Major or Minor: When Foreign Language Increases versus Decreases Cheating

The world is witnessing dishonesty of all magnitudes, from minor shoplifting to astounding financial traps, from embellishing dating profiles to faking identities. Given the prevalence of dishonesty, researchers have endeavored to learn which factors encourage or curb cheating, such as self-control (Kouchaki & Smith, 2014), self-serving justifications (Shalvi, Eldar, & Bereby-Meyer, 2012), and the salience of moral standards (Shu, Mazar, Gino, Ariely, & Bazerman, 2012). However, the role of language, the very vehicle through which most cheating behavior happens, has been neglected. While most people cheat in their native language, foreign-language cheating is also common, such as international students cheating on exams and overseas travelers cheating on custom declarations. Over half of the world population speaks more than one language and the number of bilinguals is increasing rapidly due to globalization (Grosjean, 2010). Therefore, it is important to understand how language (native vs. foreign) shapes people’s propensity to cheat. To this end, we investigate in a series of experiments whether language affects cheating behavior. Unethical behavior has been described as affect-rich and driven by emotion (Dienstbier & Munter, 1971; Haidt, 2001, 2003; Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007). For instance, reduced amygdala activation, which implies less negative affective reaction toward cheating, predicts an increase of the magnitude of dishonesty (Garrett, Lazzaro, Ariely, & Sharot, 2016). Following this line of research, we propose that language may influence cheating behavior through emotionality. Indeed, one prominent finding in the bilingualism literature is that people tend to experience less intense emotions when reading or hearing the same expression in a foreign language than in their native language (Dewaele, 2004; Harris, Ayçiçegi, & Gleason, 2003; Puntoni, de Langhe, & van Osselaer, 2009).