The effect of language sentiment, readability and information processing style (sophistication) on investors’ judgment: experimental evidence

Quantitative information by itself provides investors with an incomplete picture of afirm’s economic circumstances. Thus firms also provide qualitative and textualdisclosures in addition to quantitative disclosures which have characteristics such aslanguage sentiment and readability that can have impact on investors’ judgment anddecision-making. The goal of this study is to examine whether language sentimentand readability of an earning press release can affect investors’ judgment andwhether this effect is conditional on investors’ information processing style(sophistication). For this purpose a 2 * 2 * 2 between-subject experiment wasconducted with accounting students as participants. ANOVA analysis showed asignificant relationship between investors’ judgment, language sentiment andreadability. Results also indicated that positive language sentiment and lowreadability affect less sophisticated investors who use heuristic informationprocessing style in a positive way and more sophisticated investors who use rationalthinking style in a negative way. Taken together, the results of this study confirmthat there is a need for regulation to ensure protection for unprofessional investorsand also require companies to apply disclosure tone which is in line with firm’soverall performance and increase the readability of qualitative disclosures