“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.在行为经济学领域，"禀赋效应（endowment effect）"指的是一项稳健的实证发现：人们为一件商品愿意接受的价格（Willingness to Accept，简称WTA），高于其为同一商品愿意支付的价格（Willingness to Pay，简称WTP）。WTA数值的升高通常可通过卖方因失去所持物品产生的负面享乐反应得到解释。然而近期研究表明，细微的情境线索可改变参与者的认知视角，进而影响其估值判断。我们提出假设：指导语所隐含的内涵正是这类线索之一。为验证该假设，我们设置两组实验条件并对指导语措辞进行操控：在"售卖组（Sell condition）"中，被试被赋予一套钢笔，并需选择愿意卖出该套钢笔的金额；在"索取组（Take condition）"中，被试同样被赋予一套钢笔，需选择愿意因出让钢笔而收取的金额。两组被试同时还需估算该套钢笔的市场价值。实验结果与我们的假设一致：售卖组的WTA显著高于索取组，而两组间的钢笔市场估值并无显著差异。本研究结果证实，指导语确实会对被试的估值判断产生影响。此外，我们提出：被要求进行"售卖"的被试会将自身估算的市场价值作为该交易中的显著参考点。