Are people really less moral in their foreign language? Proficiency and comprehension matter for the moral foreign language effect in Russian speakers.

ABSTRACT: Previous work has demonstrated that people are more willing to sacrifice one person to save five in a foreign language (FL) than in their native tongue. This may be due to the FL either reducing concerns about sacrificial harm (deontological inclinations) or increasing concerns about overall outcomes (utilitarian inclinations). Moreover, proficiency in a foreign language (FL) may moderate results. To test these possibilities, we investigated the moral foreign language effect (MFLE) in a novel sample of Russian L1/English FL speakers. We employed process dissociation (PD)-a technique that independently assesses concerns about rejecting harm and maximizing outcomes in sacrificial dilemmas, and we assessed measures of objective and subjective foreign language proficiency and of dilemma compre

SUBMITTER: Kirova A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10332622 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature