The Influence of Different Language Emotional Evaluation on Social Conformity

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240124

Abstract

Abstract: Conformity usually occurs in the interaction between individuals and others. What is often overlooked is whether individual decisions can be influenced by the interlocutor’s language and emotion in the interaction. Bilingualism research has shown that some psychological effects are accompanied by different languages, even when the meaning of a sentence is fully understood. In addition, previous studies have shown that individuals have biases in their emotional perception of different languages, but no study has shown whether such biases further affect individual conformity behaviors. Therefore, in order to compare the conformity effects when people use their first or second language in different emotions, a perceptual discrimination task was employed in this study by manipulating levels of difficulty and ambiguity of stimuli.
In this study, an “Initial judgement - Partner feedback- Re-judgement” paradigm was employed in Experiment 1 and 2. By manipulating context (Chinese, English) and emotional valence (positive-praise, passive-blame), we investigated the cognitive mechanism of emotional evaluation of how difficulty levels and languages affect individual decision making in social conformity. Participants were told they would be going to take part in a dual-person experiment. In Experiment 1, participants would first complete the direction judgment of the random dot motion (RDM) perceptual discrimination task, then they would receive the feedback of word and direction judgement from their so called “partners” either in Chinese or in English, and finally they needed to consider whether to change their previous judgment according to the feedback from their partners. In order to highlight the role of emotional evaluation in different languages, in Experiment 2, the partner direction feedback was removed and only word feedback was retained.
Experiment 1 showed that as the difficulty increases (e.g., uncertainty), the average consistency between the second judgment and the direction feedback was improved. Moreover, the average consistency between the second judgment and the feedback direction under the negative feedback in the first language was higher than that under the negative feedback in the second language. This indicates that compared with the English feedback condition, the Chinese negative feedback not only induced the participants to change their previous judgment, but also tended to be more consistent with their partner's judgment. Experiment 2 also showed that negative feedback in the first language was more likely to induce individuals to change their previous judgment than negative feedback in the second language. This study indicates that different languages influence individual’s conformity behavior by their emotional perceptions.
In summary, language can influence social conformity behavior by influencing individuals' perception of negative emotions. The main findings of this study are that negative feedback in the first language is more likely to induce the subjects to change their previous judgments and exhibit conformity behavior than negative feedback in the second language. And this study supports the Emotion-Reducing Hypothesis about the cognitive inhibition of negative words occurred in foreign languages. Finally, in this experiment, positive emotions are less likely to show differences between native and foreign languages, and future studies should further explore the impact of positive emotions in different languages on social conformity.

Key words: social conformity, language, emotion, uncertainty, bilingual

摘要： 不同语言的情绪感知会引发决策偏差,但目前尚无研究考察这种偏见如何影响社会顺应。本研究采用随机点运动任务,通过“初始判断—同伴反馈—再次判断”的实验程序,探讨不同语言的情绪性评价对社会顺应的影响。结果发现：（1）母语消极反馈比第二语言消极反馈更容易诱使个体改变之前的判断,表现出顺应行为;（2）个体的顺应行为受到任务不确定性的调节。整个研究说明,不同语言的情绪性评价会影响个体的社会顺应行为。

关键词: 社会顺应, 语言, 情绪, 不确定性, 双语者

Jiang Xiaolei, Liu Huanhuan. The Influence of Different Language Emotional Evaluation on Social Conformity[J]. Journal of Psychological Science, 2024, 47(1): 205-210.

蒋小磊, 刘欢欢. 不同语言的情绪性评价对社会顺应的影响^*[J]. 心理科学, 2024, 47(1): 205-210.

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