clipped from: content1.clipmarks.com NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - People who are bicultural and speak two languages may unconsciously change their personality when they switch languages, according to a U.S. study.
Researchers David Luna from Baruch College and Torsten Ringberg and Laura A. Peracchio from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee studied groups of Hispanic women, all of whom were bilingual, but with varying degrees of cultural identification.
"Language can be a cue that activates different culture-specific frames," the researchers said in a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
The researchers said the women classified themselves as more assertive when they spoke Spanish than when they spoke English.
"In the Spanish-language sessions, informants perceived females as more self-sufficient and extroverted," they said.