7 ms·

Out of curiosity, just checked the referenced paper[1] and there is no Korean/Japanese/French version of the questionnaire they used. It's disappointing. We a

by yongjik 13y ago

Out of curiosity, just checked the referenced paper[1] and there is no Korean/Japanese/French version of the questionnaire they used. It's disappointing. We all know these kinds of polls can be easily gamed by subtle (or not-so-subtle) phrasing, and without the questions actually used, I have no way of knowing if the "Foreign Language Effect" actually exists or if their choice of words in the translation affected the outcome. [1] http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/foreignLanguaeEffect.pdf http://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/foreignLanguae...

colechristensen 13y ago
Psychology studies are (in my general opinion) notoriously poor science to the point that the vast majority of them are worthless fluff useful only for sensational headlines.
- throwaway7808 13y ago
  Still, I would advice not to disregard this study completely and at least be careful about making decisions when using a foreign language. It well might be true that the emotional and other subsystems are somewhat inhibited when thinking in a foreign language and that might have both positive and negative consequences.
  - colechristensen 13y ago
    Being careful with what you speak and write is naturally good advice. A worthless scientific article doesn't make the opposite of it's conclusion true.
    - throwaway7808 13y ago
      For what it is worth, I have anecdotal evidence that thinking in a foreign language in fact does somewhat inhibit emotional and experiential (common sense) subsystems. So beware.
      - 001sky 13y ago
        It's also not inconsistent that being forced to work through a "bullshit" question in a foreign language makes it more likely that the "bullshit" with be self evident. If you think of how a "con" artist works, it's by manipulating your confidence. In a "foreign" language you are lacking this confidence and thus less subject to manipulation. That being said, this is not evidence that the field of Psychology itself is not primarily bullshit. Because the latter is typically propogated in our native language ;D.
- jvm 13y ago
  > majority of them are worthless fluff useful only for sensational headlines There's a sampling bias here. A similar dynamic goes on with Physics.
- tedks 13y ago
  As someone with personal experience inside academic psychology and academic computer science, it's my impression that psychology is far stronger as a field, having a much more rigorous community dedicated to scientific truth, and exhaustive standards of review and experimental design. But, I'm sure that your general opinion is well-informed as well, or you wouldn't make such strong claims about a very broad field. What's your background in psychology, and what makes you say the things you do about it?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - colechristensen 13y ago
    >But, I'm sure that your general opinion is well-informed as well, or you wouldn't make such strong claims about a very broad field. I don't believe you are being genuine here at all. This passive-aggressive, sarcastic response is not appreciated. If you don't like what I wrote, respond directly and honestly.
    - jdn 13y ago
      Well dodged
  - adrianbye 13y ago
    Perhaps your experience inside psychology is limited? Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman[1] would disagree with you, along with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt[2]. [1] http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychologists-to-clean-up-their-act-1.11535 http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychol... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html
    - btilly 13y ago
      This point is critical. A study can have a good methodology. But if nobody tries to replicate it, you have no chance of finding out that you are missing something critical. And with something as complex as people, "missing something critical" is something that we need to figure out. And this isn't exactly a new problem for psychology. Feynman somewhat famously questioned a lot of classic research with http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html. I say somewhat famously because people in areas like physics have all read that essay. But in my experience psychologists are a little less inclined to read the criticism. Even at the best of times, replication of results in a complex system is hard. See, for instance, http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj... for evidence that most published medical research is wrong. But with psychology it is even worse. We lump people together by symptom, not by root cause. It is like lumping together people with migraines, head injuries, and caffeine headaches together. Then you find out that coffee beats a placebo for helping headaches, and give them all coffee! You think I'm exaggerating? Read http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia... for verification that the NIH considers it a high priority research item to come up with classifications based on root causes, so that we have a chance of even being able to do useful research! Yes, psychology has a lot of well-meaning people, and they stumble across a lot of interesting stuff. But it should be read with a critical eye, because the field as a whole does not perform reliably enough to compel our trust.
rikacomet 13y ago
Well, actually more than how you put it, its actually the language people use INSIDE OF THEIR BRAIN that matters. An average person, talks to himself multiple times in a day, evaluating decisions, simulating how things are/should be, thinking about course of action etc etc. This is done in a language, which often ends up as mother tongue to the outside world. But the missing link here is the mental stamina. The brain has a native locale language, but if the information is coming in any other language, which needs to be understood (decoded) first into the locale language, it consumes stamina & time. But in the case of it being actually in the language in brain's native language, less time & stamina would be consumed in the same conversation, and more time and stamina would be left for actual thinking/analysis/evaluation/etc.. leading to better understanding between people. Peace!
- beefsack 13y ago
  Nearly all thought processes deal in abstract concepts directly without being wrapped in language. Language is a transport mechanism for sharing these abstract concepts from one one brain to another, not for processing in the mind. The idea that there is a "mother tongue" of your thoughts is a common misconception. You can consciously think about speech and language, but it's an exception to how your brain usually operates.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > An average person, talks to himself multiple times in a day, evaluating decisions, simulating how things are/should be, thinking about course of action etc etc. > This is done in a language Why do you believe this?
  - hrktb 13y ago
    beefsack's comment and yours are surprising. I thought it was fairly intuitive notion, and generally accepted that language provides the basic concept and structure for thoughts. Basically the Saphir-Whorf theory [1]. There surely must be a base layer that doesn't rely on language, but anything most of the time we are handling higher level problems. This is a theory, but most bi/tri-langual people I talked to experienced some kind of shift in their way of modeling their thought, sometimes relying on a concept only existing in a specific language (that's what makes the reliance on the language obvious). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

by yongjik 13y ago

colechristensen 13y ago

Psychology studies are (in my general opinion) notoriously poor science to the point that the vast majority of them are worthless fluff useful only for sensational headlines.

throwaway7808 13y ago
Still, I would advice not to disregard this study completely and at least be careful about making decisions when using a foreign language. It well might be true that the emotional and other subsystems are somewhat inhibited when thinking in a foreign language and that might have both positive and negative consequences.
- colechristensen 13y ago
  Being careful with what you speak and write is naturally good advice. A worthless scientific article doesn't make the opposite of it's conclusion true.
  - throwaway7808 13y ago
    For what it is worth, I have anecdotal evidence that thinking in a foreign language in fact does somewhat inhibit emotional and experiential (common sense) subsystems. So beware.
    - 001sky 13y ago
      It's also not inconsistent that being forced to work through a "bullshit" question in a foreign language makes it more likely that the "bullshit" with be self evident. If you think of how a "con" artist works, it's by manipulating your confidence. In a "foreign" language you are lacking this confidence and thus less subject to manipulation. That being said, this is not evidence that the field of Psychology itself is not primarily bullshit. Because the latter is typically propogated in our native language ;D.
jvm 13y ago
> majority of them are worthless fluff useful only for sensational headlines There's a sampling bias here. A similar dynamic goes on with Physics.
tedks 13y ago
As someone with personal experience inside academic psychology and academic computer science, it's my impression that psychology is far stronger as a field, having a much more rigorous community dedicated to scientific truth, and exhaustive standards of review and experimental design. But, I'm sure that your general opinion is well-informed as well, or you wouldn't make such strong claims about a very broad field. What's your background in psychology, and what makes you say the things you do about it?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- colechristensen 13y ago
  >But, I'm sure that your general opinion is well-informed as well, or you wouldn't make such strong claims about a very broad field. I don't believe you are being genuine here at all. This passive-aggressive, sarcastic response is not appreciated. If you don't like what I wrote, respond directly and honestly.
  - jdn 13y ago
    Well dodged
- adrianbye 13y ago
  Perhaps your experience inside psychology is limited? Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman[1] would disagree with you, along with social psychologist Jonathan Haidt[2]. [1] http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychologists-to-clean-up-their-act-1.11535 http://www.nature.com/news/nobel-laureate-challenges-psychol... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html
  - btilly 13y ago
    This point is critical. A study can have a good methodology. But if nobody tries to replicate it, you have no chance of finding out that you are missing something critical. And with something as complex as people, "missing something critical" is something that we need to figure out. And this isn't exactly a new problem for psychology. Feynman somewhat famously questioned a lot of classic research with http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html. I say somewhat famously because people in areas like physics have all read that essay. But in my experience psychologists are a little less inclined to read the criticism. Even at the best of times, replication of results in a complex system is hard. See, for instance, http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj... for evidence that most published medical research is wrong. But with psychology it is even worse. We lump people together by symptom, not by root cause. It is like lumping together people with migraines, head injuries, and caffeine headaches together. Then you find out that coffee beats a placebo for helping headaches, and give them all coffee! You think I'm exaggerating? Read http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia... for verification that the NIH considers it a high priority research item to come up with classifications based on root causes, so that we have a chance of even being able to do useful research! Yes, psychology has a lot of well-meaning people, and they stumble across a lot of interesting stuff. But it should be read with a critical eye, because the field as a whole does not perform reliably enough to compel our trust.

rikacomet 13y ago

Well, actually more than how you put it, its actually the language people use INSIDE OF THEIR BRAIN that matters. An average person, talks to himself multiple times in a day, evaluating decisions, simulating how things are/should be, thinking about course of action etc etc. This is done in a language, which often ends up as mother tongue to the outside world. But the missing link here is the mental stamina. The brain has a native locale language, but if the information is coming in any other language, which needs to be understood (decoded) first into the locale language, it consumes stamina & time. But in the case of it being actually in the language in brain's native language, less time & stamina would be consumed in the same conversation, and more time and stamina would be left for actual thinking/analysis/evaluation/etc.. leading to better understanding between people. Peace!

beefsack 13y ago
Nearly all thought processes deal in abstract concepts directly without being wrapped in language. Language is a transport mechanism for sharing these abstract concepts from one one brain to another, not for processing in the mind. The idea that there is a "mother tongue" of your thoughts is a common misconception. You can consciously think about speech and language, but it's an exception to how your brain usually operates.
thaumasiotes 13y ago
> An average person, talks to himself multiple times in a day, evaluating decisions, simulating how things are/should be, thinking about course of action etc etc. > This is done in a language Why do you believe this?
- hrktb 13y ago
  beefsack's comment and yours are surprising. I thought it was fairly intuitive notion, and generally accepted that language provides the basic concept and structure for thoughts. Basically the Saphir-Whorf theory [1]. There surely must be a base layer that doesn't rely on language, but anything most of the time we are handling higher level problems. This is a theory, but most bi/tri-langual people I talked to experienced some kind of shift in their way of modeling their thought, sometimes relying on a concept only existing in a specific language (that's what makes the reliance on the language obvious). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity