Foreign Language Effects In Economic Decision And Moral Judgments

Generally speaking,individuals use their mother tongue to make decisions or judgments.However,recent studies have found that when the same individual uses different languages to make decisions,the psychological feelings induced by foreign languages were different from those of their mother tongue,and behavioral results were also different,that is so called,the foreign language effect.The economic decision-making behavior in our daily life often involves the decision-making under uncertain conditions and intertemporal choice,and the dilemma of moral judgment is also permeated in all aspects of our life.In the era of economic globalization,using foreign languages is essential to frequent international economic,political and cultural exchanges.However,the impact of foreign language effects on economic decision-making behavior and moral judgment remain uncetain,so it is of great significance to dig into the impact of using foreign languages.The purpose of this paper is to investigate if the use of a foreign languages affects individuals' ecomimic decision-making and moral judgements.The recuited subjects are college students whose mother tongue is Chinese and foreign language is English,and they are randomly assigned into native language group and foreign language group.The two types of experiment both included behavioral experiment and ERP neuroscience experiment.This paper not only examines the differences in the behavioral results of decision-making and judgements between using mother tongue and foreign language,but also provides neurological evidence for cognitive processing by Event-Related Potentials(ERP),so as to finds out the deep cognitive reasons behind the foreign language effect? This paper first tests whether using a foreign language has an impact on the individual's economic decision-making bias through behavioral experiments.The results show that using a foreign language significantly affects the individual's decision-making bias in the related risk decision-making tasks,like frame effect,reflection effect,and Allais paradox,but not in the ambigorous decision-making tasks.In the hyperbolic discount decisionmaking tasks,the use of foreign language has no significant effect on the anxiety level of individuals,but strengthens the reversal of time preference.Then this paper also tests whether foreign language affects individuals' moral judgment through behavioral experiments.The results show that in the task of tram dilemma,the foreign language group shows a significant tendency of utilitarian judgement.In thosetasks about motivation and results,the evaluation scores of suspicious motivation but positive results are higher,while that of positive motivation but negtive results is lower.In the task related to deception,the proportion of deception in the foreign language group was significantly lower than that in the native language group.Finally,this paper investigated the neurobiological basis of the framing effect,neurobiological difference between deception and honesty,based on the behavioral results,by means of event-related potentials(ERP).The results of frame effect ERP experiments support the analysis of behavioral data that using a foreign language does reduce individual decision bias;also show that components N1,P2,P300,N350 and N400 are related to the decision-making bias.Therefore,it can be inferred that when making risk decision in a foreign language,an individual relies more on controlling process,which costs more cognitive resources and initiates more prudent and precise decisionmaking,thus reducing the decision bias of individuals.The results of deception ERP experiments support the analysis of behavioral data that using a foreign language will reduce the tendency of individuals to cheat;also show that components N2,P300,N350,N400 and N500 are related to the effect of foreign language on deception.Therefore,this paper speculates that the immoral selfish behavior caused by interest temptation is an intuitive and emotional response,and using native language is in a more familiar context.So individuals make decisions more quickly and impulsively,which leads to more cheating of this immoral behavior.Using foreign language makes individuals shift from intuitive processing to controlling processing.This paper found that the use of a foreign language does affect individuals' decisionmaking bias and moral judgment,mainly due to the differences in the cognitive processes.The conclusions of this study provide useful and valid evidences for further understanding of the relationship between language,decision-making and brain mechanism.Today's globalization trend is irreversible.Our daily life,consumption behavior abroad,and companys' international business activities may be affected by the use of foreign languages.Therefore,it is of great significance to investigate the existence of foreign language effects in different languages,and to understand the mechanisms behind communication and decision-making in foreign languages on economic decision-making and moral dilemma.