The authors ran additional experiments using a paradigm called loss aversion, another case where emotion can influence decision making. People are reluctant to accept bets that involve a chance of losing money, even if the odds are in the favor of winning, such as a 50 percent chance of winning $12 vs. losing $10. Keysar and colleagues found that, regardless of whether the bilinguals played with hypothetical money or real cash that could be kept after the experiment ended, bilinguals accepted the positive bets more often when they played using their foreign language and more often resisted betting when using their native language. This confirmed the finding of being reasoning more logically when using a foreign language.
Language has been traditionally viewed as a vehicle for communicating information (indeed, Chomsky famously characterized language as a mental algebra). Researchers have assumed that, as along as people are proficient enough, then how they respond will not be affected by the language they are using. It is now becoming better appreciated that people answer surveys differently depending on the language. For example, Chinese international students studying in North America agreed with traditional Chinese values more when answering a survey in Chinese; they had higher self-esteem scores when completing a self-esteem questionnaire in English. The full extent of these effects of languages on responses are still being investigated.
Like the other emotional-language effects discussed above, Keysar's study on how language influences decision making are laboratory effects. Is this what happens outside the lab? Psychologists are increasingly advising foreigners in the US to seek psychotherapy with a bilingual counselor, and, to minimize missing nuances or emotional implications, to avoid conducting life-or-death conversations in a foreign language, such as a serious talk with a doctor, taking a polygraph test, or undergoing police interrogation. But in the decision making case studied by the Chicago team, use of a foreign language led to more logical and better decisions. Does this imply that bilinguals should routinely seek to use their foreign languages when making decisions? Should they buy a house or plan their retirement using a foreign language? An ethnographic approach could analyze cases where individuals end up using their native or a foreign language to conduct business. A wide range of laboratory and/or field experiments should be conducted in order to determine if the elimination of framing effects is a cute laboratory finding or something that may influence real life.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psychology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to write about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas.
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Add CommentPlus ou moins d'accord car j'ai déjà souvent remarqué qu'écrire ou penser en anglais me faisait voir les choses différement de ce que je pensais en français. Ce qui prouverait aussi une autre observation, que les Anglais et surtout les Américains US caucasiens ont une vue étrangement limitée de certaines choses justement parce qu'ils sont monolingues. Par contre, quand je me fâche, la langue utilisée dépend du contexte. Par exemple, quand je fais une bêtise dans un contexte anglais, j'ai tendance à utiliser des insultes anglaises alors que si la même chose se fait en français je deviens très primitif en français. N'empêche que ma langue favorite pour les insultes est l'Anglais, mais je crois que ceci est surtout, ou en tout cas aussi, dû au fait que l'Anglais se prête tellement parfaitement pour toutes sortes d'insultes fracassantes. Par exemple, dire "baise-toi" est au meilleur des cas rigolo alors que son équivalent anglais est clair et net et d'une musicalité métal-hurlant incomparable. Bon, c'est pas tout, faut que je me grouille, il est midi et une côte à l'os m'appelle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Psychologists are increasingly advising foreigners in the US ... to avoid conducting life-or-death conversations in a foreign language, such as ... undergoing police interrogation."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo if you're an illegal alien, chances are most psychologists would recommend you not talk to the police; a professional doctor's proscription.
jctyler said "More or less agree because I have often noticed that writing or thinking in English made me see things differently than what I thought in French. Which proves also another observation, that the English and especially the U.S. Caucasian Americans have a strangely limited view of things precisely because they are monolingual. By cons, when I am angry, the language used depends on the context. For example, when I do something stupid in an English context, I tend to use English insults whereas if the same thing is in French I get very primitive in French. Nevertheless, my favorite language for slurs is English, but I think this is mainly, or at least too, because the English lends itself so perfectly to all kinds of insults sensational. For example, say "fuck you" is the best case funny while its English counterpart is crystal clear and a metal-screaming incomparable musicality. Well, it's not all, I have to swarm, it is midday and-bone calls me." Swarm away, dude! Thank you Google Translate....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, I think part of the problem is that different languages divide up the human experience differently. It is difficult to emotionally connect to another language when you know that the word does not mean exactly the same thing as it means in you native tongue. My native tongue is English but I also speak Spanish thanks to living in Puerto Rico for 40 years. Some words that apparently translate exact evoke the same emotion for me while other expressions do not. For example, "te amo" translates directly to "I love you" but the equivalent "te quiero" means "I love you" but literally translates to "I want you". It does not have the same emotional impact for me because my mind is still translating on the fly and "sees" the literal translation before it "sees" the emotional translation.
However, the fact that languages do divide the world up differently means that I have the ability to perceive the world more richly than if I knew just one language. There are things that can be better expressed in Spanish than in English and vice-versa. That means there are expressions in Spanish that can invoke an emotional response where the English version does not. Go figure....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<I think part of the problem is that different languages divide up the human experience differently>
Fully agree. Which I am tempted to sum up as the difference between a "côte à l'os", an "ossobucco" and a "bone rib" (marrowbone).
<Google Translate....>
... will definitely miss the ridicule in "baise-toi"*. And an insult's "musicalité métal-hurlant" (heavy-metal musicality) is simply beyond it. But as long as one sticks to standard language it has become a great tool.
Every kid should learn two languages.
That was an OK translation by Google translate. It rates a C, maybe a C+.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI use both English and Cantonese. I switch languages frequently, even in mid sentence, to use whichever language I find more appropriate to my thought processes. So how would you discover framing effects in somebody like me?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI grew up immersed in Madarin and Suzhouness( a dialect different from Madarin) and I am comfortable dealing with these two languages. I also speak English and French. For me, resoning and responding in Madarin or Suzhouness can be considered as subconscious while speaking English and French takes me a little bit more time for my brain to precess the info I guess. One is the language you grow up with, another is what you learned...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also seem to remember that a main and very interesting difference between Chinese and occidental languages is the consequences from using symbols instead of letters for writing and how this influences how the brain processes information. Which would in part explain why the Chinese use their brains' hemispheres differently in some cases. Some disadvantages in some areas but improved left-right hand/foot management if I remember correctly. Whereas Arabic is another game altogether.
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