This video interestingly explains through psychological research examples how language changes human thinking, emotions, and even behavior. It covers the difference in emotional distance between using one's native language and a foreign language, the impact of language's grammatical characteristics on memory and economic decisions, and the positive effects that multilingualism has on the brain, emphasizing that language learning is like 'upgrading the brain's operating system' rather than simply installing an app. Ultimately, we conclude by emphasizing the importance of expressing emotions in Korean.

1. The truth revealed by subtle differences in language

Psychologist Professor Viorica Marian comes up with an ingenious way to uncover a Russian spy with a perfect English accent. When you place a highlighter (marker) and a stamp (марка, marka) on the desk and say in English, 'Look at the marker', you can tell that the spy's native language is Russian by the way his eyes move towards the stamp for a split second. 🤯 This can be said to be an example showing that language is deeply rooted in our unconsciousness.

2. Listen to your native language with your heart, and listen to foreign languages ​​with your head.

A 2003 study by Boston University psychologist Catherine Harris found that bilingual people felt emotionally uncomfortable when hearing harsh profanity in their native language, but did not feel as much discomfort when hearing the same profanity in a foreign language.

"In other words, you listen to your native language with your heart and foreign languages ​​with your head."

This suggests that native language is deeply linked to emotional bonds. For example, saying "I love you" to your parents or lover carries much more weight than saying "I love you." In the same context, while "I love you mom" feels awkward, "I love you" can be expressed relatively easily. 💕

3. Why we make more rational choices when thinking in a foreign language

University of Chicago psychologist Elbert Costa's 'Trolley Dilemma' experiment demonstrates the impact of language on moral judgment. When a runaway train was heading towards five workers, we asked about a situation in which five people could be saved by pushing a large man to stop the train.

• Most people who were asked in their native language did not push the man because they felt a strong instinctive aversion to killing a person directly.
• However, when asked in a foreign language, a whopping 44% of people said they would push a man.

Researchers explain this as follows:

"When you think in your native language, you have a strong emotional response and feel an instinctive resistance to the very act of killing a person. But when you think in a foreign language, you develop emotional distance and calculate the number 5 to 1 more calmly."

This phenomenon was also seen in other experiments. When asked questions in a dice game in their native language, people lied at a high rate, but when asked questions in a foreign language, people became surprisingly honest. Additionally, when asked whether they would rather keep $10 or take the chance of winning $25 by flipping a coin (expected value of $12.5), native speakers chose $10 due to loss aversion, whereas 71% of foreign language speakers chose to bet.

"The filter of a foreign language silences emotional desires and turns on the brain of objective reason."

In fact, bilingual people sometimes say that they deliberately think in a foreign language when making important decisions in order to make wise choices rather than being swayed by emotions. 🧠

4. The grammar of language changes our economic concepts and even the way we remember.

Keith Chen, an economist at Yale University, analyzed the languages ​​of 76 countries around the world and published surprising results showing that the presence or absence of the future tense in a language affects people's savings habits.

• People who spoke languages with clear future tenses, like English**, saved significantly less than those who spoke **languages with blurred future tenses**, like Chinese, German and Japanese.
• Speakers of languages with weak future tense were 31% more likely to save and 39% more likely to save for retirement.

Chen explains:

"Languages ​​with a strong future tense grammatically separate the present from the future. So the future feels distant and we postpone actions for the future. To put it simply, when writing English, you think that in the future I will take care of it myself. When writing Chinese, for a moment, you think that in the future, I will eventually be myself."

Therefore, if you find it difficult to save, I suggest that it may be helpful to state your future plans in the present tense, such as "I am saving 1 million won now," instead of "I will save 1 million won next month." This is because when language changes, thoughts can change and actions can also change.

Additionally, the grammatical nature of a language also affects our perception. In German, 'legs' is a feminine noun, so it is described as 'beautiful' and 'elegant', but in Spanish, 'legs' is a masculine noun, so it is described as 'looking strong' and 'strong'.

When a Stanford University research team showed a video of a vase breaking and asked who broke it, English speakers focused on the actor, saying 'John broke the vase', but Spanish speakers tended to focus on the event itself, saying 'the vase broke'. When asked a few days later if they remembered who broke the vase, English speakers accurately remembered the culprit's face, but Spanish speakers did not. This shows that differences in language grammar can even manipulate the way we remember. 😮

5. The power of foreign languages ​​to heal trauma and strengthen the brain

In his New York psychotherapy practice in the 1980s, Dr. Rafael Javier counseled a bilingual patient who had suffered trauma from childhood abuse by his father. The patient instinctively switched to a foreign language when talking about the trauma.

"I could say I was abused, but it was hard to say that I was abused. A foreign language builds a transparent glass wall between painful memories and me."

These principles are also used to treat PTSD. For immigrant patients suffering from war trauma, we help them achieve emotional distancing by first having them speak in a foreign language and then gradually switching to their native language. 💖

A study by York University psychologist Anetta Bablanco found that bilingual people feel more 'authentic' when speaking in their native language, but at the same time feel 'more free' when speaking in a foreign language. They say this is because you can say things in a foreign language that you would not be able to say in your native language.

Interestingly, multilingual speakers perform better than the general population on the Stroop Test. In this test, which requires saying the color of a letter instead of its meaning, multilingual users have constantly been trained to suppress unnecessary language and select only the necessary information when multiple languages ​​come to mind at the same time. It is said that thanks to this cognitive flexibility, the onset of dementia and Alzheimer's can be delayed by more than 5 years on average. 🤩 Because the brains of multilingual speakers have multiple detours.

6. Language, the power to move the mind

Former South African President Nelson Mandela once said, "If you speak in a language a person understands, it goes into the head, but if you speak in the language of the person, it goes into the heart." Mandela learned Afrikaans, the language of his guards, during his 27 years in prison, and when he spoke of reconciliation in Afrikaans in his inauguration speech as president after his release, white people were both shocked and deeply moved. This shows that language has a powerful power to move people's hearts beyond simply conveying information. 🗣️❤️

7. The importance of our instincts and native language

Let's go back to the Russian spy story. He had a perfect English accent, natural gestures, and even passed a lie detector test, but his eyes flickered towards the stamp for a split second. In this way, when we speak a foreign language, we become more rational, freer, less hurt, and trauma more bearable, but we cannot overcome that 0.1 second instinct.

"Your name that my mother first called me. The day I first said I love you. I was so angry that I swore all the way through my head. The language that our hearts respond to first is Korean."

So tonight, try saying "thank you" rather than "thank you" to your loved one, "sorry" rather than "sorry", and "I love you" rather than "I love you." 🫂 The word that resonates the most with us is, of course, our native language.

Conclusion

This video was produced based on Professor Fiorica Marian's book, "How Language Changes Humans." This book is highly recommended for those who are curious about how words and grammar control our morality, economic concepts, and even past memories unconsciousness. The author explains that learning a new language is like upgrading the brain operating system itself, rather than simply installing an app, and introduces the brain-scientific advantages of speaking multiple languages. Since there are not many books on the topic of linguistic psychology, it is said to be a more interesting and fun book to read.