Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore
We study discrimination on the basis of national origin in Singapore by exploring how the group identity discernible in a speaker's accent affects trust. In the trust game, Singaporean Chinese (SGC) senders were asked to listen to audio clips in which responders with either an SGC or a Mainland...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/155610 |
| _version_ | 1811676504642289664 |
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| author | Batsaikhan, Mongoljin He, Tai-Sen Li, Yupeng |
| author2 | School of Social Sciences |
| author_facet | School of Social Sciences Batsaikhan, Mongoljin He, Tai-Sen Li, Yupeng |
| author_sort | Batsaikhan, Mongoljin |
| collection | NTU |
| description | We study discrimination on the basis of national origin in Singapore by exploring how the group identity discernible in a speaker's accent affects trust. In the trust game, Singaporean Chinese (SGC) senders were asked to listen to audio clips in which responders with either an SGC or a Mainland Chinese (MLC) accent read a two-sentence script before the senders decided how much money to send. We also used the strategy method to elicit the senders' beliefs about the trustworthiness of responders with an MLC accent versus those with an SGC accent. Contrary to our expectations and the common perception in Singapore, we found that Singaporean senders tended to place more trust in responders with an MLC accent than in responders with an SGC accent. We explain this difference on the basis of the Singaporean senders' beliefs about trustworthiness: they believed that people with an MLC accent would return more money to senders than would the in-group Singaporean counterparts. To bolster our findings, we confirmed in a separate experiment that the difference in response to the accents was not due to the speech rate or vocal pitch. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:22:32Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/155610 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:22:32Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1556102023-03-05T15:30:51Z Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore Batsaikhan, Mongoljin He, Tai-Sen Li, Yupeng School of Social Sciences Social sciences::General Discrimination Accent We study discrimination on the basis of national origin in Singapore by exploring how the group identity discernible in a speaker's accent affects trust. In the trust game, Singaporean Chinese (SGC) senders were asked to listen to audio clips in which responders with either an SGC or a Mainland Chinese (MLC) accent read a two-sentence script before the senders decided how much money to send. We also used the strategy method to elicit the senders' beliefs about the trustworthiness of responders with an MLC accent versus those with an SGC accent. Contrary to our expectations and the common perception in Singapore, we found that Singaporean senders tended to place more trust in responders with an MLC accent than in responders with an SGC accent. We explain this difference on the basis of the Singaporean senders' beliefs about trustworthiness: they believed that people with an MLC accent would return more money to senders than would the in-group Singaporean counterparts. To bolster our findings, we confirmed in a separate experiment that the difference in response to the accents was not due to the speech rate or vocal pitch. Ministry of Education (MOE) Accepted version He acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Education, Singapore (MOE Academic Research Fund Tier 1 RG57/14 and RG141/19). 2022-03-09T05:03:41Z 2022-03-09T05:03:41Z 2021 Journal Article Batsaikhan, M., He, T. & Li, Y. (2021). Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore. China Economic Review, 70, 101702-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101702 1043-951X https://hdl.handle.net/10356/155610 10.1016/j.chieco.2021.101702 2-s2.0-85115958385 70 101702 en RG57/14 RG141/19 China Economic Review © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. This paper was published in China Economic Review and is made available with permission of Elsevier Inc. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Social sciences::General Discrimination Accent Batsaikhan, Mongoljin He, Tai-Sen Li, Yupeng Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore |
| title | Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore |
| title_full | Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore |
| title_fullStr | Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore |
| title_full_unstemmed | Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore |
| title_short | Accents, group identity, and trust behaviors : evidence from Singapore |
| title_sort | accents group identity and trust behaviors evidence from singapore |
| topic | Social sciences::General Discrimination Accent |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/155610 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT batsaikhanmongoljin accentsgroupidentityandtrustbehaviorsevidencefromsingapore AT hetaisen accentsgroupidentityandtrustbehaviorsevidencefromsingapore AT liyupeng accentsgroupidentityandtrustbehaviorsevidencefromsingapore |