Foreign Language Effect in moral decision–making: A literature review

Research has shown that decision–making outcomes can depend on the language in which a problem is presented to the reader, a phenomenon known as the foreign language effect. Although this is a relatively new area of research, it is rapidly growing. The effect has been documented across various domains including cognitive biases, risk perception and moral judgment, as well as real behavior such as lying. This review focuses on the moral foreign language effect, which is manifested as more lenient moral evaluations or less severe condemnation of moral transgressions when judgments are made in a foreign language rather than in one’s native language. First, the moral foreign–language effect is described, and its proposed underlying mechanisms are compared. Then, the limits of the effect are discussed and recommendations for future research are offered.