Bilinguals on the footbridge: the role of foreign-language proficiency in moral decision making

Federico Teitelbaum Dorfman ^[2] ; Boris Kogan ^[3] ; Pablo Barttfeld ^[1] ; Adolfo M. García ^[4]
1. [1] Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
  
  Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
  
  Argentina
2. [2] Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina
3. [3] Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; National University of Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
4. [4] Universidad de San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina; University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA and Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland; Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile
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Localización: Bilingualism: Language and cognition, ISSN 1366-7289, Vol. 28, Nº 3, 2025, págs. 816-831
Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
- Socio-cognitive research on bilinguals points to a moral foreign-language effect (MFLE), with more utilitarian choices (e.g., sacrificing someone to save more people) for moral dilemmas presented in the second language (L2) relative to the first language. Yet, inconsistent results highlight the influence of subject-level variables, including a critical underexplored factor: L2 proficiency (L2p). Here we provide a systematic review of 57 bilingualism studies on moral dilemmas, showing that L2p rarely modulates responses to impersonal dilemmas, but it does impact personal dilemmas (with MFLEs proving consistent at intermediate L2p levels but unsystematic at high L2p levels). We propose an empirico-theoretical framework to conceptualize such patterns, highlighting the impact of L2p on four affective mediating factors: mental imagery, inhibitory control, prosocial behavior and numerical processing. Finally, we outline core challenges for the field. These insights open new avenues at the crossing of bilingualism and social cognition research.