Not all bilinguals are the same: a meta-analysis of the moral foreign language effect

Michelle Stankovic*, Britta Biedermann, Takeshi Hamamura

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

31 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Emerging evidence shows bilinguals employ different decision-making strategies in their foreign language compared to their native language (known as the Foreign Language Effect). When completing moral dilemmas, accumulating research findings indicate that bilinguals are more likely to endorse the utilitarian option. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate whether linguistic variables (proficiency, immersion, and language similarity) moderate utilitarian responding to moral dilemmas in a foreign language. A systematic literature search extracted experiments comparing binary responses to moral dilemmas among bilingual participants. Analyses confirmed a moral Foreign Language Effect within personal dilemmas, though this effect was moderated by self-reported reading proficiency, whereby bilinguals with higher self-reported reading proficiency were less likely to make a utilitarian choice. Our findings suggest that not all bilinguals may experience a Foreign Language Effect, with low self-reported reading proficiency being the most likely indicator of whether their response tendencies to a moral dilemma change in the foreign language.

Original languageEnglish
Article number105082
Pages (from-to)1-13
Number of pages13
JournalBrain and Language
Volume227
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2022
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022

Copyright:
Copyright 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • bilingualism
  • foreign language
  • moral judgement
  • decision-making

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