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| Discounting Rate and Collective Trust in the “Fictional Entities” of the Existing Monetary System: A Cross-National Survey in China, Italy, UK, and the United States |
| SHEN Si-chu1, KUANG Yi2,3, YANG Shu-wen2,3, MA Jia-tao4, LI Shu2,3,4*, Rao Li-lin2,3* |
| (1 Department of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 350117, China; 2 CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China; 3Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 4Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310007, China) |
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Abstract While the world is undergoing changes unseen in a century, we conduct a cross-national survey in China, Italy, United Kingdom, and the United States to examine the respondents’ intertemporal choices with double-dated mixed outcomes that were expressed by using five major global currencies (U.S. dollar, euro, British pound, Japanese yen, and RMB) and one hard currency “gold.” We found that 1) Chinese people believe that a gap exists in the discounting rate of the five kinds of banknotes, and the order from small to large is: RMB, U.S. dollar, euro, British pound, and Japanese yen, whereas in Europe and the United States, there exists almost no gap in the discounting rate of these five banknotes; 2) The Chinese still believe in the hard currency “gold” (RMB is linked to gold). Meanwhile, the people in Europe, the United States, and other countries no longer trust in the hard currency “gold” (the dollar is decoupled from gold). Researchers can use our findings as behavioral markers to estimate whether these currencies remain as “hard currency” in people’s minds or whether the worldwide crisis will affect our collective trust in banknotes. In the language of Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, we can utilize such a behavioral marker to assessto what extent we still collectively trust in the “fictional entities” of the existing monetary system.
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Published: 13 May 2022
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| Cite this article: |
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SHEN Si-chu,KUANG Yi,YANG Shu-wen, et al. Discounting Rate and Collective Trust in the “Fictional Entities” of the Existing Monetary System: A Cross-National Survey in China, Italy, UK, and the United States[J]. 应用心理学, 2023, 29(1): 3-11.
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| URL: |
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http://www.appliedpsy.cn/EN/Y2023/V29/I1/3 |
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