Gendered Language, Economic Behavior and Norm Compliance

Travail, Emploi, Inégalités

Tuesday, December 3, 2024
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LEST, Salle 1

Gendered Language, Economic Behavior and Norm Compliance

Invitée : Karoline Ströhlein (University of Regensburg)

 

We conducted a controlled experiment to investigate how different gender frames in instructions and norm salience affect economic behavior and norm compliance. Our experiment, conducted in German, systematically varied the framing of instructions by using a male, female, or gender-inclusive form and whether a prescriptive norm was introduced. Participants played three standard two-player economic games measuring prosocial behavior, specifically focusing on sharing, cooperation, and honesty. We explored whether participants behaved differently when their self-reported gender matched the grammatical gender used in the experimental instructions.
Overall, we find no strong evidence that a match between the participant's self-reported gender and the norm formulation led to a higher increase in norm compliance compared to the differences in a mismatch or gender-inclusive frame. 
The results show that the framing of instructions had the strongest impact on sharing behavior, particularly among male participants, where a match between the participant's gender and the instructions' gender frame led to a higher increase in norm compliance compared to gender-inclusive formulations. In contrast, we found only mild or no significant differences in cooperation and honesty across treatments. 
Our findings help to shed light on the question if and how gender in language and norm salience shape behavior. These insights are important for organizations and in administrative contexts where we observe an ongoing debate about the usage of gender-fair language.

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