How thinking in a foreign language improves decision-making

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Previous experiments showed that people are unwilling to risk losing a small amount of money for the chance of winning a bigger sum, even if the odds are tipped in their favour.

“It’s consistent and replicable,” says Simone Sulpizio, an associate professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, who conducted a recent meta-analysis examining the evidence to date, though both he and Białek emphasise that we need more research into the mechanisms behind the effect.

Keysar’s latest study, led by his PhD student Leigh Grant, has shown that the foreign language effect can discourage the creation of false memories.

In a follow-up experiment, the team showed participants two clips of robberies from the films The Pink Panther and Rififi, before playing them audio narratives of the same events that contained some false details.

Silvia Purpuri at the University of Trento, Italy has examined “tolerance of ambiguity”, which concerns people’s appreciation of uncertainty, and their willingness to enter unfamiliar situations.

And if you are considering a controversial new environmental policy, you might try to read about it in a foreign newspaper: the research suggests that this may render you more open-minded to the facts at hand and less easily swayed by your immediate gut reaction.

Saved 88% of original text. :::

5 comments

Daily reminder that correlation is not the same thing as causation
- But still interesting
- Reminder that all scientists are extremely aware of the difference between correlation and causation and commenting this on a scientific paper doesn't make you smarter than the researchers
- The paper for the trolly problem has some interesting details. In experiment 2, those who considered themselves worse at the foreign language were more likely to make the utilitarian choice, which indicates that it might just be a matter of proficiency in the language, rather than whether or not it is the participant's primary language.
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Previous experiments showed that people are unwilling to risk losing a small amount of money for the chance of winning a bigger sum, even if the odds are tipped in their favour.
“It’s consistent and replicable,” says Simone Sulpizio, an associate professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, who conducted a recent meta-analysis examining the evidence to date, though both he and Białek emphasise that we need more research into the mechanisms behind the effect.
Keysar’s latest study, led by his PhD student Leigh Grant, has shown that the foreign language effect can discourage the creation of false memories.
In a follow-up experiment, the team showed participants two clips of robberies from the films The Pink Panther and Rififi, before playing them audio narratives of the same events that contained some false details.
Silvia Purpuri at the University of Trento, Italy has examined “tolerance of ambiguity”, which concerns people’s appreciation of uncertainty, and their willingness to enter unfamiliar situations.
And if you are considering a controversial new environmental policy, you might try to read about it in a foreign newspaper: the research suggests that this may render you more open-minded to the facts at hand and less easily swayed by your immediate gut reaction.
Saved 88% of original text. :::