someone of a different accent.…”

“…On the other end, more competitiveness is observed when an individual is paired with someone of a different accent. It seems, the linguistic distance between two accents help form ethnocentric territories and influence listeners' attributes of speakers' accent (Heblich, Lameli & Riener, 2015).…”

Economic effects of differences in dialect

“…While previous studies have shown that cultural barriers lower economic exchange because individuals are less willing to interact with (or move to) culturally unfamiliar environments, a recent experimental study provides evidence that there is also discrimination against speakers of unfamiliar dialects [6]. The authors conducted a laboratory experiment in Germany where participants completed cognitive tests in which they could choose to either cooperate or compete with a randomly matched male opponent identified only via his verbal rendering of a standardized text.…”

Along which identity lines does 21st-century Britain divide? Evidence from Big Brother

“…Dugar and Shahriar, 2012), and between different nationalities (e.g. Carpenter and Cardenas, 2011); discrimination against rural-to-urban migrants in China has been documented (Kuang and Liu, 2012), while Heblich et al (2015) found increased cooperation between Germans who speak the same regional accents. However, I am not aware of any research linking discrimination to geographical region within Britain.…”