This academic paper is potentially interesting, but I can't really say, since it's behind a paywall. Here's the abstract, in full:
Would you make the same decisions in a foreign language as you would in your native tongue? It may be intuitive that people would make the same choices regardless of the language they are using, or that the difficulty of using a foreign language would make decisions less systematic. We discovered, however, that the opposite is true: Using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases. Four experiments show that the framing effect disappears when choices are presented in a foreign tongue. Whereas people were risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses when choices were presented in their native tongue, they were not influenced by this framing manipulation in a foreign language. Two additional experiments show that using a foreign language reduces loss aversion, increasing the acceptance of both hypothetical and real bets with positive expected value. We propose that these effects arise because a foreign language provides greater cognitive and emotional distance than a native tongue does.
I have some questions. How is "thinking in a foreign language" defined? If you're thinking in it, how is it foreign? What about native bilinguals?
I notice that people tend to have different ‘personalities’ in different languages. This would be a component of that.
With myself, this is true in cases I have been in position to speak with native-speakers in Spanish and German. It has even included (or so I perceive) using ‘simple English’ when interacting with persons with weak English abilities. My own personality, things like level of politeness, attitude, extroversion, all changed.
I completely agree with you that personalities change from one language to another. I’ve been told that I’m less serious in Spanish – that I speak in a more informal style. This is no doubt due in part to the context in which I learned it, and less experience with formal education in Spanish than English. Everyone with whom I try to use Korean says I’m “cute” whenever I speak Korean. I don’t even know what this means, but I’ve gotten the feedback often enough that it’s not just a reaction to some other aspect of my personality. It’s probably a consquence of having elementary children as my main Korean teachers.
In the comments to the abstract of the article, above, I was actually more preoccupied and bothered by the use of the word “foreign” – it makes me uncomfortable. What makes a language a “foreign” language to someone? The age at which they acquired it? Their level of fluency? The level of formality of their acquisition? I think that it’s a problematic term for formal research in the psychology of language. I would have preferred a term like “additional language” or “imperfectly-acquired language” or “language acquired after childhood” or something in that vein. I’ve been confused for a native speaker in Spanish – but I acquired it quite late – in my early 20’s. I know there are defects and differences in my ability to navegate the language, as opposed to English. I do not doubt there are cognitive effects because of this. And in my particular case, I think the conventional meaning of “foreign” language applies. But what if I’d learned it in my early teens? Is is still foreign? What if I learned it starting at age 5? There’s a sliding continuum between “foreign” language and “native” second language. Where do we draw the line. I just think a different, more scientific term should be used.