title: The Foreign Language Effect on Moral Judgment: The Role of Emotions and Norms.
abstract: We investigated whether and why the use of a foreign language influences moral judgment. We studied the trolley and footbridge dilemmas, which propose an action that involves killing one individual to save five. In line with prior work, the use of a foreign language increased the endorsement of such consequentialist actions for the footbridge dilemma, but not for the trolley dilemma. But contrary to recent theorizing, this effect was not driven by an attenuation of emotions. An attenuation of emotions was found in both dilemmas, and it did not mediate the foreign language effect on moral judgment. An examination of additional scenarios revealed that foreign language influenced moral judgment when the proposed action involved a social or moral norm violation. We propose that foreign language influences moral judgment by reducing access to normative knowledge.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Geipel
authors.affiliation: Department of Management and Economics, University of Trento, Trento, Italy; Research Centre for Decision Making, Leeds Business School, Leeds University, Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Constantinos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hadjichristidis
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Surian
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D032882:Comprehension; D003657:Decision Making; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009014:Morals; D055815:Young Adult