According to the “reduced emotionality hypothesis”, we are less emotionally driven when reasoning in a foreign language (FL) than in a native language (NL). We examined whether this foreign language effect (FLe) extends to the way we perceive motivational quotes (i.e., encouraging slogans conveying a profound and inspirational message): we expected FL participants to rate motivational quotes as less profound than NL participants. Strikingly, we observed the opposite: FL participants found motivational quotes more profound than NL participants, even after controlling for potential confounders (e.g., IQ, reasoning style). Both FL and NL participants gave similarly low profundity ratings to pseudo-profound bullshit sentences (i.e., meaningless sentences sounding profound), indicating that the message must be meaningful for the FLe to arise. We propose that, like space or time, language could promote psychological distance. This favours a focus on the background of a message to indicate profoundness.

根据“减少情绪假说”，我们在使用外语 (FL) 进行推理时比使用母语 (NL) 进行推理时更少受到情绪驱动。我们检查了这种外语效应 (FLe) 是否延伸到我们感知励志名言的方式（即传达深刻和鼓舞人心的信息的鼓励口号）：我们预计 FL 参与者对励志名言的评价不如 NL 参与者深刻。引人注目的是，我们观察到相反的情况：即使在控制了潜在的混杂因素（例如，智商、推理风格）之后，FL 参与者发现动机引语比 NL 参与者更深刻。FL 和 NL 参与者都对伪深刻的废话句子（即无意义的句子听起来很深刻）给出了类似的低深度评级，表明该消息必须对 FLe 的出现有意义。我们认为，就像空间或时间一样，语言可以促进心理距离。这有利于将重点放在消息的背景上以表明其深刻性。