“Selling” Value: The Influence of Language on Willingness-to-Accept

In behavioral economics, the “endowment effect” describes the robust finding that prices people are willing to accept (WTA) for a good exceed prices people are willing to pay (WTP) for the same good. The increase in WTA values is often explained by the sellers’ negative hedonic response to losing their item. Recent studies, however, show that subtle cues may change participants’ perspective, influencing their valuations. We hypothesized that implicit connotations of instructional language may be one of those cues. To test this hypothesis we manipulated the wording of instructions in two conditions: in the Sell condition, subjects were endowed with a set of pens and asked to select an amount of money for which they would sell the pens back and in the Take condition, subjects were endowed with the pens and asked to select an amount of money they would take for the pens. Participants in each condition also estimated the market value of the pens. Consistent with our hypothesis, WTA in the Sell condition was higher than in the Take condition, though there were no differences in market values between conditions. These findings show that instructional language does influence participant valuations. Furthermore, we suggest that those being asked to “sell” use their market estimations as the salient reference point in the transaction.