The Foreign Language Effect (FLE) on moral judgment and the role of foreign language proficiency and emotionality.
By Dr Nikki-Maria Christofi
In today’s globalised world, millions of people routinely make important decisions in a language other than their mother tongue. From international policy to medical communication and migrant life, ethical judgments are increasingly shaped through multilingual thought. Yet research shows that when bilingual individuals make decisions in a second or foreign language, their choices often differ from those they would make in their native language. This intriguing shift in judgment is known as the Foreign Language Effect, and it raises a profound question: does thinking in another language make individuals more rational, more utilitarian, and perhaps more emotionally detached?
This research focuses specifically on moral decision-making, an area where bilinguals have repeatedly been shown to make more utilitarian choices (prioritising outcomes that maximise overall benefit, even if it requires difficult moral decision making) in their foreign language. For example, in the well-known “footbridge dilemma,” individuals may be more willing, when using a foreign language, to hypothetically push one person off a bridge to stop an oncoming train and save five others, yet remain unwilling to do so when the same dilemma is presented in their native language. Although this effect has been observed across bilingual populations worldwide, the mechanisms underlying it remain debated.
Two main explanations have been proposed. One suggests that using a foreign language is more mentally demanding, prompting individuals to slow down and think more deliberately. The other proposes that a foreign language feels less emotionally charged, weakening the instinctive gut reactions that typically guide moral judgement.
To address this debate, the research examined both explanations in Greek–English bilinguals, a population that has received relatively little attention in previous studies. Unlike earlier research that mostly compared different groups of bilinguals separately (half in their native and half in their foreign language). This within-participant design provided a more accurate picture of how language itself can shape ethical choices, while avoiding external differences that could arise when comparing different groups of people (e.g., varying personalities or moral values).
The results confirmed a clear Foreign Language Effect: participants were consistently more willing to make utilitarian decisions (choosing the greater good) when presented with dilemmas in their foreign language, English, compared with their native language, Greek.
One might reasonably expect that this effect arises simply because individuals are less proficient or fluent in their second language. However, the findings challenge this common assumption. When foreign-language proficiency and fluency were assessed using rigorous and standardised measures, neither factor influenced the strength of the Foreign Language Effect. Individuals with both high and low levels of English proficiency demonstrated similar patterns of moral decision-making, suggesting that cognitive effort alone cannot fully explain why the Foreign Language Effect emerges.
Rather, this research offers strong evidence for the Reduced Emotionality Hypothesis, which proposes that using a foreign language elicits weaker emotional responses than one’s native language. What emotions, then, truly shape this effect? Emotional responses were carefully measured before and after moral judgement tasks, revealing that while positive emotions were steady across languages, negative emotions such as distress, anxiety, and hostility were significantly weaker in the foreign language. This reduction in negative emotional arousal was directly linked to a greater willingness to make decisions that favour the greater good in English than in Greek. These findings align with previous research that suggests that emotional memories and moral values are more deeply rooted in the native language, whereas using a foreign language creates a degree of psychological distance (a sense of emotional and personal detachment). This emotional dampening allows individuals to consider consequences with greater emotional distance, even when faced with serious moral violations.
Overall, the findings indicate that foreign language proficiency does not appear to drive the Foreign Language Effect. In fact, it is the reduced emotional intensity in the foreign language that seems to play the key role. This challenges earlier assumptions that the effect stems primarily from mental effort or linguistic difficulty.
As multilingual communication could potentially influence decision-making in courts, healthcare settings, immigration procedures, diplomacy, aviation, and international governance, the implications of research on the Foreign Language Effect are profound, as it highlights the need to consider how information is processed and understood across different languages. The language in which choices are framed may influence their outcome, not because people value life differently, but because emotions speak loudest in the mother tongue.
In conclusion, the language we think in does not simply express our moral reasoning, it can possibly reshape it. When a language feels less emotional and less connected to personal identity, people may rely more on calculation than intuition. In a world where critical and life-changing decisions are increasingly made in international and multilingual contexts, recognising the power of the Foreign Language Effect is essential to supporting fairness, understanding, and ethical consistency across cultures.
Dr. Nikki-Maria Christofi holds a PhD in Linguistics from Lancaster University, UK. Her research focuses on the foreign language effect (FLE), examining how the use of a foreign language influences cognitive and emotional processes, including moral reasoning and decision-making. More broadly, her work investigates the interaction between language and cognition, encompassing how individuals process, comprehend, produce, and think in language.
PhD research conducted at the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, UK.
Part of this research was presented at EuroSLA32 Conference.