“HOW FOREIGN LANGUAGE SHAPES MORAL JUDGMENT”

2015. J.Geipel, C.Hadjichristidis and L.Surian

Presented by: Marianne Craman and Martina Ondei

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Foreign language

&Native

language

Moral judgme

nt

whether

how

KEYWORDS:

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BACKGROUND…1980s. Several languages shouldn’t change moral judgment. (Tversky, Kahneman, ’81; Arrow, ‘82)

2000s. Foreign languages influence moral judgment. (Dewaele, 2004; Pavlenko, 2004; Caldwell-Harris, 2014)

Trolley dilemma & Footbridge dilemma (from Foot, 1978 to Cipolletti 2015)

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TWO COMPETING HYPOTHESESPrevious studies bring to this two hypotesis:

1.Controlled-processing hypotesis: muted intuition could make the moral machinery switch from the default automatic mode and this make focusing the attention to the harmless consequences.

2.Automatic-processing hypotesis: moral machinery might remain on the automatic mode, but nevertheless muted inuition would promote less harsh moral judgment because of reduction of accessibility of social rules.

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PREVIOUS STUDIES LIMITATIONS: 1.They concern contrived cases;

2.They involve a numerical tradeoff (one vs five);

3.There in no empirical support to discover if language has a cooling effect on emotion or the cooling effect prompt controlled reasoning;

4.In-group vs out-group interpretation

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To exceed these limitations, the researchers take three studys…

STUDY 1The researchers examined reading moral trasgression in a foreign versus a native

language influences moral wrongness judgments.

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PARTECIPANTS1a 48 german students (18-70 years)

◦27 foreign language condition (english)

◦21 native language condition.

1b 64 italian students (18-24 years)• 36 foreign language condition (english)• 28 native language condition.

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METHODS AND SCENARIOSThe partecipants were submitted to four scenarios:◦Dog (Frank eat his death dog)◦Incest (brother and sister )◦Exam (a student copies during an exam)◦Flag ( a woman cut national flag)

Partecipants were asked to judge the wrongness of each action on a scale ranging from 0 to 9.

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RESULTS 1aThe scenarios were judged less harshly in the

foreign language then in the native language.

There was also a significant main effect of

scenario.

The dog and the incest scenarios were value

significantly main wrong.

There was no language x scenario interaction.

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1b

◦As in study 1a, the scenarios were judged less harshly when presented in the foreign language.

◦There was also a significant main effect of scenario.

◦The dog, the incest and the exam scenario were value significantly main wrong then flag scenario.

◦There was no language x scenario interaction.

RESULTS

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CONCLUSIONS

The studies 1a and 1b show that foreign language effect on moral judgment generalizes to private violations that are offensive but involve relatively harmless consequences.

The use of a foreign language promoted less harsh moral

judgements.

STUDY 2The researchers presented a new

sample of late Italian-English bilinguals with the same four scenarios to rate their emotional reaction and moral

judgments.

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Late italian-english bilinguals

78 partecipants (20-38 years)

◦42 foreign language condition (english)

◦36 native language condition (italian)

PARTECIPANTS

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Following the same four scenarios (dog, incest, exam and flag), partecipants judged the wrongness of the action that was depicted in it.

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Partecipants have to rate on a 5-points scale how many upset, worried, disgusted, sad and angry they felt reading each scenarios.

METHODS AND SCENARIOS

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• There wasn’t main effect of language

• There was a main effect of scenario.

• There was a significant language x scenario interaction. Foreign language attenuated emotion in dog and incest scenarios but not in exam and flag scenario.

RESULTS: EMOTION RATINGS

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RESULTS: MORAL JUDGEMENTS

• Researches predicted foreign language would promote less harsh moral judgement BUT only for dog and incest scenarios.

• The findings were consistent with this prediction. (dog and incest scenario in foreign language promoted less harsh moral judgement then in native language.)

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CONCLUSIONS• Influences moral judgment by attenuating emotions.

• Contrary to controlled-processing hypotheses there is correlation between moral judgement and emotional ratings in foreign and native language conditions. Coherently with automatic-processing hypothesis in both language condition moral judgement and emotional ratings are significantly correlated.

foreign

lenguage

attenuating

emotions

moral judgme

nt

STUDY 3The researchers examined whether foreign language influces moral judgement through purity violation.

A second aim of this study was to provide evidence to distingish between controlled vs automatic-processing

hypotesis.

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PARTECIPANTS74 italian students (18-30 years):◦37 foreign language condition (German)◦37 native language condition (Italian)

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1 The partecipants were submitted to six scenarios:1. Purity violation

◦ dog◦ incest

2. Fairness violation ◦ exam◦ bonus (two workers & equal bonus)

3. Non-moral scenarios ◦ brand ( Marco & generic brand

medicine)◦ train ( eurostar vs regionl train)

METHODS AND SCENARIOS2 The partecipants recived two tasks:

1. Moral judgement task2. Emotion-rating task

How sure are you in your evaluation? ( 1 to 7)

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METHODS AND SCENARIOS3 The partecipants recieved:◦ the Moses illusion task:

“how many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?”

◦subscale of the identification with all humanity scale.

4 Partecipants were asked:“ how close do you feel to each of the following groups? • People in my community• Italians• People around the world”

5 Partecipants evaluated 15 violation of everyday moral and norms.Es: Fail to keep minor promises; drive after having one drink

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RESULTS◦Both moral judgement task and emotion-rating task confirm scenarios effect on moral judgement. Morover emotional rating task show a marginally significant main effect of purity violation, because of the dog scenario in foreign language attenuated emotion.

◦If foreign language promotes analytics reasoning, as the controlled–processing hypothesis claims, then it should increase the frequency of correct responses in this task. It did not.

How sure are you in your evaluation? The results confirmed the automatic processing hypothesis.

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RESULTS◦No effects were found by identification with all humanity scale.

◦In everyday violations moral and social norms the researchers found less harsh moral judgement in foreign language then in the native language. (13 to 15)

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CONCLUSIONS

The third study support resoundingly the automatic-processing hypothesis more then controlled processing hypothesis.

Furthermore this study views the non-existence of in-group/out-group effect in moral judgement.

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GENERAL CONCLUSION◦The present research extends the foreign language effect to harmless-but-offensive actions but also to relatively harmfull and harmless violations of everyday social norms.

◦The final verdict might be in the theoretical arena, studying how foreign language influences moral judgement is of applied interest, as international public policy involves communicating and processing materials in a foreign language before taking decision that impact on the population of many countries.

THE ENDThanks for the attention

Corso di laurea in Teoria e Tecnologia della comunicazione

Corso di Cognizione e linguaggio