The language a person speaks at a given moment can affect his thinking
The subjects in this study were Israeli Arabs, students in Hebrew-speaking universities and colleges, who are fluent in both languages. Researchers Dr. Shai Danziger from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Dr. Robert Ward from Bangor University in Wales, United Kingdom, developed an experiment that examines how students' thinking changes in Arabic and Hebrew while exploiting the tensions between Arabs and Jews in Israel. The research hypothesis: "It is likely that an Israeli Arab who speaks both languages will think more positively of Arabs in an Arabic-speaking environment compared to a Hebrew-speaking environment," says Danziger.
The study used a computer task called the implicit association test, which is widely used for discrimination research. In this test, single words are projected on the computer screen and subjects must categorize as quickly as possible by pressing two keys on the keyboard. This is an assignment that examines automatic thought processes because the subject has almost no time to think about the answers. The trick is that the subjects classify two types of words: words that describe qualities (positive and negative) and names of people. In this case Arabic names like Ahmed and Samir and Jewish names like Avi and Ronan. For example, the subjects were instructed to press the "M" key when they saw an Arabic name or a word with a positive meaning, or "K" when they saw a Jewish name or a word with a negative meaning. In this example, if people automatically associate "positive" words with Arabs and "negative" words with Jews, they will be able to perform the classification task faster, compared to a situation where they automatically associate words in the opposite direction. Different sets of word pairs appear in different parts of the test.
In this study, Israeli Arabs who speak both languages performed the test in both languages in order to examine whether the language they used affected their associations about the names. It was easier for the Arab subjects to associate Arab names with "positive" traits and Jewish names with "negative" traits than to associate Arab names with "negative" traits and Jewish names with "positive" traits. This effect was stronger when the test was performed in Arabic. In the Hebrew test, the subjects showed less positive discrimination regarding Arab names compared to Jewish names. "The language we speak can change the way we think about others," says Ward.
Dr. Danziger learned both Hebrew and English as a child. "I speak two languages and I believe that I react differently in Hebrew than in English. I think in English I'm more polite than in Hebrew," he says. "It seems that people can present different personalities in different environments. The research findings indicate that the personality expressed at a given moment is influenced by the language the person speaks at that moment."
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Interesting research, language is a divisive thing..
This experiment is not new. I read about the same experiment in an African-American context in some pseudo-scientific book, I think blink, but I may be wrong.
The thing about the experiment is that you are given to classify words into only two possibilities, which normally you wouldn't even think to classify them into. Is "bad" Arab or Jewish? Maybe it's actually my Russian neighbor who doesn't appear in the test? And if the subjects were allowed to classify only between "Romanian" and "Albanian", what then? Would we perhaps discover that Arab-Israelis attribute negative qualities to novels when the words are in Hebrew?
In short: nonsense that proves nothing except the desperate need of academics to publish something, anything, even if it means recycling a controversial experiment. The main thing is that the learned Dr. is not able to be as polite in Hebrew as he is in English. Surely the problem is in the language.
The language we speak affects our thinking, period. Regardless of whether our thought is about the other person or anything else.
Something to think about:
Assuming that the subjects take more time to read and understand the words when they are written in Hebrew.
The time differences become less significant. That is, the ratio between two small numbers with a constant difference is greater than the ratio between two large numbers with the same difference.
I therefore tend to question the results of the study for now.
There is a missing part in this study and it is the Israeli side. Jews who speak both languages should be taken regularly and tested on the same subjects. Otherwise this research is not worth the effort…
Proposal for Dr. Shay Danziger
I suggest that they do a similar study for immigrants from Russia in Hebrew and Russian, and for immigrants from Ethiopia in Hebrew and Ethiopian.
It will be possible to see differences in discrimination if it exists.
And it would be interesting to do this also as a function of seniority in Israel and as a function of age
Good Day
Sabdarmish Yehuda
Amazing research, absolutely serious.