TED | A simple trick to improve positive thinking 《怎样走出负面情绪》

教育 2024-07-12 08:14 新西兰

Why does a failure seem to stick in our minds so much longer than a success? According to social psychologist Alison Ledgerwood, our perception of the world tends to lean negative, and reframing how we communicate could be the key to unlocking a more positive outlook.

In this sharp talk, Ledgerwood shares a simple trick for kicking negative thinking to the curb so we can start focusing on the upside.

Hi everyone, gosh I wish I could dance, but I can't and you really don't want me to. So instead, I thought I would talk a little today about how people think. I'm fascinated by this question, I'm a social psychologist which basically means I'm a professional people watcher.

大家好，天哪，我真希望我能跳舞，但我不会，而且你们真的不希望我跳。所以，我今天想稍微谈谈人们是如何思考的。我对这个问题很着迷，我是一名社会心理学家，这基本上意味着我是一个专业的观察者。

So this is what I do, I try to figure out how humans think and how we might be able to think better. And here's something I noticed a few years ago about how I seem to think. Here's a typical week in my life which usually seems to revolve entirely around publishing papers.

所以这就是我所做的，我试图弄清楚人类是如何思考的，以及我们如何才能更好地思考。几年前，我注意到了一些关于我似乎是如何思考的事情。以下是我生活中典型的一周，通常似乎完全围绕着发表论文。

So here I am in the maximum of my artistic abilities as a stick figure going along at baseline and a paper gets accepted. I get this rush, this blip of happiness and then I'm back to baseline by about lunchtime. A few days later, a paper might get rejected and that feels pretty awful.

所以，我以我最大的艺术能力，像一个简笔画一样沿着基线走，一篇论文被接受了。我得到这种冲动，这种幸福的冲击，然后在午餐时间左右，我又回到了基线。几天后，一篇论文可能会被拒绝，这感觉很糟糕。

And I wait for that blip to end, but somehow I just can't stop thinking about it. And here's the craziest part, even if another paper gets accepted the next day, well that's nice, but somehow I can't get that pesky rejection out of my head. So what is going on here? Why does a failure seem to stick in our minds so much longer than a success? Well together with my colleague Amber Boydston in the political science department, I started thinking about this question, this question of do our minds get stuck in the negatives? We all know intuitively that there are different ways of thinking about things.

我等待着这种冲击的结束，但不知何故，我就是无法停止思考它。最疯狂的是，即使第二天另一篇论文被接受了，好吧，这很好，但不知何故，我无法将那讨厌的拒绝从我的脑海中抹去。那么，这里发生了什么？为什么失败似乎比成功在我们的脑海中停留的时间长得多？好吧，我和我在政治学系的同事Amber Boydston一起开始思考这个问题，这个问题是，我们的思想是否陷入了消极情绪？我们凭直觉都知道，看待事物的方式有很多种。

The same glass, the same goes, can be seen as half full or half empty. And there's a lot of research in the social sciences showing that depending on how you describe the glass to people as half full or half empty, it changes how they feel about it. So if you describe the glass as half full, this is called a gain frame because you're focusing on what's gained, then people like it.

同一个杯子，同样的道理，可以看作是半满的，也可以看作是半空的。社会科学领域有很多研究表明，根据你如何向人们描述这个杯子是半满的还是半空的，它会改变他们对它的感觉。所以，如果你把杯子描述成半满的，这被称为“收益框架”，因为你关注的是获得了什么，那么人们就会喜欢它。

But if you describe the same glass as half empty, a loss frame, then people don't like it. But we wondered what happens when you try to switch from thinking about it one way to thinking about it another way? Can people shift back and forth or do they get stuck in one way of thinking about it? Does one of these labels, in other words, tend to stick more in the mind? Well to investigate this question, we conducted a simple experiment. We told participants in our experiment about a new surgical procedure and we randomly assigned them to one of two conditions.

但如果你把同一个杯子描述成半空的，一个损失框架，那么人们就不会喜欢它。但我们想知道，当你试图从一种思维方式转换到另一种思维方式时会发生什么？人们可以来回转换吗？还是他们会陷入一种思维方式？换句话说，这些标签中的一个是否更容易留在脑海中？为了研究这个问题，我们进行了一个简单的实验。我们告诉我们实验的参与者一个新的外科手术，我们将他们随机分配到两种情况中的一种。

For participants in the first condition, the first group, we described the surgical procedure in terms of gains. We said it had a 70% success rate. And for participants in the second group, we described the procedure in terms of losses.

对于第一种情况下的参与者，也就是第一组，我们用收益来描述这个外科手术。我们说它的成功率是70%。而对于第二组的参与者，我们用损失来描述这个手术。

We said it had a 30% failure rate. So it's the exact same procedure, we're just focusing people's attention on the part of the glass that's full or the part of the glass that's empty. Perhaps unsurprisingly, people like the procedure when it's described as having a 70% success rate and they don't like it when it's described as having a 30% failure rate.

我们说它的失败率是30%。所以这完全是同一个手术，我们只是把人们的注意力集中在杯子满的那部分或空的那部分。也许不出所料，当这个手术被描述为70%的成功率时，人们喜欢它，而当它被描述为30%的失败率时，他们就不喜欢它。

But then we added a twist. We told participants in the first group, you know, you could think of this as a 30% failure rate. And now they don't like it anymore.

但后来我们增加了一个转折。我们告诉第一组的参与者，你知道，你可以把这看作是30%的失败率。现在他们不再喜欢它了。

They've changed their minds. And we told participants in the second group, you know, you could think of this as a 70% success rate, but unlike the first group, they stuck with their initial opinion. They seemed to be stuck in the initial loss frame that they saw at the beginning of the study.

他们改变了主意。我们告诉第二组的参与者，你知道，你可以把这看作是70%的成功率，但与第一组不同的是，他们坚持最初的观点。他们似乎被困在了他们在研究开始时看到的最初的损失框架中。

We conducted another experiment. This time we told participants about the current governor of an important state who is running for re-election against his opponent. We again had two groups of participants and we described the current governor's track record to them in one of two ways.

我们进行了另一个实验。这一次，我们告诉参与者，一个重要州的现任州长正在竞选连任，与他的对手竞争。我们再次有两组参与者，我们用两种方式之一向他们描述了现任州长的过往记录。

We said that when the current governor took office, statewide budget cuts were expected to affect about 10,000 jobs. And then half the participants read that under the current governor's leadership, 40% of these jobs had been saved. And they like the current governor.

我们说，当现任州长上任时，预计全州范围内的预算削减将影响到大约10,000个工作岗位。然后，一半的参与者读到，在现任州长的领导下，这些工作岗位中有40%得到了保留。他们喜欢现任州长。

They think he's doing a great job. The rest of the participants read that under the current governor's leadership, 60% of these jobs had been lost. And they don't like the current governor.

他们认为他做得很好。其余的参与者读到，在现任州长的领导下，这些工作岗位中有60%已经消失。他们不喜欢现任州长。

They think he's doing a terrible job. But then once more, we added a twist. For participants in the first group, we reframed the information in terms of losses.

他们认为他做得糟透了。但后来我们又一次增加了一个转折。对于第一组的参与者，我们用损失来重新定义这些信息。

And now they didn't like the current governor anymore. And for participants in the second group, we reframed the information in terms of gains. But just like in the first study, this didn't seem to matter.

现在他们不再喜欢现任州长了。而对于第二组的参与者，我们用收益来重新定义这些信息。但就像在第一个研究中一样，这似乎并不重要。

People in this group still didn't like the current governor. So notice what this means. Once the loss frame gets in there, it sticks.

这组人仍然不喜欢现任州长。所以要注意这意味着什么。一旦损失框架进入，它就会粘住。

People can't go back to thinking about jobs saved once they've thought about jobs lost. So in both of these scenarios, actually, the current governor gets ousted in favor of his opponent. Well, at this point, we were getting curious.

一旦人们想到了失去的工作，他们就不能再回到思考保住的工作上去了。所以在这两种情况下，实际上，现任州长都被赶下台，取而代之的是他的对手。好吧，在这一点上，我们开始好奇了。

Why does this happen? Could it be that it's actually mentally harder for people to convert from losses to gains than it is for them to go from gains to losses? So we conducted a third study to test how easily people could convert from one frame to another. This time, we told participants, imagine there's been an outbreak of an unusual disease and 600 lives are at stake. And we asked participants in one group, if 100 lives are saved, how many will be lost? And we asked participants in the other group, if 100 lives are lost, how many will be saved? So everyone just has to calculate 600 minus 100 and come up with the answer of 500.

为什么会发生这种情况？会不会是人们从损失转换为收益实际上比从收益转换为损失在心理上更难？因此，我们进行了第三项研究，以测试人们在两种框架之间转换的容易程度。这一次，我们告诉参与者，想象一下，一种不寻常的疾病爆发了，600条生命处于危险之中。我们问一组参与者，如果拯救了100条生命，会有多少人死亡？我们问另一组参与者，如果失去了100条生命，会有多少人获救？所以每个人只需要计算600减去100，就能得出500的答案。

But whereas people in one group have to convert from gains to losses in order to do that, people in the second group have to convert from losses to gains. We timed how long it took them to solve this simple math problem. And what we found was that when people had to convert from gains to losses, they could solve the problem quite quickly, took them about seven seconds on average.

但是，一组人必须从收益转换为损失才能做到这一点，而另一组人则必须从损失转换为收益。我们计算了他们解决这个简单数学问题所需的时间。我们发现，当人们必须从收益转换为损失时，他们可以很快地解决问题，平均花费大约7秒钟。

But when they had to convert from losses to gains, well, now it took them far longer, almost 11 seconds. So this suggests that once we think about something as a loss, that way of thinking about it tends to stick in our heads and to resist our attempts to change it. What I take away from this research and from related research is that our view of the world has a fundamental tendency to tilt toward the negative.

但是，当他们必须从损失转换为收益时，嗯，现在他们花费的时间要长得多，几乎是11秒。所以这表明，一旦我们把某件事看作是一种损失，这种思维方式就会停留在我们的脑海中，并抵制我们改变它的尝试。我从这项研究和相关研究中得到的启示是，我们对世界的看法有一种根本的倾向，那就是倾向于消极。

It's pretty easy to go from good to bad, but far harder to shift from bad to good. We literally have to work harder to see the upside of things. And this matters, so think about the economy.

从好到坏很容易，但从坏到好却难得多。我们必须付出更多的努力才能看到事物好的一面。这一点很重要，所以想想经济。

Here's economic well-being from 2007 to 2010. And you can see it tanked, just like we all remember. And then by late 2010, it had recovered by most objective measures.

这是2007年到2010年的经济福祉。你可以看到它一落千丈，就像我们都记得的那样。然后到2010年底，根据大多数客观指标，它已经恢复了。

But here's consumer confidence over the same time period. You can see it tanks right along with the economy, but then it seems to get stuck. Instead of rebounding with the economy itself, consumers seem to be psychologically stuck back there in the recession.

但这是同期消费者信心指数。你可以看到它和经济一起下滑，但后来似乎陷入了困境。消费者似乎并没有随着经济的复苏而反弹，而是在心理上陷入了衰退的泥潭。

So oddly then, it may take more effort to change our minds about how the economy is doing than to change the economy itself. On a more personal level, what this research means to me is that you have to work to see the upside. Literally, this takes work.

因此，奇怪的是，改变我们对经济状况的看法可能比改变经济本身需要付出更多的努力。在更个人化的层面上，这项研究对我来说意味着，你必须努力看到好的一面。毫不夸张地说，这需要努力。

This takes effort. And you can practice this. You can train your mind to do this better.

这需要付出努力。你可以练习这个。你可以训练你的大脑把这件事做得更好。

There is research out of UC Davis showing that just writing for a few minutes each day about things that you're grateful for can dramatically boost your happiness and well-being and even your health. We can also rehearse good news and share it with others. We tend to think, right, that misery loves company, that venting will help get rid of our negative emotions, that we'll feel better if we just talk about how terrible our day was.

加州大学戴维斯分校的一项研究表明，每天只需花几分钟时间写下你感激的事情，就能极大地提升你的幸福感、福祉，甚至健康状况。我们也可以练习好消息，并与他人分享。我们倾向于认为，对，痛苦喜欢陪伴，发泄情绪有助于摆脱负面情绪，如果我们只是谈论我们的一天有多糟糕，我们会感觉更好。

And so we talk. And we talk. And we talk about the boss who's driving us crazy and the friend who never called us back and the meeting at work where every little thing that could go wrong did.

所以我们谈话。我们谈话。我们谈论让我们抓狂的老板，从不回电话的朋友，以及工作中每一次可能出错的小事。

But we forget to talk about the good stuff. And yet that's exactly where our minds need the most practice. So my husband, who has this disconcerting habit of listening to what I say other people should do and then pointing out that, technically speaking, I'm a person too, has taken to listening to me for about two minutes on days when I come home all grumpy and complaining about everything.

但我们忘了谈论好的东西。然而，这正是我们的大脑最需要练习的地方。所以我的丈夫，他有一个令人不安的习惯，就是听我说什么，别人应该做什么，然后指出，从技术上讲，我也是一个人，他在我回家时，总是脾气暴躁，抱怨一切，他会听我抱怨大约两分钟。

And he listens and he says, OK, but what happened today that was good? And so I tell him about the student who came up to me after class with this really interesting insightful question. And I tell him about the friend who emailed me out of the blue this morning just to say hello. And somewhere in the telling, I start to smile and I start to think that maybe my day was pretty decent after all.

他听着，然后说，好吧，但今天发生了什么好事？于是我告诉他，下课后，一个学生走到我面前，问了我一个非常有趣、很有见地的问题。我还告诉他，今天早上，一个朋友突然给我发邮件，只是为了打个招呼。在讲述的过程中，我开始微笑，我开始想，也许我的一天毕竟还不错。

I think we can also work in our communities to focus on the upside. We can be more aware that bad tends to stick. One mean comment can stick with somebody all day, all week even.

我认为我们也可以在我们的社区中努力关注好的一面。我们可以更加意识到，坏事往往会持续下去。一句刻薄的话可以整天、甚至整个星期地困扰着一个人。

And bad tends to propagate itself, right? Somebody snaps at you and you snap back and you snap at the next guy too. But what if the next time somebody snapped at you, you forgave them? What if the next time you had a really grumpy waitress, you left her an extra large tip? Our minds may be built to look for negative information and to hold on to it. But we can also retrain our minds if we put some effort into it and start to see that the glass may be a little more full than we initially thought.

坏事往往会自我传播，对吧？有人对你发火，你反击，你也对下一个人发火。但是，如果下次有人对你发火，你原谅了他们呢？如果下次你遇到一个脾气暴躁的女服务员，你给她留了一笔巨额小费呢？我们的大脑可能天生就会寻找负面信息并抓住不放。但我们也可以重新训练我们的大脑，如果我们在这方面付出一些努力，并开始看到，杯子可能比我们最初想象的要满一些。

Thank you.

谢谢。

http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzIwMTM2MTkwOQ==&mid=2654129545&idx=2&sn=afd83b2cd78c40835cc2d8279c2abd91

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