Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology ( IF 2.577 ) Pub Date : 2021-07-26 , DOI: 10.1177/00220221211033987 Elyas Barabadi 1 , Mohsen Rahmani Tabar 1 , James R. Booth 2
Utilitarian judgments maximize benefit for the most people, whereas deontological judgments are based on moral norms. Previous work shows that people tend to make more utilitarian judgments in their second compared to their native language, whereas higher religiosity is associated with more deontological judgments. However, it is not known whether the effect of language context is moderated by the religiosity of the individual. We hypothesized that more religious participants from all three languages would favor deontological choices irrespective of language context. In order to investigate this, we studied native speakers of Persian who either had Arabic or English as their second language, and all participants were given a standard measure of religiosity. Decision making was measured by the classic trolley trilemma in which a participant could “push” a person to save the lives of more people which is considered a utilitarian judgment. Alternatively, they could “switch” a track to save the lives of more people (“indirect”), or do nothing (“inaction”), both of which are considered deontological. Consistent with the literature showing more utilitarian judgments in the second language, English participants preferred the push option, whereas Persian participants favored the inaction option. L2 Arabic participants more often chose the indirect option. However, participants’ religiosity moderated this effect of language context. Although L2 Arabic participants’ choices were not influenced by religiosity, higher religiosity in the L2 English and L1 Persian groups was associated with more deontological choices.
中文翻译:
语言语境和宗教信仰与三难判断的关系
功利主义的判断使大多数人的利益最大化,而义务论的判断则基于道德规范。先前的研究表明,与母语相比,人们倾向于在第二次使用时做出更多功利主义的判断,而更高的宗教信仰与更多的道义判断相关。然而,尚不清楚语言语境的影响是否受到个人宗教信仰的调节。我们假设,无论语言背景如何,来自所有三种语言的更多宗教参与者都会支持道义论的选择。为了对此进行调查,我们研究了以阿拉伯语或英语作为第二语言的波斯语母语者,并为所有参与者提供了宗教信仰的标准衡量标准。决策是通过经典的手推车三难困境来衡量的,参与者可以“推动”一个人拯救更多人的生命,这被认为是功利主义的判断。或者,他们可以“切换”一条轨道以挽救更多人的生命(“间接”),或者什么都不做(“不作为”),这两者都被认为是义务论。与显示第二语言更多功利判断的文献一致,英语参与者更喜欢推动选项,而波斯参与者则喜欢不作为选项。L2 阿拉伯语参与者更常选择间接选项。然而,参与者的宗教信仰缓和了语言环境的这种影响。尽管 L2 阿拉伯语参与者的选择不受宗教信仰的影响,