System disruptions
We are currently experiencing disruptions on the search portals due to high traffic. We are working to resolve the issue, you may temporarily encounter an error message.
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Testing the Foreign Language Effect on Cognitive Reflection in Older Adults
Luleå University of Technology, Department of Health, Education and Technology, Health, Medicine and Rehabilitation.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2511-1631
Department of Psychology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4040-5657
Luleå University of Technology, Department of Health, Education and Technology, Health, Medicine and Rehabilitation.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2709-9966
Luleå University of Technology, Department of Health, Education and Technology, Health, Medicine and Rehabilitation.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5546-3270
2021 (English)In: Brain Sciences, E-ISSN 2076-3425, Vol. 11, no 11, article id 1527Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

An increasing number of people around the world communicate in more than one language, resulting in them having to make decisions in a foreign language on a daily basis. Interestingly, a burgeoning body of literature suggests that people’s decision-making is affected by whether they are reasoning in their native language (NL) or their foreign language (FL). According to the foreign language effect (FLe), people are less susceptible to bias in many decision-making tasks and more likely to display utilitarian cost-benefit analysis in moral decision-making when reasoning in a FL. While these differences have often been attributed to a reduced emotionality in the FL, an emerging body of literature has started to test the extent to which these could be attributable to increased deliberation in the FL. The present study tests whether increased deliberation leads to a FLe on cognitive reflection in a population of older adults (Mage = 65.1), from the successful aging project in Umeå, Sweden. We explored whether performance on a 6-item version of the cognitive reflection test (CRT) adapted to Swedish would differ between participants for whom Swedish was their NL and those for whom Swedish was their FL. The CRT is a task designed to elicit an incorrect, intuitive answer. In order to override the intuitive answer, one requires engaging in deliberative, analytical thinking to determine the correct answer. Therefore, we hypothesized that if thinking in a FL increases deliberation, then those performing the task in their FL would exhibit higher accuracy rates than those performing in their NL. Our results showed that age and level of education predicted performance on the task but performance on the CRT did not differ between the NL and the FL groups. In addition, in the FL group, proficiency in the FL was not related to performance in the CRT. Our results, therefore, do not provide evidence that thinking in a FL increases deliberation in a group of older adults performing a logical reasoning task that is not typically associated with an emotional connotation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
MDPI, 2021. Vol. 11, no 11, article id 1527
Keywords [en]
foreign language effect, bilingualism, multilingualism, aging, older adulthood, decision-making, reasoning
National Category
Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)
Research subject
Engineering Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-88107DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11111527ISI: 000725335200001PubMedID: 34827525Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85119921067OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ltu-88107DiVA, id: diva2:1615396
Funder
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, KAW 2014.0205
Note

Validerad;2021;Nivå 2;2021-12-01 (johcin)

Available from: 2021-11-30 Created: 2021-11-30 Last updated: 2024-07-04Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textPubMedScopus

Authority records

Vega-Mendoza, MarianaEriksson Sörman, DanielLjungberg, Jessica K.

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Vega-Mendoza, MarianaHansson, PatrikEriksson Sörman, DanielLjungberg, Jessica K.
By organisation
Health, Medicine and Rehabilitation
In the same journal
Brain Sciences
Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
pubmed
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
pubmed
urn-nbn
Total: 76 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf