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TED | 为什么我们总认为自己是对的—即便你错了

2017-01-13 TED与纪录片

为什么我们总认为自己是对的

TED简介：明明有时我们做的是错的，却还是坚持自己是正确的，选择去做。究竟我们思维中有什么缺陷让我们固执己见呢？

演讲者：Julia Galef

片长：11：42

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=v03319q2100&width=500&height=375&auto=0

中英对照翻译

So I'm here to tell you that we have a problem with boys, and it's a serious problem with boys. Their culture isn't working in schools, and I'm going to share with you ways that we can think about overcoming that problem. First, I want to start by saying, this is a boy, and this is a girl, and this is probably stereotypically what you think of as a boy and a girl. If I essentialize gender for you today, then you can dismiss what I have to say.

我在这儿是想告诉大家我们的对男孩的教育有问题，男孩子的教育是个严重问题。在学校，男孩文化没有形成。我要和大家分享我们关于这一问题的解决方法。首先，我首先想说，这是个男孩，这是个女孩。这可能是你刻板的关于男孩和女孩的想法。如果我今天要讲性别的事，然后大家可能不会理睬我要说的。

So I'd like you to imagine for a moment that you're a soldier in the heat of battle. Maybe you're a Roman foot soldier or a medieval archer or maybe you're a Zulu warrior. Regardless of your time and place, there are some things that are constant. Your adrenaline is elevated, and your actions are stemming from these deeply ingrained reflexes, reflexes rooted in a need to protect yourself and your side and to defeat the enemy.

我想让你们想象一下，你是一个身处激烈战争中的士兵。也许你是一个罗马步兵或者中世纪的弓箭手, 或者是一个祖鲁勇士。不管你是处在怎样的时代和战场，有些东西是相同的。你的肾上腺素上升，而你的行动源于那些最原始的条件反射，那种出于保护自己和战友并打败敌人的需求的条件反射。

So now, I'd like you to imagine playing a very different role, that of the scout. The scout's job is not to attack or defend. The scout's job is to understand. The scout is the one going out, mapping the terrain, identifying potential obstacles. And the scout may hope to learn that, say, there's a bridge in a convenient location across a river. But above all, the scout wants to know what's really there, as accurately as possible.

现在，再想象一下扮演一个完全不同的角色，那就是侦察员。侦察员的工作不是攻击或者防守。侦察员的工作是认清形势。侦察员是那些走出营地去测定地形、识别出可能的障碍的人。侦察员也许很希望刚好在合适的位置有一座桥可以跨过某条河。但更重要的是，侦察员想要弄清楚那里到底有什么，越精确越好。

And in a real, actual army, both the soldier and the scout are essential. But you can also think of each of these roles as a mindset -- a metaphor for how all of us process information and ideas in our daily lives. What I'm going to argue today is that having good judgment, making accurate predictions, making good decisions, is mostly about which mindset you're in.

在一支精良的队伍中，士兵和侦察员都是必不可少的。但是你也可以把它们各自想象为一种思维模式——一种关于我们如何在日常生活中处理信息和想法的比喻。今天我将要讨论的是不管是拥有好的判断力，做出正确的预测，还是做出好的决策，几乎都跟你处于哪种思维模式相关。

To illustrate these mindsets in action, I'm going to take you back to 19th-century France, where this innocuous-looking piece of paper launched one of the biggest political scandals in history. It was discovered in 1894 by officers in the French general staff. It was torn up in a wastepaper basket, but when they pieced it back together, they discovered that someone in their ranks had been selling military secrets to Germany.

为了举例说明这两种思维模式，我将带你们回到19世纪法国的一个地方。在那里，由这张看起来很普通的稿件，引发了历史上最大的政治丑闻之一。它是在1984年被法国总参谋部的军官发现的。被撕碎了扔在一个废纸篓里，但是当他们把它拼接起来后，发现他们中间有人在向德国出卖军事机密。

So they launched a big investigation, and their suspicions quickly converged on this man, Alfred Dreyfus.He had a sterling record, no past history of wrongdoing, no motive as far as they could tell. But Dreyfus was the only Jewish officer at that rank in the army, and unfortunately at this time, the French Army was highly anti-Semitic. They compared Dreyfus's handwriting to that on the memo and concluded that it was a match, even though outside professional handwriting experts were much less confident in the similarity,but never mind that.

因此他们开展了深入的调查，然后他们的怀疑很快集中到了这个人身上，阿尔弗勒德·德雷福斯。他没有过任何不光彩的记录，没做过什么坏事，也没有所谓的动机。但是德雷福斯是军队里那个级别中的唯一犹太军官，并且不幸的是，那时的法军非常地反犹太。他们将德雷福斯的笔迹跟那张纸上的对照，然后得出了笔迹一致的结论，尽管外面的笔迹鉴定专家对此持怀疑态度，但也于事无补。

They went and searched Dreyfus's apartment, looking for any signs of espionage.They went through his files, and they didn't find anything. This just convinced them more that Dreyfus was not only guilty, but sneaky as well, because clearly he had hidden all of the evidence before they had managed to get to it.

他们搜查了德雷福斯的寓所，寻找他从事间谍活动的蛛丝马迹。他们翻遍了他的文件，但一无所获。这使他们更加确信德雷福斯不仅有罪，而且还很狡猾，因为很明显在他们搜查之前他就隐藏了所有的证据。

Next, they went and looked through his personal history for any incriminating details. They talked to his teachers, they found that he had studied foreign languages in school, which clearly showed a desire to conspire with foreign governments later in life. His teachers also said that Dreyfus was known for having a good memory, which was highly suspicious, right? You know, because a spy has to remember a lot of things.

接下来，他们审查了他的个人历史寻找任何能表明他有罪的细节。他们跟他的老师谈话。发现他在学校学过外语，这清楚地表明了一种想要在以后的生活中跟外国政府相勾结的愿望。老师还说德雷福斯出了名的记忆力好，这不是非常可疑吗？因为间谍需要记住很多东西。

So the case went to trial, and Dreyfus was found guilty. Afterwards, they took him out into this public square and ritualistically tore his insignia from his uniform and broke his sword in two. This was called the Degradation of Dreyfus. And they sentenced him to life imprisonment on the aptly named Devil's Island,which is this barren rock off the coast of South America. So there he went, and there he spent his days alone, writing letters and letters to the French government begging them to reopen his case so they could discover his innocence. But for the most part, France considered the matter closed.

因此经过审讯，德雷福斯被判有罪。然后，他们把他带到了公共广场，仪式性地撕下了他制服上的徽章，并折断了他的佩剑。这件事被称作德雷福斯冤案。他们判处他终身监禁，并将其押送到被称为魔鬼岛的地方服役，是个远离南美洲海岸贫瘠的岩石小岛。在那里，他一个人孤零零地生活，给法国政府写了一封又一封的信，乞求他们重审他的案子，并希望通过重审获得清白。但是在大多数情形下，法国政府都认为这件事已经结案。

One thing that's really interesting to me about the Dreyfus Affair is this question of why the officers were so convinced that Dreyfus was guilty. I mean, you might even assume that they were setting him up, that they were intentionally framing him. But historians don't think that's what happened. As far as we can tell,the officers genuinely believed that the case against Dreyfus was strong. Which makes you wonder: What does it say about the human mind that we can find such paltry evidence to be compelling enough to convict a man?

在德雷福斯事件中让我真正感兴趣的一点是为什么这些军官会如此确信德雷福斯是有罪的。我是说，你可能以为他们是在给他设套，他们在故意地诬陷他。但是历史学家却不这样认为。据我们所知，这些军官由衷地相信德雷福斯是有罪的。这也就会使你感到好奇：如果在只有微不足道的证据的情况下我们就可以给一个人定罪，那么这对人类的思维来说意味着什么？

Well, this is a case of what scientists call "motivated reasoning." It's this phenomenon in which our unconscious motivations, our desires and fears, shape the way we interpret information. Some information, some ideas, feel like our allies. We want them to win. We want to defend them. And other information or ideas are the enemy, and we want to shoot them down. So this is why I call motivated reasoning, "soldier mindset."

然而，这就是科学家称之为“动机性推理”一个案例。正是这种存在于我们无意识的动机以及我们的欲望和恐惧，塑造了我们解读信息的方式。有些信息和想法感觉就像是我们的盟友。我们希望它们能赢。我们想要保护它们。还有些信息和想法感觉就像是敌人，我们就想要打垮它们。这就是为什么我把动机性推理称作“士兵型思维模式”。

Probably most of you have never persecuted a French-Jewish officer for high treason, I assume, but maybe you've followed sports or politics, so you might have noticed that when the referee judges that your team committed a foul, for example, you're highly motivated to find reasons why he's wrong. But if he judges that the other team committed a foul -- awesome! That's a good call, let's not examine it too closely.

可能你们大部分人从来都没有做过以叛国罪去迫害一个法籍犹太军官这样的事，没错吧，但很可能你关注过体育或者政治新闻，因此你大概注意过，举个例子来说，当裁判判你支持的队伍犯规时，你会很积极地去找理由证明他的判罚是错的。但是当裁判判对方犯规时——太棒了！判得很正确，没必要深究了。

Or, maybe you've read an article or a study that examined some controversial policy, like capital punishment. And, as researchers have demonstrated, if you support capital punishment and the study shows that it's not effective, then you're highly motivated to find all the reasons why the study was poorly designed. But if it shows that capital punishment works, it's a good study. And vice versa: if you don't support capital punishment, same thing.

也许你读过一些对于有关政策有争议的文章或研究报告，比如说关于死刑的。就像研究人员已经证实的一样，如果你支持死刑而研究的结果却表明它并不能有效减少犯罪，那么你会很积极地寻找各种理由去证明这项研究有不妥之处。但是如果它表明死刑能够有效减少犯罪，那你就会认可这项研究。反之，如果你反对死刑，也一样。

Our judgment is strongly influenced, unconsciously, by which side we want to win. And this is ubiquitous.This shapes how we think about our health, our relationships, how we decide how to vote, what we consider fair or ethical. What's most scary to me about motivated reasoning or soldier mindset, is how unconscious it is. We can think we're being objective and fair-minded and still wind up ruining the life of an innocent man.

我们的判断无意识地受到个人喜好的强烈影响。而且这种现象是普遍存在的。它影响着我们如何看待健康和人际关系，如何决定投谁的票，以及怎样看待公平或道德。关于动机性推理或者说士兵型思维模式，最让我觉得可怕的一点是它受潜意识影响之深。我们认为自己是客观公正的，但结果却是毁掉了一个无辜者的一生。

However, fortunately for Dreyfus, his story is not over. This is Colonel Picquart. He's another high-ranking officer in the French Army, and like most people, he assumed Dreyfus was guilty. Also like most people in the army, he was at least casually anti-Semitic. But at a certain point, Picquart began to suspect: "What if we're all wrong about Dreyfus?"

然而，幸运的是对于德雷福斯来说，一切还没结束。这是皮卡尔上校。他是法军中的另一个高级军官，像大多数人一样，他也认为德雷福斯有罪。跟军队中大多数人也一样，他至少表面上是反犹太的。但是在某个时间点上，皮卡尔开始怀疑：“如果我们所有人都错怪了德雷福斯呢？”

What happened was, he had discovered evidence that the spying for Germany had continued, even after Dreyfus was in prison. And he had also discovered that another officer in the army had handwriting that perfectly matched the memo, much closer than Dreyfus's handwriting. So he brought these discoveries to his superiors, but to his dismay, they either didn't care or came up with elaborate rationalizations to explain his findings, like, "Well, all you've really shown, Picquart, is that there's another spy who learned how to mimic Dreyfus's handwriting, and he picked up the torch of spying after Dreyfus left. But Dreyfus is still guilty."

当时的情况是，他发现了一些证据表明德国间谍的活动还在继续，即便是在德雷福斯入狱之后。他还发现军队中另一个军官的笔迹跟那张纸上的笔迹完全匹配，比德雷福斯的笔迹更加相符。因此他带着这些疑点找到他的上级，令人沮丧的是，他们要么不在乎，要么提出一些精心编造，想当然的理由去解释他的发现。比如说，“嗯，你的发现刚好证明另一个间谍模仿了德雷福斯的笔迹，并且接替了德雷福斯的间谍位置。但是德雷福斯仍然是有罪的。”

Eventually, Picquart managed to get Dreyfus exonerated. But it took him 10 years, and for part of that time, he himself was in prison for the crime of disloyalty to the army.

最终，皮卡尔让德雷福斯重获清白。但是花了他10年的时间，而且在这期间他自己也以对军队不忠的罪名被投入了监狱。

A lot of people feel like Picquart can't really be the hero of this story because he was an anti-Semite and that's bad, which I agree with. But personally, for me, the fact that Picquart was anti-Semitic actually makes his actions more admirable, because he had the same prejudices, the same reasons to be biasedas his fellow officers, but his motivation to find the truth and uphold it trumped all of that.

很多人觉得，在这个故事中皮卡尔算不上真正的英雄，因为他反犹太，我也同意这是他不好的一点。但就我个人而言，正是因为他反犹太，才使得他的行为更令人软佩，因为他跟那些同僚带有相同的偏见，也有相同的理由去倾向于有罪结论，但是他那种找出并维护真相的动力战胜了一切。

So to me, Picquart is a poster child for what I call "scout mindset." It's the drive not to make one idea win or another lose, but just to see what's really there as honestly and accurately as you can, even if it's not pretty or convenient or pleasant. This mindset is what I'm personally passionate about. And I've spent the last few years examining and trying to figure out what causes scout mindset. Why are some people, sometimes at least, able to cut through their own prejudices and biases and motivations and just try to see the facts and the evidence as objectively as they can?

所以对我而言，皮卡尔就是我称之为 “侦察员型思维模式”中的典型代表。这不是非让两个想法分出输赢不可，而是尽可能诚实和准确地找出事实真相的一种驱动力，即使真相并不那么令人赏心悦目。这种思维模式是我个人所推崇的。过去几年我一直在调查并想找出侦察员型思维模式的成因。为什么有些人，至少在有些时候，能够去掉自己内心的歧视、偏见和倾向，而是尽可能尝试着客观地找出事实和证据。

And the answer is emotional. So, just as soldier mindset is rooted in emotions like defensiveness or tribalism, scout mindset is, too. It's just rooted in different emotions. For example, scouts are curious.They're more likely to say they feel pleasure when they learn new information or an itch to solve a puzzle.They're more likely to feel intrigued when they encounter something that contradicts their expectations.

而答案就是情感。就像士兵型思维模式是出于像防御性和部落主义这样的情感，侦察员型思维模式也一样。只不过是来源于不同的情感。例如，侦察员都有很强的好奇心。他们更可能会因为获得新的信息或渴望解开一个谜题而感到开心。他们会对那些与他们的预期不相符的事情更感兴趣。

Scouts also have different values. They're more likely to say they think it's virtuous to test your own beliefs, and they're less likely to say that someone who changes his mind seems weak. And above all, scouts are grounded, which means their self-worth as a person isn't tied to how right or wrong they are about any particular topic. So they can believe that capital punishment works. If studies come out showing that it doesn't, they can say, "Huh. Looks like I might be wrong. Doesn't mean I'm bad or stupid."

侦察员也拥有不同的价值观。他们可能会觉得检验自己的信仰是一件善事，而可能不会说那些改变想法的人看起来很懦弱。总之，侦察员是以事实为根据的，也就是说他们的自我价值观不是跟他们在某个事件上的对错绑在一起的。所以他们可能相信死刑能减少犯罪。但如果研究表明它不能，他们可能会说“呵，看起来是我错了，但这并不说明我坏或者蠢。”

This cluster of traits is what researchers have found -- and I've also found anecdotally -- predicts good judgment. And the key takeaway I want to leave you with about those traits is that they're primarily not about how smart you are or about how much you know. In fact, they don't correlate very much with IQ at all. They're about how you feel. There's a quote that I keep coming back to, by Saint-Exupéry. He's the author of "The Little Prince." He said, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up your men to collect wood and give orders and distribute the work. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

这就是研究人员所发现的特征——而且我也发现了——可以预测好的判断。而我想要强调的关于这些特征的关键点是它们根本上来说跟你有多聪明或者你知道多少无关。事实上，它们跟智商完全无关。它们跟你的感觉有关。我要引用圣埃克苏佩里的一句话。他是《小王子》的作者。他说，“如果你想造一艘船，不要雇人去收集木头，不要发号施令，也不要分配任务，而是去激发他们对海洋的渴望”。

In other words, I claim, if we really want to improve our judgment as individuals and as societies, what we need most is not more instruction in logic or rhetoric or probability or economics, even though those things are quite valuable. But what we most need to use those principles well is scout mindset. We need to change the way we feel. We need to learn how to feel proud instead of ashamed when we notice we might have been wrong about something. We need to learn how to feel intrigued instead of defensivewhen we encounter some information that contradicts our beliefs.

换句话说，我认为，如果我们真的想提高判断力，不管是作为个人还是作为社会，我们最需要的不是更多逻辑上，修辞上、概率上或者经济上的指导，即便这些东西也都很有价值。而我们要用好这些原理，最需要的就是侦察员型思维模式。我们需要改变我们感觉事物的方式。当我们注意到自己可能在某件事上出错了的时候，我们要感到自豪而不是羞愧。当我们遇到一些与我们的信仰相冲突的信息时，我们要学会感到好奇而不是抵触。

So the question I want to leave you with is: What do you most yearn for? Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs? Or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?

因此我想要留给你们的问题是：你最渴望什么？你是渴望保护你的信仰？还是渴望尽自己所能去看清这个世界？

Thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）

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