Are people really less moral in their foreign language? Proficiency and comprehension matter for the moral foreign language effect in Russian speakers

Alena Kirova; Ying Tang; Paul Conway

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0287789

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 21, 2023
27 Apr 2023 Decision Letter - Ehsan Namaziandost, Editor PONE-D-23-05151Are People Really Less Moral in Their Foreign Language? Proficiency and Comprehension Matter for the Moral Foreign Language Effect in Russian SpeakersPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Conway, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ==============================Dear authors, Thank you for your submission to PLOS ONE. All in all, you did a good job; however, there are minor points, as raised by reviewer 2, which should be addressed. Good luck. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 11 2023 11:59PM. 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Kind regards, Ehsan Namaziandost Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please provide additional details regarding ethical approval in the body of your manuscript. In the Methods section, please ensure that you have specified the name of the IRB/ethics committee that approved your study. 3. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well. 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The current paper investigates the forein language effect on moral judgment. Prior research has uncovered that people are more likely to condone sacrificial choices on sacrificial harm dilemmas when they are asked to read those dilemmas in a foreign language vs when they are asked to read those dilemmas in their native language. The authors use process dissociation, a method to independently measure people's inclination towards both types of responses in these dilemmas so that they can investigate which of the two underlying inclinations drives the effect, and test whether foreign language proficiency moderates the effect. The manuscript is very well written. It is clear, it discusses the relevant literature, demonstrates how the current work fits in with prior work and explains why the research question is relevant. The methods are appropriate and I appreciate that the authors included both a subjective and an objective measure of language proficiency. They gathered a sufficiently large sample, used an open science approach and their analyses are conducted the way they should be conducted. Their conclusions are supported by the data, and the authors take enough time to discuss the nuances in their data. Their discussion of the limitations of their data seems good to me as well. Honestly, I don't have much to add to this paper as a reviewer. This is a straightforwardly well conducted study that has been written up appropriately. I think the authors did a great job and this manuscripts fits well within the goals and aims of Plos ONE. I truly don't do this often but I would be happy recommending it for publication as is. Reviewer #2: This paper shows a valuable contribution to the existing literature and knowledge in terms of introduction, style of writing, and methodology. In addition, the manuscript shows very good academic language and interesting cohesion of ideas in the introduction analysis of results, and discussion. The title is very good and has a degree of innovation as not much research dealt with such subject. The analysis of the results is also very good and has been written in a good way. Yet, there are minor typos that should be corrected. 1. The researchers need to add some more recommendations for further utilization of these findings and future lines of research could be also helpful as the research was conducted in a specific region and it is important to analyse if the situation will be different in other countries or the same. 2. Are the figures adapted or constructed? Clarify please. 3.Provide some more ideas on how the research could be extended and followed up, i.e., what are the further steps that need to be followed. 4.It still needs thorough proofreading and editing to polish its content, language, and a referencing style. 5. The significance of the study needs to be highlighted more. 6. Add more details on the application of the ethical consideration. 7. Are the figures adapted or constructed? Clarify please. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287789.r001
Revision 1
16 May 2023 Author Response Note: This information duplicates the response to the editor and reviewers in the cover letter of this resubmission. Dear Dr Namaziandost, Thank you and the reviewers for this helpful and constructive feedback on PONE-D-23-05151, Are People Really Less Moral in Their Foreign Language? Proficiency and Comprehension Matter for the Moral Foreign Language Effect in Russian Speakers. We are pleased to hear that the reviewers saw merit in the manuscript, and we have made revisions in accordance with instructions to bring the manuscript into alignment with PLOS One guidelines and standards. Accordingly, we have uploaded a Revised Manuscript with Track Changes, as well as an unmarked version of the original manuscript. We also respond to each point below. COMMENT 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf RESPONSE We have edited the paper to align with PLOS ONE style requirements, including naming our files accordingly, and have formatted author information accordingly. COMMENT 2. Please provide additional details regarding ethical approval in the body of your manuscript. In the Methods section, please ensure that you have specified the name of the IRB/ethics committee that approved your study. RESPONSE We have enclosed a copy of ethics approval with the study documents. We now specify in the introduction that “We followed APA ethical guidelines for the study.” We also clarified the full name of the IRB board in the methods section as follows: “The study protocol was approved by the Youngstown State University Institutional Review Board." COMMENT 3. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well. RESPONSE We now clarify in the Method section the full name of the IRB board in the methods section as follows: “The study protocol was approved by the Youngstown State University Institutional Review Board. Electronic consent was obtained from all participants, who selected "I agree" or "I don't agree" after reading the consent form on the computer. Only participants who selected ‘I agree’ could proceed with the study. To preserve anonymity, their signatures were not collected.” COMMENT 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. RESPONSE We have reviewed the reference list and checked it is correct and complete. Due to adding new paragraphs and sections in accordance with the reviewers’ comments, we added more citations, thereby extending our reference list to include the following eight additional references: 1. Peñarredonda, J. The Huge Benefits of Working in Your Second Language. London: BBC Worklife. 2018 [cited 2023 May 5]. Available from: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180525-why-using-a-foreign-language-could-make-you-better-at-work 2. Hayakawa S, Keysar B. Using a foreign language reduces mental imagery. Cognition. 2018 Apr 1;173:8-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.12.010 3. Muda R, Pennycook G, Hamerski D, Białek M. People are worse at detecting fake news in their foreign language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 2023 May 8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000475 4. Hadjichristidis C, Geipel J, Savadori L. The effect of foreign language in judgments of risk and benefit: The role of affect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 2015 Jun;21(2):117. 5. Study: You are likely to make immoral decisions while speaking a second language, study finds. The Language Nerds. 2020 [cited 2023 May 5]. Available from: https://thelanguagenerds.com/how-morality-changes-in-a-foreign-language/ 6. Awad E, Dsouza S, Shariff A, Rahwan I, Bonnefon JF. Universals and variations in moral decisions made in 42 countries by 70,000 participants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2020 Feb 4;117(5):2332-7. 7. Arutyunova KR, Alexandrov YI, Hauser MD. Sociocultural influences on moral judgments: East–west, male–female, and young–old. Frontiers in psychology. 2016 Sep 5;7:1334. 8. Martin S. Measuring cognitive load and cognition: metrics for technology-enhanced learning. Educational Research and Evaluation. 2014 Nov 17;20(7-8):592-621. COMMENT Reviewer #1: The current paper investigates the forein language effect on moral judgment. Prior research has uncovered that people are more likely to condone sacrificial choices on sacrificial harm dilemmas when they are asked to read those dilemmas in a foreign language vs when they are asked to read those dilemmas in their native language. The authors use process dissociation, a method to independently measure people's inclination towards both types of responses in these dilemmas so that they can investigate which of the two underlying inclinations drives the effect, and test whether foreign language proficiency moderates the effect. The manuscript is very well written. It is clear, it discusses the relevant literature, demonstrates how the current work fits in with prior work and explains why the research question is relevant. The methods are appropriate and I appreciate that the authors included both a subjective and an objective measure of language proficiency. They gathered a sufficiently large sample, used an open science approach and their analyses are conducted the way they should be conducted. Their conclusions are supported by the data, and the authors take enough time to discuss the nuances in their data. Their discussion of the limitations of their data seems good to me as well. Honestly, I don't have much to add to this paper as a reviewer. This is a straightforwardly well conducted study that has been written up appropriately. I think the authors did a great job and this manuscripts fits well within the goals and aims of Plos ONE. I truly don't do this often but I would be happy recommending it for publication as is. RESPONSE We thank the reviewer for these kind words and very much appreciate these thoughts. COMMENT Reviewer #2: This paper shows a valuable contribution to the existing literature and knowledge in terms of introduction, style of writing, and methodology. In addition, the manuscript shows very good academic language and interesting cohesion of ideas in the introduction analysis of results, and discussion. The title is very good and has a degree of innovation as not much research dealt with such subject. The analysis of the results is also very good and has been written in a good way. Yet, there are minor typos that should be corrected. RESPONSE We thank the reviewer for these encouraging comments. We have gone through the paper to correct typos. COMMENT 1. The researchers need to add some more recommendations for further utilization of these findings and future lines of research could be also helpful as the research was conducted in a specific region and it is important to analyse if the situation will be different in other countries or the same. RESPONSE The paper states, “Although we recruited people not often assessed in psychological work, we examined only two languages and two populations.” We expanded this statement by adding, “Research has shown that cultural factors such as individualism, relational mobility (the extent to which a society allows its members to choose and/or dispose of interpersonal relationships), and religiosity have an effect on moral judgment [71], and Russian culture may differ considerably from both Western societies and Eastern societies such as South America or East Asia, where there may be different cultural expectations regarding dilemma responding or different patterns of language use. In fact, [72] showed that Russian participants differ systematically from participants from Western societies such as the US, Canada, and Britain, in that they tend to accept sacrificial harm less often. Thus, it remains unclear how well the current findings would be replicated in other cultures both in the East and the West, and more cross-cultural research is needed to address the issue of generalizability.” COMMENT 2. Are the figures adapted or constructed? Clarify please. RESPONSE The figure was constructed for this paper on the basis of the data in the study. COMMENT 3. Provide some more ideas on how the research could be extended and followed up, i.e., what are the further steps that need to be followed. RESPONSE Thank you for this suggestion. The paper states: 1. “While evidence for impaired decision-making in one’s FL is growing, we emphasize that MFLE refers to a language effect in FL learners, who represent only a fraction of bilingual/L2 speakers; whether this effect applies to other bilingual populations is an empirical question that future work should clarify.” 2. “Thus, it remains unclear how well the current findings would be replicated in other cultures both in the East and the West, and more cross-cultural research is needed to address the issue of generalizability.” 3. “Future work may profit from employing the CNI or proCNI models to determine if the pattern of results demonstrated here load uniquely on concerns for the individual and group, or whether some of the variance may be due to systematic differences in inaction or inertia tendencies in L2.” 4. “We recognize, however, that a lack of direct measures of emotionality in our study means that our conclusions regarding the role of emotionality in blunting harm-rejecting inclinations should be interpreted with caution. Future research should incorporate such measures to examine this possibility directly.” 5. “Future dilemma research would benefit from using modeling approaches such as PD, the CNI model, or the proCNI model to study such populations. Moreover, strengthening such research with objective measures of emotionality commonly used in research on language emotionality—such as skin conductance response and eye-tracking [60, 75]—may indeed reveal that deontological responding is equally strong in languages with similar emotional resonances to the dilemmas.” We also added, “Future research would benefit from measuring the amount of cognitive load: if cognitive load is reliably higher in a low-proficiency than in a high-proficiency group during dilemma administration, and utilitarian responding is weaker in the low-proficiency group, one can conclude that lower proficiency is in fact related to the increase in cognitive load, affecting moral judgment. Some objective measures of cognitive load include pupillometry (eye-tracking), brain activity measures such as MRI and fNIRS, EEG or cardiovascular metrics, while subjective measures include self-reports of stress or mental effort [82].” COMMENT 4. It still needs thorough proofreading and editing to polish its content, language, and a referencing style. RESPONSE We have edited the paper to fix errors and adapted it to PLOS ONE referencing and style guidance. COMMENT 5. The significance of the study needs to be highlighted more. RESPONSE The paper states in the discussion, “The current work also extends these findings to Russian speakers, a novel sample for this area” and “the current findings shed some possible light on why the patterns in previous studies are not entirely consistent—it may be that some studies had higher proficiency foreign language speakers than others.” These are two novel aspects of the current work. We have emphasized the latter novel aspect in the Future Directions section by saying, “One of the contributions this study makes to the MFLE field is that it potentially brings together and reconciles the seemingly contradictory findings from the other modeling studies – those in [43], which found weaker deontological but not utilitarian responding in the FL, vs. those in [42], which found that FL compromised both deontological and utilitarian responding. This discrepancy might have been caused by different proficiency levels in the FL participants in those studies, and it is therefore appropriate to conduct modeling studies that will include proficiency as one of the independent variables, ideally using different language groups.” Furthermore, the paper states, “This pattern suggests the MFLE may not be caused by the FL per se, but rather that reading in a FL leads to incomplete comprehension, which in turn leads to compromised moral responding” and “These findings emphasize that in addition to taking into consideration bilingual language experience factors such as age of acquisition, proficiency, and language dominance [36], the extent to which specific experimental stimuli are understood by the FL readers also needs to be controlled for.” Finally, we have added a section in the discussion on Implications for processing in foreign languages that connects the current findings to a broader discussion in the scientific and popular literature about the role of FL processing. COMMENT 6. Add more details on the application of the ethical consideration. RESPONSE We now clarify in the Method section the full name of the IRB board in the methods section as follows: “The study protocol was approved by the Youngstown State University Institutional Review Board. Electronic consent was obtained from all participants, who selected "I agree" or "I don't agree" after reading the consent form on the computer. Only participants who selected ‘I agree’ could proceed with the study. To preserve anonymity, their signatures were not collected.” COMMENT 7. Are the figures adapted or constructed? Clarify please. RESPONSE The figure was constructed for this paper on the basis of the data in the study. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287789.r002
6 Jun 2023 Decision Letter - Ehsan Namaziandost, Editor PONE-D-23-05151R1Are People Really Less Moral in Their Foreign Language? Proficiency and Comprehension Matter for the Moral Foreign Language Effect in Russian SpeakersPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Conway, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 21 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Ehsan Namaziandost Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: (No Response) ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: This paper shows a valuable contribution to the existing literature and knowledge in terms of introduction, style of writing, and methodology. Yet, there are minor typos that should be corrected. The manuscript should be checked for minor language issues and the researchers need to mention to some tables in the explanations so that they are clearer and easier to be followed. Furthermore, The discussion of the study needs to be compared with more relevant new studies in relation to that period such as: Liqaa Habeb Al-Obaydi (2021): Humanistic learning elements in a blended learning environment: a study in an EFL teaching context, Interactive Learning Environments, DOI: 10.1080/10494820.2021.1919717 Finally,it still needs thorough proofreading and editing to polish its content, language, and APA style. The manuscript looks much better. Thank you. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287789.r003
Revision 2
6 Jun 2023 Author Response Dear Dr Namaziandost, Thank you and the reviewers for this helpful and constructive feedback on this revision, PONE-D-23-05151R1, Are People Really Less Moral in Their Foreign Language? Proficiency and Comprehension Matter for the Moral Foreign Language Effect in Russian Speakers. We are pleased to hear that the reviewers saw merit in the manuscript, and we have made revisions in accordance with instructions to bring the manuscript into alignment with PLOS One guidelines and standards. Accordingly, we have uploaded a Revised Manuscript with Track Changes, as well as an unmarked version of the original manuscript. We also respond to each point below. COMMENT Reviewer #2: This paper shows a valuable contribution to the existing literature and knowledge in terms of introduction, style of writing, and methodology. Yet, there are minor typos that should be corrected. The manuscript should be checked for minor language issues and the researchers need to mention to some tables in the explanations so that they are clearer and easier to be followed. Furthermore, The discussion of the study needs to be compared with more relevant new studies in relation to that period such as: Liqaa Habeb Al-Obaydi (2021): Humanistic learning elements in a blended learning environment: a study in an EFL teaching context, Interactive Learning Environments, DOI: 10.1080/10494820.2021.1919717 Finally,it still needs thorough proofreading and editing to polish its content, language, and APA style. The manuscript looks much better. Thank you. RESPONSE We thank the reviewer for these encouraging words. We went through the manuscript to correct any remaining typos in the text and references and eliminated some phrases with different coloured text—see enclosed version with track changes. We now mention tables in the discussion, line 478, line 490, and line 541, in addition to the results. We also now cite the mentioned paper as follows: Finally, it may be that the learning conditions under which people encounter their FL influence responses, such as humanistic learning environments [84]. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287789.r004
13 Jun 2023 Decision Letter - Ehsan Namaziandost, Editor Are People Really Less Moral in Their Foreign Language? Proficiency and Comprehension Matter for the Moral Foreign Language Effect in Russian Speakers PONE-D-23-05151R2 Dear Dr. Conway, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Ehsan Namaziandost Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: Thanks for addressing all the corrections. The authors have adequately addressed the comments raised in a previous round of review and I feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287789.r005
Formally Accepted
3 Jul 2023 Acceptance Letter - Ehsan Namaziandost, Editor PONE-D-23-05151R2 Are people really less moral in their foreign language? Proficiency and comprehension matter for the moral foreign language effect in Russian speakers Dear Dr. Conway: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Ehsan Namaziandost Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287789.r006

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