This article compares risk tolerance of native Arabic speakers under two language contexts: their first language (L1 Arabic) and their foreign language (L2 English). We aim to evaluate whether thinking in a foreign language actually reduces the negative effects of cognitive biases, such as loss aversion and mental accounting, on financial decision-making. Toward this aim, we conducted two experiments in which the risk tolerance levels of 144 participants were evaluated across four different types of decision-making problems: the Asian disease problem, the financial crisis problem, the discount problem, and the ticket/money lost problem. In study 1, we adopted Keysar et al.’s (2012, Psychological Science, 23, 661–668) experiment to test the effect of L2 on framing effects associated with loss aversion, and in Study 2, we adopted Costa et al.’s (2014, Cognition, 130, 236–254) experiment to test the effect of L2 on framing effects associated with mental accounting biases. We found that individuals were risk-averse for gains and risk-seeking for losses when presented with choices in their L1, but were almost unaffected by framing manipulation under the L2 condition. When it came to mental accounting, however, framing effects were nearly absent in both L1 and L2 conditions. In our investigation, we examined various potential factors that could explain the foreign language effect on decision-making. The primary factor that appears to account for this linguistic phenomenon is the heightened cognitive and emotional distance experienced when using an L2.

本文比较了以阿拉伯语为母语的人在两种语言环境下的风险承受能力：第一语言（第一语言阿拉伯语）和外语（第二语言英语）。我们的目的是评估用外语思考是否真的可以减少认知偏差（例如损失厌恶和心理核算）对财务决策的负面影响。为了实现这一目标，我们进行了两项实验，评估了 144 名参与者对四种不同类型决策问题的风险承受水平：亚洲疾病问题、金融危机问题、折扣问题和票/钱丢失问题。在研究1中，我们采用了Keysar等人（2012，Psychological Science，23，661-668）的实验来检验L2对与损失厌恶相关的框架效应的影响，在研究2中，我们采用了Costa等人的实验。的 (2014, Cognition , 130 , 236–254) 实验测试了 L2 对与心理账户偏差相关的框架效应的影响。我们发现，当个人在 L1 条件下做出选择时，他们会规避收益风险并寻求损失风险，但在 L2 条件下几乎不受框架操纵的影响。然而，当谈到心理账户时，框架效应在 L1 和 L2 条件下几乎不存在。在我们的调查中，我们研究了可以解释外语对决策影响的各种潜在因素。造成这种语言现象的主要因素似乎是使用 L2 时所经历的认知和情感距离的增加。