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if you speak Finnish, Chinese, or German, you’re likely to invest and exercise about 30% more often than speakers of English, French, or Russian.
this fascinating study was conducted and published by Keith Chen, a Chinese-American behavioral economist in 2012.
long story short: The research analyzed the behavior of speakers from two language groups:
1. "Futured" languages (with distinct grammatical structures for the future tense, like English).
2. "Futureless" languages (where the future can be expressed identically to the present, like German).
the presence or absence of future tense affects how we perceive the future. When speakers use the same tense for the present and future, they more easily associate with their "future selves" and make decisions that benefit them long-term.
after analyzing linguistic and economic data, Chen concluded that futureless language speakers are:
29% more likely to exercise,
20–24% less likely to smoke,
13–17% less likely to be obese.
a little bit longer: 11-minute TED Talk for a deeper dive https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_chen_could_your_language_affect_your_ability_to_save_money
and really long: And the study, on page 39 of which you can find a list of 39 languages and their futurity https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty_pages/keith.chen/papers/Final_AER13.pdf 1 reply
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