Hadjichristidis Constantinos, Geipel Janet, Savadori Lucia
Department of Economics and Management.
Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences.
J Exp Psychol Appl. 2015 Jun;21(2):117-29. doi: 10.1037/xap0000044. Epub 2015 Apr 20.
As a result of globalization, policymakers and citizens are increasingly communicating in foreign languages. This article investigates whether communicating in a foreign language influences lay judgments of risk and benefit regarding specific hazards such as "traveling by airplane," "climate change," and "biotechnology." Merging findings from bilingual and risk perception research, we hypothesized that stimuli described in a foreign language, as opposed to the native tongue, would prompt more positive overall affect and through that induce lower judgments of risk and higher judgments of benefit. Two studies support this foreign language hypothesis. Contrary to recent proposals that foreign language influences judgment by promoting deliberate processing, we show that it can also influence judgment through emotional processing. The present findings carry implications for international policy, such as United Nations decisions on environmental issues.
由于全球化，政策制定者和公民越来越多地使用外语进行交流。本文研究了使用外语交流是否会影响人们对诸如“乘飞机旅行”、“气候变化”和“生物技术”等特定危害的风险和益处的外行判断。结合双语和风险感知研究的结果，我们假设，与母语相比，用外语描述的刺激会引发更积极的总体情感，并由此导致对风险的判断更低，对益处的判断更高。两项研究支持了这一外语假设。与最近提出的外语通过促进深思熟虑的处理来影响判断的观点相反，我们表明它也可以通过情感处理来影响判断。目前的研究结果对国际政策有影响，比如联合国关于环境问题的决策。
