Can the language you speak change the way you plan for the future? Our new work shows it can <pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4121…>.
Listen to co-author Sean Roberts and discuss it on @becauselangpod at becauselanguage.com/130-back…
Cole Robertson retweeted
"Low-certainty modals not future tenses cause increased psychological discounting in English relative to Dutch"
📢 New paper from: Cole Robertson (@ColebRob), Seán Roberts, Asifa Majid, Tammy Lu, Philip Wolff, & Robin Dunbar
sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
Pleased to _finally_ get this work out into world. In it, we provide a valuable update to @MKeithChen's hypothesis that languages which oblige a future tense make people more likely to save for the future.
authors.elsevier.com/c/1m4gJ…
It's not tense marking (e.g. will) but low-certainty modals (could, may, might) that make the difference.
English obliges speakers to chose a modal verb when they make a prediction about the future. This makes them construe the future as riskier and less valuable.
1️⃣/5️⃣ Pleased to see our work featured in Psychology Today! 🔗 lnkd.in/guiWVJcT
5️⃣/5️⃣ Minor clarification: the article frames this as individual usage shaping cognition — but our data show how cross-linguistic grammatical differences shape usage and cognition together.
#linguistics #cognitivescience #languageandthought #behaviouraleconomics #futurethinking
Joke from my 4yo:
Her: Where did the poo go to a person?
Me: Where?
Her: In the poo cottage!
What do you think @KidsWriteJokes ‽
We show that English grammar causes speakers to value future outcome higher than Dutch speakers.
This suggests languages affect the way we make decisions about time, but undermines the mechanisms widely attributed to cause this.
journals.plos.org/plosone/ar…
@MKeithChen ?
Cole Robertson retweeted
The claim that GPT-4 performed at the 90th percentile on the Uniform Bar Exam appears misleading according to this new preprint.
It seems more accurate to say it performs in the 63rd or 68th percentile.
We show that people who struggle with anxiety and/or depression talk about the future differently to healthy controls. They are less certain even though they talk about more proximal future dates. Why? Read the paper to find out:)
sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
Many thanks to my coauthors @JamesPCarney and Shane Truddell, and to my supervisors @asifa_majid, @aucksAdventures, and Robin Dunbar!
Are cross linguistic difference in future grammar all about time or all about probability? In contrast to conventional wisdom, we show the latter may be true. What do you think @MKeithChen?
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…
Cole Robertson retweeted
"If Obama creates some regulation, but you know Trump is the next president, are you absolutely sure you want that in place? And for Republicans, if Trump creates regulation that Biden will be in charge of, are you happy with that?"
Cole Robertson retweeted
New paper: Much to my surprise, we find culture plays little role in the perception of odor pleasantness. Instead the pleasantness of an odor can be predicted by its molecular properties @CurrentBiology doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.0…
ALT Map of 10 cultures compared for their perception of odor pleasantness. Cultures include: Seri, Mexican, American, Maniq, Thai, Semelai, Semaq Beri, Mah Meri, Imbabura Quichua, and Chachi.
Do differences between languages affect how accounts make decisions? Research suggests yes. My co-authors and I demonstrate that shared history can bias these results, and may lead to spurious correlations. Researchers: Go with caution.
worldscientific.com/doi/10.1…
Happy to have submitted a new article today to Behaviour Research Methods. Check out the pre-print: psyarxiv.com/v6ern/. In it, we identified some novel linguistic markers of anxiety and/or depression using @Reddit data.