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Published on: January 29, 2020
Would You Sacrifice Yourself to Save Five Lives? Processing a Foreign Language Increases the Odds of Self-Sacrifice
Carlos Romero-Rivas1, Raúl López-Benítez2, Sara Rodríguez-Cuadrado1
1Department of Evolutive and Educational Psychology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Abstract:
Foreign languages blunt emotional reactions to moral dilemmas. In this study, we aimed at clarifying whether this reduced emotional response applies to the emotions related to the self, empathy, or both. Participants were presented with moral dilemmas, written in their native or foreign language, in which they could sacrifice one man or themselves in order to save five lives (or do nothing and therefore leave five people to die). They were more willing to sacrifice themselves when processing the dilemmas in their foreign language. Also, empathy scores were reduced when responding in the foreign language, but were no reliable predictors of participants' responses to the dilemmas. These results suggest that processing a foreign language reduces emotional reactivity due to psychological and emotional self-distance.
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