Does Language Affect Your Moral Judgment?

[longknife]

I read this article – and wanted to barf! What tripe!

I was fortunate to learn German at one of the premier language institutions in the world. It was not just a case of learning to speak the language but to understand history, traditions, and lifestyles of the country.

I then married a woman from Mexico, and with her help have become quite fluent in Spanish.

One of the secrets to both languages is that when you can dream and think in it, you have reached a level of fluency.

But, does it affect one's view of the world and others?

Not hardly! That comes with how you were raised, by who, and the experience you've gained over the years.

However, judge for yourself. Read the article with all sorts of links @ Thinking in a Foreign Language Could Sway Your Moral Judgments | Science | WIRED

 

[Steven_R]

Wasn't that one of the premises of 1984? That by controlling the language, the Party could change how people think. Eliminate certain words from the lexicon and the ideas associated with the words disappear. Very Bad is eliminated and replaced with Double Plus Ungood which has a different connotation altogether.

Also in Ayn Rand's novella Anthem. There was no term for the singular (I, Me, Mine), only the plural (We, Us, Ours) and as a result the entire concept of an individual was foreign.

 

[Unkotare]

But, does it affect one's view of the world and others?

Not hardly! That comes with how you were raised, by who, and the experience you've gained over the years.

That seems to be a reference to the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis. Pop-culturalists have tried for a long time to turn it into something more dramatic than I suspect it was ever intended to be. It's more an attempt at explaining behavior than a law of the universe.

 

[Unkotare]

One of the secrets to both languages is that when you can dream and think in it, you have reached a level of fluency.

Eh, not so much. That tends to happen after a period of exposure to a language regardless of actual fluency. It's a good signpost for a beginner but shouldn't be read into too deeply.

 

[hoosier88]

It might be that cognitive tasks - the moral judgment and conveying the propositions in a second language - are simply overwhelming the processing capability of each subject. Raising the stakes to human lives isn't helping either.

If the task were phrased in terms of saving broccoli or jelly beans, you wouldn't have as much stress in the subjects, & they might arrive at their conclusions with less sense of impending mayhem. The studies also pointed out that the masking of affect only happened in a second language that wasn't well known by the subject; as the subject's knowledge of the second language approached full fluency, the masking effect diminished.

Very interesting set of studies. It's always good to know how people sort through moral dilemmas - if only to get a feel for what our fellow H. sapiens might be thinking about.