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

TL;DR

This research investigates whether individuals describing decision problems exploit loaded language to influence outcomes in their favor, revealing that some do choose descriptions that benefit themselves, especially among certain demographics.

Contribution

The study provides empirical evidence that people can exploit loaded language in decision descriptions to benefit themselves, highlighting a new aspect of strategic communication.

Findings

Some recipients choose instructions that increase their payoff

People who choose beneficial descriptions believe they will receive higher payoffs

Receivers are more likely than dictators to select self-beneficial descriptions

Abstract

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, among six different instructions that are 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 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.