Bilinguals are less susceptible to the bias blind spot in their second language

Abstract

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: Extant research suggests that processing information in a second language (L2) affects decision-making, possibly by affecting metacognition. We hypothesized that processing in L2 will reduce the bias blind spot effect, whereby people (on average) erroneously think that they are less susceptible to biases than others. Design/methodology/approach: In Experiment 1, participants assessed their susceptibility and the susceptibility of others to 13 psychological and 7 economic biases, in either L1 (Polish) or L2 (English). In Experiment 2, participants assessed the 7 most severe bias blind spots from Experiment 1. Data and analysis: We recruited 500 participants for each experiment via Prolific (832 overall, after exclusions). The main hypothesis and moderators were tested via mixed-model regressions. Findings/conclusions: In Experiment 1, participants showed an overall bias blind spot, which decreased in the L2 condition, but only for psychological biases. In Experiment 2, we replicated the L2-bias blind spot attenuation effect. An exploratory analysis suggests that the effect of L2 is the result of both lower ratings of other-susceptibility and higher ratings of self-susceptibility. Originality: Our study provides unique insights into how L2 affects metacognition. We are the first to study how the use of L2 can attenuate the bias blind spot. Our findings provide rare support for the psychological distancing (“birds-eye view”) explanation for the foreign language effect. Significance/implications: Bilinguals using L2 showed some resilience to the bias blind spot, suggesting metacognition is language dependent.