The Power of Language Use on Judgment and Decision-Making
6-9 September 2023
In conjunction with the
23rd Conference of the European Conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology
London, UK | 4-6 January 2023
Organizers:
Description
Language provides information that we use to think, judge, and decide. However, the way we receive information can vary. We might hear information on a podcast or read it on social media. Information might be transmitted in our native language, a regional language, or a foreign language that we know well. In this symposium, we will present cutting-edge research demonstrating how such seemingly unimportant aspects of language can be powerful in shaping how we think, judge, and decide. We will present research demonstrating that the use of a proficient foreign language, as compared to a native language, affects time evaluations of past events and likelihood evaluations of future events (Zeynep Aslan), as well as the acceptability of white and black lies (Eduardo Navarrete). We will also present research demonstrating how the use of different regional languages influences moral decisions (Francesca Peressotti). Furthermore, we will present a natural field experiment showing that displaying product prices using foreign as compared to native numerals can affect sales (Constantinos Hadjichristidis). Finally, we will demonstrate that the modality in which people receive information—spoken or written—can influence their performance on reasoning problems as well as how they evaluate the risk and benefit of novel technologies (Janet Geipel). This research suggests that the way people receive and use language can have important consequences for thinking and decision-making. This can have practical implications for any area in which language is used including medical, judicial, and financial domains..
Past and Future Feel More Distant in a Foreign Language
Zeynep Aslan, University of Chicago, USA (Talk was presented by Boaz Keysar)
In a series of studies conducted with different bilingual populations, we investigated whether operating in a foreign language as compared to native tongue influences perceived distance judgments of individuals about their past and future. We found that when participants recalled and recited their memories in a foreign language, they judged the event to have occurred earlier in the past. This sense of distance induced by foreign language also influenced people's estimates about the future. Participants rated the probability of future positive and negative events as lower when they used a foreign language compared to their native tongue. Overall, our findings show that foreign language can influence our judgments about past and future by inducing a subjective feeling of distance.
OK or not OK to lie? That is a question of language
Eduardo Navarrete, University of Padova, Italy
People’s attitudes regarding lying depend on social interactions, as lies can be either black or white. We examine whether the perception of white and black lies is affected by language context (native vs. foreign). In Experiment 1, eighty-five participants judged scenarios of black and white lies on their acceptability in either Italian (native) or English (foreign) language. The results showed an interaction between the two factors: white lies were more acceptable than black lies, and this difference was attenuated in the foreign language. In Experiment 2, we replicated Experiment 1 with a different set of materials. The results confirmed that a foreign language attenuates the difference between more and less acceptable lies. Overall, these results suggest that a foreign language alters the perception of lies, but its effect differs depending on the type of lies, possibly due to a different combination of emotionality and social norm activation.
Regional Language Effects on Moral Judgment
Francesca Peressotti, University of Padova, Italy
Bilingualism comes in different forms. People may use a foreign language, which they learned in school, less commonly and proficiently than their native language. There are also people born in a region where, together with the national language, a regional language is commonly used by most of the inhabitants for everyday conversations. Even if these two types of bilinguals differ in many respects (i.e., proficiency and age of acquisition), we show that regional languages can influence moral judgements in a similar way as foreign languages do. This convergence of results challenges the explanations proposed in the literature to account for the language effects in moral decisions.
The Numeric Form of Prices Affects Online Sales: A Natural Field Experiment
Constantinos Hadjichristidis, University of Trento, Italy
While in most countries prices are displayed using Western Arabic numerals (e.g., $120), in Iran they are more routinely displayed using Persian numerals (e.g., $١٢۰). We conducted a natural field experiment to explore the effect of the numeric form of price on sales. The experiment was conducted on an Iranian business that sells its products online and in a physical store and displays prices using Western Arabic numerals. In a particular week in 2019, we substituted all online prices with their Persian equivalents, but left those of the physical store unaltered. We found that displaying prices with Persian numerals had a detrimental effect on online orders (-21%) and online sales (-26%). Drawing on literature on foreign language effects, we propose that using the more native Persian numerals might have reduced sales by emphasizing the pain of paying. A prescription for Iranian retailers is to display prices using Western Arabic numerals.
Language Modality Influences Risk Perception
Janet Geipel, University of Exeter, UK
Innovations carry risks and benefits. A new flu medication may be beneficial because it treats symptoms faster, but also risky because it has side effects. Understanding how people judge risks and benefits is important because such assessments influence the willingness to adopt novel technologies. Normatively, risk judgments should be a function of the information content and independent of whether people receive the information in written or spoken form. However, in three studies (N=984), we demonstrate that language modality influences risk and benefit judgments of novel technologies. The technologies were judged as less risky and more beneficial with spoken than written descriptions. This was because spoken descriptions increased positive feelings towards the novel technologies. These findings suggest that language modality can influence how people think and judge, and hence should be considered when conducting and interpreting surveys and when devising communication strategies to promote novel technologies.
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