医学考博英语阅读 | 家具影响人的决策

小白老师说：辅导医学博士英语考试这么多年，见过那么多牛掰的考生，小白老师觉得，他们的厉害之处就在于：明明考试很难，却义无反顾；明明知道前途未卜，却坚决不放弃，他们一直憋着一口气默默努力，直到目标达成。

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Science and technology：Psychology

科学技术：心理

Tall, dark and stable Wobbly furniture leads to a desire for emotional stability

摇摇晃晃的家具让人在情绪上追求稳定

CLEARLY, a person’s decisions are determined by circumstances. Just how closely they are determined, however, has only recently become apparent.

显然，任何人在做决策的时候都受决策时的周遭环境所影响。但具体来说会造成多大的影响直到最近才有了一个较为清晰的解释。

Experiments conducted over the past few years have revealed that giving someone an icy drink at a party leads him to believe he is getting the cold shoulder from fellow guests, that handing over a warm drink gives people a sense of warmth from others, and—most astonishingly—that putting potential voters in chairs which lean slightly to the left causes them to become more agreeable towards policies associated with the left of the political spectrum.

在过去几年进行的一系列实验中，有一个实验发现在聚会中，给客人提供冷饮会让他有不受旁边人待见的感觉倾向，相反，提供温水等有温度的饮料会让他们感觉到周围人的温暖。最让人惊奇的是，在另外一个关于潜在选民的实验中，让一个没有立场的潜在选民，坐在椅子上并微微向左边靠，他会更加认同与左派相似的政治立场。

The latest of these studies also looks at the effect of furniture. It suggests that something as trivial as the stability of chairs and tables has an effect on perceptions and desires.

这一系列实验最近将他们的目标转向了家具，研究家具对人的影响。他们假设许多不被人注意到的细节例如桌椅的稳定性会影响到人们对于其他事物的看法和愿望。

The study was conducted by David Kille, Amanda Forest and Joanne Wood at the University of Waterloo, in Canada, and will be published soon in Psychological Science.

这份研究是由 David Kille，Amanda Forest 以及滑铁卢大学的 Joanne Wood 一同完成的，即将在《心理科学》杂志上发表。

Mr Kille and his collaborators asked half of their volunteers to sit in a slightly wobbly chair next to a slightly wobbly table while engaged in the task assigned. The others were asked to sit in chairs next to tables that looked physically identical, but were not wobbly.

在实验中，他们选取了 47 个处于单身的大学本科生，将他们分为两组，一半学生在实验中坐在一张会摇晃的桌子旁一张会摇的椅子上，另外一半则是坐在外表相似却非常稳的椅子上。

Once in their chairs, participants were asked to judge the stability of the relationships of four celebrity couples: Barack and Michelle Obama, David and Victoria Beckham, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, and Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis.

研究人员给两组学生展示四组夫妇的照片：奥巴马和米歇尔，维多利亚和贝克汉姆，Jay-Z 和碧昂斯，强尼戴普和 Vanessa Paradis.

They did this by rating how likely they thought it was, on a scale of one to seven, that a couple would break up in the next five years. A score of one meant extremely unlikely to dissolve. A score of seven meant extremely likely to dissolve.

然后让学生们给四对夫妇的情感稳定性打分——从 1 分到 7 分，他们未来五年离婚或分手的几率。1 分代表几乎不可能分开，7 分代表十分可能分手。

After they had done this, they were asked to rate their preferences for various traits in a potential romantic partner.

接下来，调查者让两组学生分别对一系列理想配偶的特征进行打分，在量表上给出一系列特征。

Traits on offer included some which a pilot study indicated people associate with a sense of psychological stability, some that are associated with psychological instability and some with no real relevance to instability or stability.

依旧是 1 分到 7 分，1 分代表一点也不喜欢这样子的；7 分代表非常非常喜欢。量表上设置的特征，有些与追求稳定相关联，有些与追求不稳定相关联，有一些是随机挑选的特质，三类特征交错放置。

Participants rated the various traits on another one-to-seven scale, with one indicating not at all desirable and seven meaning extremely desirable.

其中关于追求稳定的一些特质包括是否值得信赖，是否可靠。而追求不稳定的特质包括是否自发性强，或是具有探险精神。

The results reveal that just as cold drinks lead to perceptions of social conditions being cold, tinkering with feelings of physical stability leads to perceptions of social instability.

调查结果就像之前那个聚会不要请人喝冷饮的调查一样，在身体感受到不稳定状态的时候，会使得心理上更加倾向于感受到社交中的不稳定因子。

Participants who sat in wobbly chairs at wobbly tables gave the celebrity couples an average stability score of 3.2 while those whose furniture did not wobble gave them 2.5.

摇椅上的人给那四对夫妇打得分数是 3.2，比另外一组高出 0.7，越高分数代表越可能分开。

What was particularly intriguing, though, was that those sitting at wonky furniture not only saw instability in the relationships of others but also said that they valued stability in their own relationships more highly.

这还不是最有意思的地方，最有趣的是这些坐在摇晃家具上的人不仅更倾向于看见他人关系中不稳定的因素，也倾向于更加重视追求自己与他人关系中的稳定因子。

They gave stability-promoting traits in potential romantic partners an average desirability score of 5.0, whereas those whose tables and chairs were stable gave these same traits a score of 4.5. The difference is not huge, but it is statistically significant.

他们在后一个实验中对理想配偶的稳定特质重视程度的打分平均是 5.0，比另外一组高出 0.5。虽然数字上的差异不是很大，但是就数据分析来说，已经很能说明问题了。

Even a small amount of environmental wobbliness seems to promote a desire for an emotional rock to cling to.

即使只是环境中存在一点点的不稳定因素似乎都会让人们产生赶快抓住一根感情稻草的冲动。