In the new study, two experiments using the well-known "trolley dilemma" tested the hypothesis that when faced with moral choices in a foreign language, people are more likely to respond with a utilitarian approach that is less emotional.
The researchers collected data from people in the U.S., Spain, Korea, France and Israel. Across all populations, more participants selected the utilitarian choice -- to save five by killing one -- when the dilemmas were presented in the foreign language than when they did the problem in their native tongue.
The article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140428120659.htm
The publication:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0094842
Some hypotheses: 1) Words in the foreign language are not tainted with morality. Using more neutral words in the problem description would have a similar effect.
2) The extra time taken to parse the foreign language description forces more time to think about the problem. Saying the problem slowly, or writing with a huge font, would have a similar effect.
3) The distraction of translating has an effect. Giving the subjects an additional task to do would have a similar effect.
Other studies showed an effect of language helping to discriminate between things like two different colors (aided if your language uses different words for them). That seemed like a different thing, perhaps an effect of categories and practice.
Some other ways to tell which of these worlds we're living in ...
... (read more)Test a blunt description ("The trolley will hit the five people and kill them") versus a more verbose one, possibly with extraneous technical detail ("The vehicle, whose mass is N metric tons, will collide with the five individuals with a force of M newtons. Every similar collision on record has resulted in instant fatality.")
Occupy the subjects' working memory by asking them to memorize a phone number or pattern of symbols before the question.
Occupy the subjects' at