Foreign Language Effects on Creativity, Cheating and Cooperation

A large share of the world’s population uses foreign languages on a regular basis. Recent research has identified possible impacts of foreign language use on behavior. Using a foreign language may lead to less severe and less confident moral judgments. It may have a debiasing effect on loss aversion, ambiguity aversion and risk aversion, and may reduce violations of the independence axiom in expected utility theory. Moreover, freeriding behavior may increase with foreign language use and emotional resonance may be weakened. The dissertation contributes to the research on foreign language effects, focusing on important aspects of innovation. A first hypothesis states that foreign language use negatively influences creative per­ formance. Secondly, we postulate that foreign language use leads to an increase in cheating. Finally, we test the hypothesis that foreign language use decreases cooperative behavior. Our hypotheses are tested in a series of experiments with 469 language students at seven universities in Germany, the US and France. Participants process the experiments either in their mother tongue (control) or in a foreign language (treatment). A pairing of languages allows to distinguish between language­specific or cultural effects on the one hand, and a foreign language effect on the other hand. Complimentary online experiments with subjects in Germany, the US and France are conducted to rate creative performance. Additional details are provided in the project description on “The Impact of Language on Creativity, Cheating and Collaboration”, see C II 1.19, p. 281 of this report. As part of this project, a novel mobile laboratory was designed, tested and built. The mobile lab accommodates up to 24 participants with tablet devices, testing dividers, and its own mobile server infrastructure. It is versatile, independent of Internet connections, and fits in a small car. Session control and live monitoring from any device with a web browser are possible. The mobile lab complements the existing econlab infrastructure and is available for future projects.