Changing language, changing personality
Reuters reports (”Switching languages can also switch personalities“) on a recent study by Luna, Ringberg and Peracchio that touches upon some of the issues of personalities and language in the post about bilingualism and psychosis. However, in this study, a difference was found between real biculturalism and bilingualism in single culture people. By studying US hispanic women, the researchers found that women would be perceived as more self-sufficient and extroverted when speaking Spanish than English, and the women would classify themselves as more assertive in Spanish.
The mechanism for this is called “frameshifting”, and the important finding by the researchers is that this is intiated by language use, but dependent on biculturalism. A similar piece of research on frameshifting from 2002 found that the ability to change between personalities depends upon the individual’s perception of the cultures as compatible - and this research is quite interesting:
The authors propose that cultural frame shifting—shifting between two culturally based interpretative lenses in response to cultural cues—is moderated by perceived compatibility (vs. opposition) between the two cultural orientations, or bicultural identity integration (BII). Three studies found that Chinese American biculturals who perceived their cultural identities as compatible (high BII) responded in culturally congruent ways to cultural cues: They made more external attributions (a characteristically Asian behavior) after being exposed to Chinese primes and more internal attributions (a characteristically Western behavior) after being exposed to American primes. However, Chinese American biculturals who perceived their cultural identities as oppositional (low BII) exhibited a reverse priming effect. This trend was not apparent for noncultural primes. The results show that individual differences in bicultural identity affect how cultural knowledge is used to interpret social events.
Meaning that compatible biculturals would behave according to the relevant culture after being exposed to cultural cues - while people experiencing their two cultures as non-compatible would behave in opposition to the cultural cues. (Whether the cues in this case is language or not, I do not know. But I assume it is..)
Personality is supposed to be stable and unchanging - it is interesting how individuals can switch so easily. It raises questions about how much of our personality is a function of culture and society. But are the researchers actually measuring personality when what they find is so malleable? Maybe they are just measuring activated stereotypes and not actual personality changes. In the latter part of the Reuters article they report that participants would rate the same people in an ad different if they speak different languages, a clear indication that it is not a personality change, but a stereotype that is at play.
Stereotypes like this may influence an individual’s perception of oneself too. These stereotypes about the self can be just as influential as any deep personality structures, so that is not to say they are not relevant. When starting to acquire a new culture, this should probably be kept in mind: What do you think of the new culture, what will you think of yourself if you take it in and so on.
Along with other issues to think about.
Thank you to Pocket Cultures for the tip!
