A study published in the journal Brain Sciences reveals that people tend to make more rational decisions when responding to moral dilemmas presented in a foreign accent.
Published on 10 December, the article ‘Is There a Foreign Accent Effect on Moral Judgment?’ presents research carried out by linguists Susanne Brouwer of Radboud University in the Netherlands and Alice Foucart of Nebrija University in Spain.
The study builds on earlier research showing that people make more utilitarian decisions when dealing with a moral dilemma in a foreign language than in their native language. A response is considered utilitarian, or rational, when a choice is made to sacrifice one life to save many.
The researchers wondered whether the same effect would be observed when processing dilemmas presented in one’s own language but by a foreign-accented speaker.
Participants were presented with the ‘trolley’ and ‘footbridge’ problems. In both, a train has malfunctioned and is hurtling towards five people who will die if no action is taken. In the trolley example, participants have the choice of diverting the train to another track where one man is working. In the footbridge version, participants can choose to push a man onto the track, stopping the train. In both scenarios, one person will die if the action is taken.
Despite some variability depending on the accent, the study found that participants were more likely to take action when presented with the dilemma in a foreign accent.
Although the study was not designed to find causal explanations for the ‘foreign accent effect’ on moral decision-making, it does speculate, based on prior research, that it has something to do with factors such as ‘a reduction in emotion, an increase in cognitive load, and psychological distance’, provoked by a foreign accent.
The study ‘is the first demonstration of a foreign accent effect on moral judgments’ and although more research is needed to fully account for the role that accents play, the study leaves little doubt that ‘a foreign accent, like a foreign language, is a linguistic context that modulates (neuro)cognitive mechanism, and consequently, impacts our behaviour’.