Abstract

Research findings on whether or not using a foreign language systematically alters people’s decisions by mitigating framing effects, are inconclusive. The bulk of previous research suggests that our decisions are affected by the language they are made in. A more recent study however indicates that this phenomenon might be related to an unexpected switch of language prior to a decision rather than to the use of a foreign language as such. In order to advance the current state of knowledge, the present study assessed the decision preferences of 200 participants. Half of them were subjected to a switch of language right before answering the “Asian disease problem”, the other half was not. A novel feature compared to previous research was to include cognitive measures in our design in order to capture the participants’ language and task switching abilities. In line with the existent literature, where framing was shown to reliably affect people’s decision patterns, our regression analysis suggested a significant main effect of type of frame on the participants’ decision tendencies. Similarly, language of initial instruction appeared to be a significant predictor of the participants’ choices. An unexpected switch of language and the participants’ switching abilities on the other hand could not be corroborated as predictor variables.

摘要

关于是否使用外语通过减轻成帧效应来系统地改变人们的决定的研究结果尚无定论。先前的大量研究表明，我们的决定会受到所用语言的影响。但是，最近的一项研究表明，这种现象可能与做出决定之前语言的意外转换有关，而不是与使用外语有关。因此。为了提高当前的知识水平，本研究评估了200名参与者的决策偏好。在回答“亚洲疾病问题”之前，其中一半人接受了语言转换，另一半则没有。与以前的研究相比，一个新颖的功能是在我们的设计中包括认知措施，以捕获参与者的语言和任务切换能力。与现有的文献相一致，在这些文献中，框架显示出能够可靠地影响人们的决策模式，我们的回归分析表明，框架类型对参与者的决策倾向具有重大的主要影响。同样，初始教学语言似乎是参与者选择的重要预测指标。另一方面，语言的意外切换和参与者的切换能力不能作为预测变量得到证实。