People are more likely to lie in a second language

People are more likely to lie if they’re not speaking their mother tongue, researchers have found.

Experts found people who speak more than one language interpret facts differently depending on which one they are speaking.

Our first language is often more closely tied to our emotions, which makes us more vulnerable and therefore honest when we’re speaking it. 

However, a second language is often associated with more rational thinking which means people feel more distant from it and so find it easier to lie, scientists say.

According to Dr Manon Jones from Bangor University and Ceri Ellie from the University of Manchester, ‘the perception of truth is slippery when viewed through the prism of different languages and cultures.’

‘So much so that people who speak two languages can accept a fact in one of their languages, while denying it in the other’, they wrote in an in-depth feature for The Conversation.

They found changing language is related to other perceptual, cogntive and emotional changes too.

Emotional experiences might be more closely associated with the mother tongue. 

For example if someone says ‘I love you’ in one language it could mean a lot more than when said in another language.  

Not only do languages shape our visual perception they also affect the way we perceive things and make sense of our environment.

‘Until recently, it was commonly assumed that one’s understanding of meaning is shared across all the languages one speaks.

‘However, we have been able to observe that this is not the case. 

‘Bilinguals actually interpret facts differently depending on the language they are presented with, and depending on whether the fact makes them feel good or bad about their native culture’, researchers wrote.

Researchers asked Welsh people who spoke fluent Welsh and English to rate sentences as true or false. These sentences either had positive or negative connotations.

Participants showed a bias towards categorising positive statements – even if they were false – as being true in both languages.

Our first language is often more closely tied to our emotions, which makes us more vulnerable and therefore honest when we’re speaking it (stock image)

However, when they were negative, participants responded differently depending on whether they were reading in Welsh or English – despite the fact the information was exactly the same.

‘In Welsh they tended to be less biased and more truthful, and so they often correctly identified some unpleasant statements as true.

‘But in English, their bias resulted in a surprisingly defensive reaction: they denied the truth of unpleasant statements, and so tended to categorise them as a false, even though they were true’, researchers wrote.

Scientists believe people’s native language is more closely tied to our emotions which means we find it easier to be honest.

Often a second language is associated with more rational thinking and people are more likely to be defensive and untruthful.

‘Make no mistake, our bilingual participants knew what was factually true and what was factually false – as revealed by the brain activity measures – but functioning in the second language appeared to protect them against unpalatable truths, and deal with them more strategically’, researchers concluded.