The effect of foreign language and psychological distance on moral judgment in Turkish–English bilinguals

People's judgements differ systematically while reading moral dilemmas in their native or their foreign language. This so-called Foreign Language Effect (FLE) has been found in many language pairs when tested with artificial, sacrificial moral dilemmas (i.e., Trolley and Footbridge). The first aim of this study was to investigate whether the FLE can be replicated in Turkish (native) – English (foreign) bilinguals using the same sacrificial dilemmas (Exp. 1, N=203). These dilemmas have been criticized for being unrealistic and decontextualized in terms of protagonist's identity, providing low external validity. The second aim of this study was (1) to address these problems by testing Turkish–English bilinguals with realistic dilemmas which included the protagonist's age as a source of identity (child vs. adult vs. neutral), and (2) to investigate whether the FLE is present in these dilemmas (Exp. 2, N=467). Our results revealed three main findings. First, the FLE was not present in Turkish–English bilinguals, tested either on artificial or realistic dilemmas. Secondly, moral judgments were affected by both the psychological distance of the dilemmas and the perceived age similarity with the protagonist, consistent with the Construal Level Theory (CLT). Thirdly, the age information of the protagonists altered moral judgments in the opposite direction of the CLT.