{
  "title": "Deciding in another language: what bilingualism does not guarantee",
  "url": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/decider-dans-une-autre-langue-ce-que-le-bilinguisme-ne-garantit-pas-en",
  "language": "en",
  "datePublished": "2026-05-17",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "SHR — Swiss Human Resources",
    "url": "https://www.shr.swiss",
    "address": "Esplanade de Pont-Rouge 9A, 1212 Lancy, Suisse"
  },
  "summary": "The working language is not necessarily a neutral vehicle for judgement. Yet the available experiments do not establish that any language leads to better decisions.",
  "section": "Research",
  "topic": "Decision-making",
  "place": {
    "name": "Fribourg",
    "region": "Fribourg",
    "country": "CH"
  },
  "keyPoints": [
    {
      "heading": "What the literature establishes",
      "point": "Boaz Keysar, Sayuri Hayakawa and Sun Gyu An (2012, Psychological Science) observed in their experiments that certain decision biases were attenuated when participants reasoned in a foreign language rather than their first language."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Distance can also shift moral judgement",
      "point": "Albert Costa, Alice Foucart, Sayuri Hayakawa, Melina Aparici, José Apesteguia, Joy Heafner and Boaz Keysar (2014, PLOS ONE) studied moral dilemmas presented in a first or foreign language."
    },
    {
      "heading": "The premature conclusion",
      "point": "One might infer that deliberating in a foreign language makes people more rational."
    },
    {
      "heading": "What these experiments do not reproduce",
      "point": "These studies examine experimental tasks, not operational decisions made by bilingual teams."
    },
    {
      "heading": "A practical check in Fribourg",
      "point": "As part of SHR's [decision-making](/formation/prise-de-decision/fribourg) programme, an exercise could bring together managers from the agri-food sector, bilingual industry and Fribourg's university community to assess the same fictional supplier-selection case, available in French and German after the versions have been checked for equivalence."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "authors": "An",
      "year": "2012",
      "source": "Psychological Science"
    },
    {
      "authors": "Keysar",
      "year": "2014",
      "source": "PLOS ONE"
    }
  ],
  "wordCount": 428,
  "image": "https://www.shr.swiss/img/blog-editorial-2026-05-17-en.jpg?v=4",
  "translations": {
    "fr": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/decider-dans-une-autre-langue-ce-que-le-bilinguisme-ne-garantit-pas",
    "en": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/decider-dans-une-autre-langue-ce-que-le-bilinguisme-ne-garantit-pas-en",
    "de": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/decider-dans-une-autre-langue-ce-que-le-bilinguisme-ne-garantit-pas-de",
    "it": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog/decider-dans-une-autre-langue-ce-que-le-bilinguisme-ne-garantit-pas-it"
  },
  "relatedPages": {
    "programme": "https://www.shr.swiss/formation/prise-de-decision/fribourg",
    "city": "https://www.shr.swiss/formations-ville/fribourg",
    "blog": "https://www.shr.swiss/blog"
  },
  "citationPolicy": "Citation autorisée avec mention « SHR — Swiss Human Resources » et lien vers l'article."
}