Switching codes and shifting morals: how code-switching and emotion affect moral judgment

ABSTRACT

The present study expands the literature on the Foreign Language Effect by investigating differences in moral judgment for 280 English-Spanish late bilinguals when processing the button and bridge moral scenarios of the canonical trolley dilemma (Thomson, 1985) in an online questionnaire in either a native (NL), foreign (FL), or code-switched (CS) language environment. The study furthermore examines the effects of emotion on moral standards across these three language contexts, analysing self-reports of individuals’ emotions following their moral decisions. Overall, moral judgments in the CS and NL conditions patterned similarly for both dilemmas, while, in line with previous studies, the FL condition elicited an increased percentage of utilitarian decisions in the high-conflict bridge scenario. Unique emotions did not vary significantly across language contexts in either scenario, and no reduction in emotion was seen in participants’ FL. However, an interaction between language condition and emotion in the high-conflict dilemma suggests that the ratio and relative ranking of various emotions, and not just the degree of emotionality, may have an influence on moral evaluations. The present study elucidates the previously neglected variable of moral decision processing in the context of code-switching and discusses cognitive and emotional explanations for the Foreign Language Effect.

KEYWORDS:

• decision making
• emotion
• code-switching
• bilingualism
• Foreign Language Effect

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all of the instructors who shared the online link with their students and all of the participants who took place in the study. I am also eternally grateful to Dr. Lourdes Ortega for her support and invaluable feedback and to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).