Breaking magic: Foreign language suppresses superstition

Abstract

In three studies we found that reading information in a foreign language can suppress common superstitious beliefs. Participants read scenarios either in their native or a foreign language. In each scenario, participants were asked to imagine performing an action (e.g., submitting a job application) under a superstitious circumstance (e.g., broken mirror; four-leaf clover) and to rate how they would feel. Overall, foreign language prompted less negative feelings towards bad-luck scenarios, less positive feelings towards good-luck scenarios, while it exerted no influence on non-superstitious, control scenarios. We attribute these findings to language-dependent memory. Superstitious beliefs are typically acquired and used in contexts involving the native language. As a result, the native language evokes them more forcefully than a foreign language.

The effect of readability and language choice in management accounting reports on risk-taking: an experimental study

“…The foreign language effect constitutes a positive effect of foreign language use on the promotion of rational decisions. Extant cognitive-psychological studies demonstrated that people who process information in a foreign language are less superstitious (Hadjichristidis et al 2017a), show higher levels of self-regulation (Klesse et al 2015), and-most importantly for our study-are less loss-and risk-averse (Hadjichristidis et al 2017b).…”

“…However, psychological studies suggest that these emotionality levels are sufficient to elicit foreign language effect. For example, Hadjichristidis et al (2017a) scrutinized superstitious beliefs and indicated a strong foreign language effect for participants in bad-luck scenarios, who provided values below 3 on a 9-point scale for their feelings (Study 2 and 3). Moreover, the foreign language effect emerged in the context of risk-taking without real payments as well (e.g., Study 2 of Keysar et al 2012).…”

Testing Hypersensitive Responses: Ethnic Minorities Are Not More Sensitive to Microaggressions, They Just Experience Them More Frequently

“…Assuming a medium effect size for the hypothesised interaction of microaggressions x minority status on global life satisfaction, and using the following parameters -effect size (f) = .30, α = .05, power = .80 -it was found that 90 participants would be sufficient for adequate power. These power calculations were based on assumptions used in a large volume of research across a variety of disciplines, including social psychology, that reached the similar conclusions concerning the number of participants required to find the hypothesised interaction effect (see, e.g., Dowd et al, 2014;Gothe & McAuley, 2016;Hadjichristidis, Geipel, & Surian, 2017;Mackillop, Goldenson, Kirkpatrick, & Leventhal, 2018;Tipler & Ruscher, 2019).…”

Thinking in a Non-native Language: A New Nudge?

“…Perhaps an understanding of Dual-Process models enriches understanding of these concepts, but we think the main ideas we want to discuss can be covered without layering a third construct in between nudges and the FLE for the purposes of this paper. been shown to reduce superstitious beliefs (Hadjichristidis et al, 2019b). Participants who considered events in their non-native language were less likely to attribute negative feelings to "bad luck" events (e.g., breaking a mirror) and less positive feelings toward "good luck" events (e.g., finding a four-leaf clover).…”