Wait, Did I Do That? The Foreign-Language Effect and Moral Compensatory Mechanisms in Highly Proficient Late Bilinguals
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2019-08-23
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en
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Recent studies have indicated that moral decisions depend on whether the problem is posed in a native language (L1) or a foreign language (L2), see e.g. Costa, Foucart, Hayakawa, et al. (2014). This study aimed to replicate this so-called Foreign-Language Effect (FLE) while also exploring in what way moral decision-making is influenced by previous decisions. Two experiments were conducted, one with highly proficient German-English late bilinguals (N = 119) and another with highly proficient Dutch-English late bilinguals (N = 68). Participants did the experiment in either their L1 or their L2. Participants read two-part moral scenarios and made two consecutive (theoretical) choices of harming one person to spare multiple people (utilitarian action) or vice versa (deontological action) within the same narrative. For both experiments, no influence of language (L1 vs. L2) on initial moral responding was found. Furthermore, results showed that while second choices within a scenario were often identical to first choices (possibly due to sunk-cost effects), switching between the two choices was also robustly observed, suggesting moral compensatory mechanisms (i.e. moral cleansing/licensing). The occurrence of these patterns was not affected by language. Overall, the findings suggest an absence of the FLE for highly proficient speakers. Furthermore, the presence of moral compensatory mechanisms in two-part scenarios reveals a novel approach to understanding moral decision-making.
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