Humanitate eta Hezkuntza Zientzien fakultatea, Mondragon Unibertsitatea, 20540 Eskoriatza, Spain.
Centro de Ciencia Cognitiva (C3), Universidad Nebrija, 28015 Madrid, Spain.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 May 27;17(11):3784. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17113784.
Environmental decisions and prosocial behaviors have been shown to be emotionally mediated, and language is at the core of emotions. The language context can alter the way decisions are made, and using a foreign language tends to favor an analytic approach to the decision and reduce its emotional resonance. In the present work, we explored whether or not the strategic use of a native vs. a non-native language could alter the learning of rules that are at the basis of our environmental behavior. To test this, elementary school students carried out a series of tasks that required recycling the employed materials at the end of the session. Children had to put each kind of material used in the corresponding container following basic association rules, resembling the process that they would do at home when recycling. Some students received the whole set of instructions and rules in their native language, while others received them in their foreign language. When the recycling behaviors were compared, results showed that participants who were instructed in their non-native language followed the rules better than their natively instructed peers. These results are discussed in the light of different perspectives, and future directions in the strategic use of language contexts are considered.
环境决策和亲社会行为已被证明受到情绪的影响，而语言是情绪的核心。语言环境可以改变决策的方式，使用外语往往有利于对决策进行分析，减少其情绪共鸣。在本工作中，我们探讨了是否可以战略性地使用母语与非母语来改变我们环境行为的基本规则的学习。为了验证这一点，小学生进行了一系列任务，要求在课程结束时回收使用的材料。孩子们必须将使用过的每一种材料按照基本的联想规则放入相应的容器中，类似于他们在家中进行回收时的做法。一些学生用母语接受了整套指令和规则，而另一些学生则用外语接受。当比较回收行为时，结果表明，用非母语接受指导的参与者比用母语接受指导的参与者更遵守规则。这些结果从不同的角度进行了讨论，并考虑了在语言环境的战略性使用方面的未来方向。
