Native and foreign language contexts differentiate reactive aggression

Xiao‐Jie Yan

doi:10.1080/01434632.2025.2569561

Native and foreign language contexts differentiate reactive aggression

2025-10-09

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AI

DOI：10.1080/01434632.2025.2569561

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En 中文

Mounting evidence has shown that people feel, think, and behave differently in a foreign language compared to native language contexts. Here, we turn to the domain of social interaction to uncover how reactive aggression varies across different language contexts. Chinese-English bilinguals (n= 153) were engaged in a point-subtraction aggression task, which was disguised as an online computer game where participants were provided with three options: monetary response (pressing 1 to earn points), aggressive response (pressing 2 to deduct points from opponents), and protective response (pressing 3 to prevent point deductions). The computer acted as an ‘opponent’ and deducted points randomly from participants to provoke their aggression. Participants performed two sessions of the game, one in their native language Chinese and the other in their foreign language English. Overall, participants showed a moderate level of aggression, indicating profit and protection preferences over costly aggression. Critically, this behavioural pattern was weakened in the foreign language context, with more aggressive responses in English than in Chinese. The findings provide the first evidence for a language context effect on reactive aggression and have important implications for facilitating safe and friendly social interactions in multilingual environments, such as negotiation and everyday online communication.

Keyword:

Foreign language

Native language

Reactive aggression

Protective response

Native and foreign language contexts differentiate reactive aggression

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