Summary

We experimentally investigate whether using a foreign language affects social and personal norms on dishonesty, and whether language dependent norms explain lying behaviour. Participants can inflate their relative performance in a real effort task, and thereby increase their own payoff at a cost to another. As our main treatment manipulation, we vary the language of the experiment, that is conducted either in one's native or a foreign language. We find that dishonesty is generally perceived as more socially inappropriate in one's native language.
However, we do not find a systematic foreign language effect on lying behaviour.

Details: SSRN Working Paper now published in Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

Authors:   Despoina Alempaki, Gönül Doğan, Yang Yang