The language we use affects the decisions we make, according to a new study. Participants made more rational decisions when money-related choices were posed in a foreign language that they had learned in a classroom setting than when they were asked in a native tongue.
To study how language affects reasoning, University of Chicago psychologists looked at a well-known phenomenon: people are more risk-averse when an impersonal decision (such as which vaccine to administer to a population) is presented in terms of a potential gain than when it is framed as a potential loss even when the outcomes are equivalent.
When people use a foreign language, their decisions tend to be less biased, more analytic, more systematic, because the foreign language provides psychological distance. Cognitive biases are rooted in emotional reactions, and thinking in a foreign language helps us disconnect from these emotions and make decisions in a more economically rational way.
Source:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=reasoning-is-sharper-in-a-foreign-language