Bilingualism reading group

Speaker: Zoe Schlueter (University of Edinburgh)

Title: Loss aversion bias is affected by L2 proficiency, not by more rational behavior in the L2

Abstract: Research on cognitive reasoning biases has shown that people are predictably irrational in their decision-making (Kahneman 2011). However, some recent work suggests that they are less prone to classic cognitive biases in their second language (L2) than in their first language (L1) (Costa et al. 2014, Keysar et al. 2012). This “foreign language effect” has been argued to show that decision-making heuristics are less dominant in L2 than L1 reasoning and has been attributed to a reduction in the emotionality associated with the L2 (Costa et al. 2014). However, an alternative explanation is that the materials in these experiments are susceptible to multiple interpretations and a decision that is irrational under one interpretation is perfectly rational under another interpretation (as shown in monolinguals by Mandel 2013). Therefore, the difference between L1 and L2 speakers might be due to subtle differences between native and non-native interpretations affected by proficiency. We explore this by examining the effect of proficiency on the loss aversion bias in native Spanish speakers at different levels of English proficiency. While we do not replicate the finding that L2 users in general are “more rational” in their decision making than L1 speakers, we do find that loss aversion bias is affected by proficiency in the L2.