Breaking Magic: Foreign Language Suppresses Superstition

Breaking Magic: Foreign Language Suppresses Superstition. Constantinos Hadjichristidis, Janet Geipel & Luca Surian. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Aug 2017, Pages 1-36, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2017.1371780

Abstract: In three studies we found that reading information in a foreign language can suppress common superstitious beliefs. Participants read scenarios either in their native or a foreign language. In each scenario, participants were asked to imagine performing an action (e.g., submitting a job application) under a superstitious circumstance (e.g., broken mirror; four-leaf clover) and to rate how they would feel. Overall, foreign language prompted less negative feelings towards bad-luck scenarios, less positive feelings towards good-luck scenarios, while it exerted no influence on non-superstitious, control scenarios. We attribute these findings to language-dependent memory. Superstitious beliefs are typically acquired and used in contexts involving the native language. As a result, the native language evokes them more forcefully than a foreign language.

Keywords: superstition, bilingualism, emotions, language, the foreign language effect