People are worse at detecting fake news in their foreign language.

Across two preregistered within-subject experiments (N = 570), we found that when using their foreign language, proficient bilinguals discerned true from false news less accurately. This was the case for international news (Experiment 1) and more local news (Experiment 2). When using a foreign (as opposed to native) language, false news headlines were always judged more believable, while true news headlines were judged equally (Experiment 2) or less believable (Experiment 1). In contrast to past theorizing, the foreign language effect interacted neither with perceived arousal of news (Experiment 1) nor with individual differences in cognitive reflection (Experiments 1 and 2). Finally, using signal detection theory modeling, we showed that the negative effects of using a foreign language were not caused by adopting different responding strategies (e.g., preferring omissions to false alarms) but rather by decreased sensitivity to the truth. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceived food palatability, blood glucose level and future discounting: Lack of evidence for blood glucose level's impact on reward discounting.

Some previous studies have shown that an increase in blood glucose level makes people more future oriented, however, results are inconsistent, other studies failing to replicate this effect. Here, we tested whether psychological factors (in this instance, perception of food pleasantness after consumption of more palatable or less palatable meal) can play a moderating role. We hypothesized that consuming more palatable food (perceived as rewarding) should cause blood glucose levels to affect future discounting, but that this should not occur for the consumption of less palatable food. A high-powered, independent groups experiment (N = 149, power ß = .90) showed that, subsequent to performing an initial discounting task, the two groups consuming a meal (a control group consumed no meal) displayed a significant increase in blood glucose levels 10 minutes after meal consumption and just before repeating the discounting task. However, the increased blood glucose levels did not cause changes in delay discounting in either experimental group.

Thinking in a foreign language distorts allocation of cognitive effort: Evidence from reasoning.

Bilinguals, in their foreign language, are spared from several decision-making biases. We examined this "Foreign Language Effect" in the context of logical reasoning, in which reasoners are required to track the logical status of a syllogism, ignoring its believability. Across three experiments, we found the reverse Foreign Language Effect; foreign language reasoners are less able to evaluate the logical structure of syllogisms, but no less biased by their believability. One path to succeeding in reasoning tasks is always engaging in reflective processing. A more efficient strategy is metacognitively tracking whether belief-based intuitions conflict with logic-based intuitions and only reflecting when such conflict is present. We provide evidence that foreign language reasoners are less accurate because they struggle to detect belief-logic conflict, and in turn fail to engage in reflective processing when necessary to override the incorrect, intuitive response. We propose that foreign language reasoners are less able to detect belief-logic conflict either due to weakened intuitions or due to a more conservative threshold for the detection of conflict between multiple competing intuitions. Data for the experiments can be accessed publicly at https://osf.io/phbuq/.

The moral foreign language effect is stable across presentation modalities.

People's judgements and decisions often change when made in their foreign language. Existing research testing this foreign language effect has predominantly used text-based stimuli with little research focusing on the impact of listening to audio stimuli on the effect. The only existing study on this topic found shifts in people's moral decisions only in the audio modality. First, by reanalysing the data from this previous study and by collecting data in an additional experiment, we found no consistent effects of using foreign language on moral judgements. Second, in both data sets, we found no significant language by modality interaction. Overall, our results highlight the need for more robust testing of the foreign language effect, and its boundary conditions. However, modality of presentation does not appear to be a candidate for explaining its variability. Data and materials for this experiment are available at https://osf.io/qbjxn/.

Foreign Language does not Affect Gambling-Related Judgments.

Previous work has demonstrated that peoples' gambling-related judgments (e.g., perceived likelihood of winning) are often biased by non-diagnostic unclaimed prize information (i.e., the number of prizes still available to be won) resulting in non-optimal scratch card preferences. Another line of research suggests that people make less biased decisions (e.g., are less affected by the framing of a gamble) when using a foreign language. In the current study, we investigated whether using a foreign language (as opposed to one's native language) reduced the biasing effects of unclaimed prize information and consequently led to more optimal scratch card preferences. Across three experiments (N = 409), we found that people were equally biased by unclaimed prize information regardless of whether they completed our scratch card gambling task in their native (Polish) or foreign (English) language. In conclusion, it appears that using a foreign language does not help people be less biased in utilizing gambling-related information, and consequently does not lead to more optimal scratch card preferences.

Increasing blood glucose level via breakfast meals is not connected with changes in delay discounting.

Previous studies have revealed that increasing people's blood glucose level via drinking a soft drink containing sugar makes their financial decisions more future-oriented. This study extends these previous findings, testing whether the effect holds when blood glucose level is increased via intake of a normal meal (i.e., breakfast) rather than a sweet drink. Moreover, we test whether the size of the meal consumed (i.e., a normal vs. an oversized meal) can have a quantitatively different impact on levels of delay discounting. In two experiments using different time intervals between food consumption and discounting tasks (i.e., 60 min and 10 min), we successfully increased both blood glucose level and satiation level. Despite this, our results revealed that neither consumption of the meal itself nor the size of the meal influenced a preference for future rewards over present rewards. This suggests that satisfying hunger and increasing blood glucose level are not sufficient to make people more future-oriented.

The dissolution of temporal distance increases risk-taking: experimental evidence.

Earlier research shows that delaying the realization of a lottery (temporal distance) increases risk tolerance. Presumably, this happens because temporal distance protects one from encountering the negative emotions produced when facing risk. However, no study has tested whether people that made a choice in the presence of temporal distance would actually change their decision later on (in the absence of temporal distance), towards the safer choice. To test this, 137 participants were subject to actual temporal distance, consisting of a four-week waiting period. To explore how each participant behaved "in the heat of the moment" (in the absence of temporal distance), we assessed their electrodermal activity and analysed self-description measures of susceptibility to affect. Participants had to choose between 40 lottery pairs (they could win up to the equivalent of about $400 US; the expected payout for each participant was about $12). Results showed that, contrary to expectations, participants tended to choose riskier lotteries after the waiting period. The results of an additional experiment suggest that this is not the result of prior exposure to the same set of lotteries, however, interestingly, an exploratory analysis showed that the main effect was driven by the behaviour of male participants. We discuss possible explanations for our surprising main finding and its implications for studies on temporal distance.

The Dopamine Receptor D4 Gene (DRD4) and Financial Risk-Taking: Stimulating and Instrumental Risk-Taking Propensity and Motivation to Engage in Investment Activity.

The Dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4) has been previously linked to financial risk-taking propensity. Past works demonstrated that individuals with a specific variant of the DRD4 gene (7R+) are more risk-seeking than people without it (7R-). The most prominent explanation for this effect is the fact that 7R+ individuals are less sensitive to dopamine and thus seek more stimulation to generate "normal" dopaminergic activity and feel pleasure. However, results about this relationship have not been conclusive, and some revealed a lack of the relationship. In the current work, we tested if those unclear results might be explained by the motivation that underlies the risk-taking activity; i.e., if people take risks to feel excitement or if they take risk to obtain a specific goal. In our study we tested the differences in risk-taking between 7R+ and 7R- among people who are experienced in financial risk-taking (113 investors) and non-experienced financial decision makers (104 non-investors). We measured risk-taking propensity with the Holt-Laury test and the Stimulating-Instrumental Risk Inventory. Moreover, we asked investors about their motivations for engaging in investment activity. Our study is the next one to report a lack of differences in risk-taking between 7R+ and 7R- individuals. As well, our results did not indicate any differences between the 7R+ and 7R- investors in motivation to engage in investment activity. We only observed that risk-taking propensity was higher among investors than non-investors and this was noticed for all measures. More research is needed to better understand the genetic foundations of risk-taking, which could answer the question about the substantial variation in the domain of risky financial decisions.

ACTN3 Genotype in Professional Sport Climbers.

Ginszt, M, Michalak-Wojnowska, M, Gawda, P, Wojcierowska-Litwin, M, Korszen-Pilecka, I, Kusztelak, M, Muda, R, Filip, AA, and Majcher, P. ACTN3 genotype in professional sport climbers. J Strength Cond Res 32(5): 1311-1315, 2018-The functional RR genotype of the alpha-actinin-3 (ACTN3) gene has been reported to be associated with elite sprint/power athlete status. Although large and rapidly increasing number of studies have investigated the associations between the ACTN3 genotypes and athletic performance in various sport disciplines, there is a lack of studies on the genetic predisposition in sport climbing, which was selected to be part of the next Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020 with three subdisciplines ("lead climbing," "speed climbing," and "bouldering"). The aim of the study is to determine the frequency distribution of ACTN3 genotypes and alleles in professional lead climbers and boulderers. 100 professional sport climbers from Poland, Russia, and Austria were divided into 2 equal groups: professional boulderers and professional lead climbers were involved in the study. ACTN3 allele frequencies and genotypes were compared with 100 sedentary controls. Genotypes were determined using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. The percent distribution of RR genotype in the boulderers was significantly higher than in lead climbers and controls (62 vs. 26%; 33%, respectively; χ = 17.230, p = 0.0017). The frequencies of ACTN3 R allele in boulderers differed significantly from lead climbers and controls (77 vs. 51%; 58%, respectively; χ = 15.721, p = 0.0004). The proportion of the ACTN3 RR genotype is significantly higher in boulderers than in lead climbers and may be related to the specific type of predisposition to this subdiscipline.

Reading dilemmas in a foreign language reduces both deontological and utilitarian response tendencies.

Moral dilemmas entail deciding whether to cause harm to maximize overall outcomes, such as killing 1 person to save 5. Past work has demonstrated that people are more willing to accept causing such outcome-maximizing harm when they read dilemmas in a foreign language they speak rather than their native language. Presumably this effect is due to foreign dilemmas inducing reduced emotional impact, rather than increased cognitive processing, but previous work cannot distinguish between these possibilities because it treats them as diametric opposites. In the current work, we applied process dissociation to independently estimate harm-rejection and outcome-maximization response tendencies underlying dilemma responses. These findings reveal that reading dilemmas in a foreign language reduces both harm-rejection and outcome-maximization inclinations. This pattern clarifies past work by suggesting that reading dilemmas in a foreign language reduces concern for all potential victims-both the fewer to be harmed and the majority to be saved. (PsycINFO Database Record