The impact of L2 English on choice perception, interpretation, and preference for L1 Arabic speakers

Abstract

This article compares risk tolerance of native Arabic speakers under two language contexts: their first language (L1 Arabic) and their foreign language (L2 English). We aim to evaluate whether thinking in a foreign language actually reduces the negative effects of cognitive biases, such as loss aversion and mental accounting, on financial decision-making. Toward this aim, we conducted two experiments in which the risk tolerance levels of 144 participants were evaluated across four different types of decision-making problems: the Asian disease problem, the financial crisis problem, the discount problem, and the ticket/money lost problem. In study 1, we adopted Keysar et al.’s (2012, Psychological Science, 23, 661–668) experiment to test the effect of L2 on framing effects associated with loss aversion, and in Study 2, we adopted Costa et al.’s (2014, Cognition, 130, 236–254) experiment to test the effect of L2 on framing effects associated with mental accounting biases. We found that individuals were risk-averse for gains and risk-seeking for losses when presented with choices in their L1, but were almost unaffected by framing manipulation under the L2 condition. When it came to mental accounting, however, framing effects were nearly absent in both L1 and L2 conditions. In our investigation, we examined various potential factors that could explain the foreign language effect on decision-making. The primary factor that appears to account for this linguistic phenomenon is the heightened cognitive and emotional distance experienced when using an L2.