Thinking in a Foreign Tongue Reduces Decision Biases

Finally found a link to the full text PDF: <a href="http://portal.unitbv.ro/proxy/download.ashx?dec=1&#38;url=uh4QwdELmSQKwh0PmD07tSpMxqiKsSZJmS0LvD4BvD3LtqfOvhALl9aNl8YM0cYN1cYM1noS0PAT09eN0dlOlnwUmCtRvgMKwg4CB6X" rel="nofollow">http://portal.unitbv.ro/proxy/download.ashx?dec=1&#38;url=uh...</a>!

Speaking English and french as foreign languages (germen being the mother language), I can largely agree with the OP, from my experience. While it's hard to explain why it is like that, for me it takes out some cultural biases you most of the time have when you think in your own language (profiency in said foreign language required).

If someone has a native-level of fluency in more than one language, would the decision-making bias remain?

Living abroad, half the time I find myself thinking in another language. I recently decided which foreign language I should spend my time on next. Turns out my teacher doesn't speak English so I'll be learning my fourth and final language via my third language. Confused? I am, though I suppose I'm making a sound decision...

My anecdotal experience says just having the ability to verbalize in different languages(3 in my case) makes you reason for a longer time. I suspect, that helps avoid some sort of biases, but might be a crippling factor in some situations(time-constrained decisions) .

Sounds reasonable. My experience (native polish, almost native english plus ukraininan and russian) says brain is rather unable (or it's not used) to use multiple languages at the same time. So if you think in foreign language (I mean: language you don't usualy think in) brain hasn't enough words (or is too lazy to look for them ;)) to make big analysis of problem so It doesn't do that.

this is absolutely true. having become fluent in french as a second language, i find that i seem to make decisions much more rapidly and with less consternation than in English. when i first noticed this, like the authors of the paper, i concluded that it did have a fair amount to do with being emotionally distanced from what i was saying, so awesome to see it formalized!

Kipling noticed this - in his book Kim (Indian) is thinking in English to overcome hypnosis :)