{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,18]],"date-time":"2026-09-18T19:31:35Z","timestamp":1789759895323,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]],"date-time":"2021-11-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1637193600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004063","name":"Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["KAW 2014.0205"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["KAW 2014.0205"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004063","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Brain Sciences"],"abstract":"<jats:p>An increasing number of people around the world communicate in more than one language, resulting in them having to make decisions in a foreign language on a daily basis. Interestingly, a burgeoning body of literature suggests that people\u2019s decision-making is affected by whether they are reasoning in their native language (NL) or their foreign language (FL). According to the foreign language effect (FLe), people are less susceptible to bias in many decision-making tasks and more likely to display utilitarian cost-benefit analysis in moral decision-making when reasoning in a FL. While these differences have often been attributed to a reduced emotionality in the FL, an emerging body of literature has started to test the extent to which these could be attributable to increased deliberation in the FL. The present study tests whether increased deliberation leads to a FLe on cognitive reflection in a population of older adults (Mage = 65.1), from the successful aging project in Ume\u00e5, Sweden. We explored whether performance on a 6-item version of the cognitive reflection test (CRT) adapted to Swedish would differ between participants for whom Swedish was their NL and those for whom Swedish was their FL. The CRT is a task designed to elicit an incorrect, intuitive answer. In order to override the intuitive answer, one requires engaging in deliberative, analytical thinking to determine the correct answer. Therefore, we hypothesized that if thinking in a FL increases deliberation, then those performing the task in their FL would exhibit higher accuracy rates than those performing in their NL. Our results showed that age and level of education predicted performance on the task but performance on the CRT did not differ between the NL and the FL groups. In addition, in the FL group, proficiency in the FL was not related to performance in the CRT. Our results, therefore, do not provide evidence that thinking in a FL increases deliberation in a group of older adults performing a logical reasoning task that is not typically associated with an emotional connotation.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/brainsci11111527","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]],"date-time":"2021-11-18T08:53:56Z","timestamp":1637225636000},"page":"1527","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Testing the Foreign Language Effect on Cognitive Reflection in Older Adults"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Mariana","family":"Vega-Mendoza","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Health, Education and Technology, Engineering Psychology, Lule\u00e5 University of Technology, 971 87 Lule\u00e5, Sweden"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4040-5657","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Patrik","family":"Hansson","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, Ume\u00e5 University, 907 36 Ume\u00e5, Sweden"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2709-9966","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Daniel Eriksson","family":"S\u00f6rman","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Health, Education and Technology, Engineering Psychology, Lule\u00e5 University of Technology, 971 87 Lule\u00e5, Sweden"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jessica K.","family":"Ljungberg","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Health, Education and Technology, Engineering Psychology, Lule\u00e5 University of Technology, 971 87 Lule\u00e5, Sweden"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,18]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"305","article-title":"Multilingual language policy and school linguistic practice: Globalization and English-language teaching in India","volume":"39","author":"Hornberger","year":"2009","journal-title":"Singap. 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