Foreign Language Effect on Dishonesty

Xiaolan Yang; Li Li; Rui Li

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.633016

Foreign Language Effect on Dishonesty

Front Psychol. 2021 Oct 28:12:633016. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.633016. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Xiaolan Yang^{1

2}, Li Li¹, Rui Li³

Affiliations

¹ School of Business and Management, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.
² Key Laboratory of Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.
³ School of Economics and Finance, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the use of foreign languages affects individuals' dishonesty. We recruited native Chinese speakers who can speak English as a foreign language at universities in China, and they were randomly assigned to a native language (NL) or foreign language (FL) condition. Participants in each condition were required to finish the same tasks, in which they would benefit more from lying; the tasks were administered in either Chinese or English. We conducted one die-roll game in Study 1 and one cheap-talk sender-receiver game in Study 2. In both Study 1 and Study 2, we found that the proportion of lying was significantly lower in the FL condition than in the NL condition. Our results imply that the FL effect on dishonesty may be due to the cognitive load of communicating in a FL.

Keywords: cognitive load; die-rolling task; dishonesty; foreign language; sender-receiver game.