Vaccine hesitancy is a major global challenge facing COVID-19 immunization programs. Its main source is low public trust in the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine. In a preregistered experimental study, we investigated how using a foreign language when communicating COVID-19 vaccine information influences vaccine acceptance. Hong Kong Chinese residents (N = 611) received COVID-19 vaccine information either in their native Chinese or in English. English increased trust in the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine and, as a result, reduced vaccine hesitancy. This indicates that language can impact vaccine attitudes and demonstrate the potential of language interventions for a low cost, actionable strategy to curtail vaccine hesitancy amongst bilingual populations. Language interventions could contribute towards achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of health and well-being.
People have false memories that distort their recollection of past events. Language is an important source of such memories, from providing false inferences to outright misinformation. Here we investigate the impact of using a native or foreign language on bilinguals' susceptibility to false memories. Although language has been argued to impact false memories in multiple ways, our study was inspired by recent work in the decision-making literature, which leads to the novel hypothesis that foreign language encourages people to engage in careful memory monitoring that could reduce false memories. This hypothesis contrasts with a processing load account, which predicts that a foreign language would increase false memories because it is naturally more difficult to process information in a foreign language. We tested these hypotheses using two false memory tasks. Using the DRM task, Experiment 1 found that individuals were more accurate in identifying false memories when using their foreign language compared with their native tongue, consistent with the memory monitoring hypothesis. Using the misinformation task, Experiment 2 found that processing misleading information in one's foreign language eliminated false memories, again supporting the hypothesis that a foreign language increases the use of memory monitoring. These findings support a monitoring hypothesis that has been overlooked in prior studies on bilingualism and false memory, with implications for billions of people who regularly use a foreign language.
Longstanding intergroup conflict is one of the most perilous issues on the global stage, leading to violence, displacement, and loss of life. Finding strategies to bring parties to the negotiation table is therefore of utmost importance for conflict resolution. Here we address a common problem in intergroup conflict - the lack of a shared, native tongue - which is typically solved by using a lingua franca. Three experimental studies revealed that a peace-building proposal presented in a lingua franca is perceived as less favorable to one’s own side than a proposal presented in one’s native tongue. Specifically, our studies demonstrated that the use of a lingua franca elicits higher levels of hatred and lower levels of sympathy, thereby reducing the perceived favorability of the proposal. Broadly, these findings indicate that the seemingly innocuous choice of the language could have serious implications for conflict resolution as well as for international diplomacy.
Culture plays a key role in the long-standing underutilization of professional mental-health services among immigrants and ethnic minorities, especially among Asian communities. Furthermore, language nativeness can modulate the salience of cultural norms. Through a series of four experimental studies ( N = 1,120), we evaluated whether bilingual speakers’ attitudes toward mental-health treatment are affected by whether they are using their native Chinese or foreign English. Overall, participants more strongly endorsed mental-health treatment when information was presented in English. The same outcome was found for participants residing in the United States and mainland China. Consistent with a language-priming-culture hypothesis, participants using Chinese endorsed mental-health treatment less when their affiliation with traditional Asian values was higher, whereas in English their recommendations remained independent of affiliation with traditional Asian values. In sum, these studies reveal the significance of language in culturally anchored mental-health attitudes.
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