What is it about?
Language and personality influence how we make moral decisions, but to what extent? Our study challenges the idea that using a second language leads to less emotional involvement. Instead of language, what influenced moral choices were personality traits associated with psychopathy. Participants with higher scores in meanness were more likely to choose to cause harm to prevent greater harm, regardless of the language or nature of the dilemma. Psychopathic traits also interacted with how participants perceived aspects of the dilemmas, such as how vivid or realistic they seemed.
Featured Image
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Our study indicates that early bilinguals in a dual-language context, using similar Romance languages, don't show the Foreign Language effect described by previous studies (even in early bilinguals of Romance languages). Instead, personality traits like meanness can shape moral decisions, no matter the language or type of dilemma. Understanding these factors gives us valuable insights into the complex world of moral decision-making, allowing us to delve deeper into its study.
Perspectives
Writing this article was a pleasure for me because it brought together one of my PhD research topics –moral decision-making– and my new research lines related with education and development. I am very satisfied with the work done, and I think that the paper could lead to some new lines of research.
Dr. Albert Flexas
Universitat de les Illes Balears
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Meanness trumps language: Lack of foreign language effect in early bilinguals’ moral choices, PLoS ONE, November 2023, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0294523.
You can read the full text:
Resources
This is how bilingualism conditions as you solve your dilemmas (in Catalan)
The press article in catalan "Així condiciona el bilingüisme com resols els teus dilemes" synthetises our results and disseminate them to the general public.
Press note from UIB (Catalan and Spanish)
Press note from the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) entitled "Desviaries un tramvia perquè atropelli una persona per salvar-ne cinc?" (available in Catalan and Spanish).
About moral dilemmas at TEDxUIB (video in Spanish)
Dr. Albert Flexas explains diverse factors of moral dilemmas that contribute to moral choices at TEDxUIB (2020).
Post on I+DEL website
Post about the paper on I+DEL website
Moral judgment reloaded: a moral dilemma validation study
Paper we followed in order to plan a proper procedure for our research.
Contributors
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