Is There a Foreign Accent Effect on Moral Judgment?

Susanne Brouwer,Alice Foucart

doi:10.3390/brainsci11121631

Abstract

Recent studies have shown that people make more utilitarian decisions when dealing with a moral dilemma in a foreign language than in their native language. Emotion, cognitive load, and psychological distance have been put forward as explanations for this foreign language effect. The question that arises is whether a similar effect would be observed when processing a dilemma in one’s own language but spoken by a foreign-accented speaker. Indeed, foreign-accented speech has been shown to modulate emotion processing, to disrupt processing fluency and to increase psychological distance due to social categorisation. We tested this hypothesis by presenting 435 participants with two moral dilemmas, the trolley dilemma and the footbridge dilemma online, either in a native accent or a foreign accent. In Experiment 1, 184 native Spanish speakers listened to the dilemmas in Spanish recorded by a native speaker, a British English or a Cameroonian native speaker. In Experiment 2, 251 Dutch native speakers listened to the dilemmas in Dutch in their native accent, in a British English, a Turkish, or in a French accent. Results showed an increase in utilitarian decisions for the Cameroonian- and French-accented speech compared to the Spanish or Dutch native accent, respectively. When collapsing all the speakers from the two experiments, a similar increase in the foreign accent condition compared with the native accent condition was observed. This study is the first demonstration of a foreign accent effect on moral judgements, and despite the variability in the effect across accents, the findings suggest that a foreign accent, like a foreign language, is a linguistic context that modulates (neuro)cognitive mechanisms, and consequently, impacts our behaviour. More research is needed to follow up on this exploratory study and to understand the influence of factors such as emotion reduction, cognitive load, psychological distance, and speaker’s idiosyncratic features on moral judgments.

Highlights

Recent studies have shown that the use of a foreign language modifies our decisions.For instance, when people are asked whether they would kill one person to save five, they are more likely to answer positively when asked in a foreign language than in their native language (e.g., [1,2])
This study is the first demonstration of a foreign accent effect on moral judgements, and despite the variability in the effect across accents, the findings suggest that a foreign accent, like a foreign language, is a linguistic context that modulatescognitive mechanisms, and impacts our behaviour
The origin of this foreign language effect (FLe) is still unclear, but the factors that have been put forward to explain it are a reduction in emotion, an increase in cognitive load, and psychological distance provoked by a foreign language [3]

Summary

Introduction

Recent studies have shown that the use of a foreign language modifies our decisions.For instance, when people are asked whether they would kill one person to save five, they are more likely to answer positively when asked in a foreign language than in their native language (e.g., [1,2]). The question that arises is whether our decisions would be affected if these mechanisms were modulated by other conditions To address this question, we investigated whether moral judgements are modified by another linguistic context that affects emotion, cognitive load and psychological distance: foreign-accented speech. We investigated whether moral judgements are modified by another linguistic context that affects emotion, cognitive load and psychological distance: foreign-accented speech This question is relevant in a globalised world, in which more and more people speak one or multiple foreign languages in addition to their native language. We did not manipulate the language of presentation but the accent, native versus foreign, and we presented the dilemmas not in written but in auditory form [8,9,10]

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