Head Lines; June/July 2006; Scientific American Mind; by Matthew Hutson, JR Minkel, Jamie Talan, Jonathan Beard, Kaspar Mossman, Mark Fischetti; 6 Page(s)

Many bilingual individuals say they feel like a different person depending on which language they are speaking. A new study lends credence to their claims.

Nair¿n Ram¿rez-Esparza, a psychology doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin, charted the personality traits of 225 Spanish/English bilingual subjects in both the U.S. and Mexico as they responded to questions presented in each language. Ram¿rez-Esparza and her colleagues found three significant differences: when using English, the bilinguals were more extraverted, agreeable and conscientious than when using Spanish.