The foreign language effect on motivational quotes
According to the 'reduced emotionality hypothesis', we are less emotionally driven when reasoning in a foreign language (FL) than in a native language (NL). We examined whether this foreign language effect (FLe) extends to the way we perceive motivational quotes (i.e., encouraging slogans conveying...
| Authors: | ; ; |
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| Format: | Article |
| Status: | Published version |
| Publication date: | 2023 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya) |
| Repository: | Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:recercat.cat:2445/200381 |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/2445/200381 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Psicolingüística Bilingüisme Motivació (Psicologia) Presa de decisions Psycholinguistics Bilingualism Motivation (Psychology) Decision making |
| Summary: | According to the 'reduced emotionality hypothesis', we are less emotionally driven when reasoning in a foreign language (FL) than in a native language (NL). We examined whether this foreign language effect (FLe) extends to the way we perceive motivational quotes (i.e., encouraging slogans conveying a profound and inspirational message): we expected FL participants to rate motivational quotes as less profound than NL participants. Strikingly, we observed the opposite: FL participants found motivational quotes more profound than NL participants, even after controlling for potential confounders (e.g., IQ, reasoning style). Both FL and NL participants gave similarly low profundity ratings to pseudo-profound bullshit sentences (i.e., meaningless sentences sounding profound), indicating that the message must be meaningful for the FLe to arise. We propose that, like space or time, language could promote psychological distance. This favours a focus on the background of a message to indicate profoundness. |
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