评论
打印
Sometimes things don't turn out the way you expect them to.
有时候事情并非你想象的那样。
Maybe you're excited all month for Christmas and then the day was just ... okay.
也许你整个月都兴奋着圣诞节的到来，然后这一天……好吧。
Like, not bad, but not mind-blowingly amazing.
还不错，但没有你想象的那么惊喜。
Or you spend a week dreading that shot you have to get, and then it's not even a big deal.
或者你花了一个星期的时间去担心的事情，最后发现这甚至不是什么大不了的事情。
We tend to be pretty bad at predicting how we'll feel about the results of our plans and decisions—it's what psychologists call affective forecasting.
我们对计划、决定的最终感受往往不如我们预测的那样——这就是心理学家所说的情感预测。
And yet we make major life choices, like who to marry, where to live, and what job to take, all based on what we think is going to make us happy.
然而，我们在生活中做出重大的选择，比如嫁给谁，住在哪里，做什么工作，这些都是基于我们认为的让我们快乐的事情。
But if you do find yourself facing an uncertain future, there might be some strategies you can use to make your predictions a little better.
但是，如果你发现自己面对着一个不确定的未来，也许有一些策略可以帮助你更好地预测。
We generally have a good sense of whether something will be good or bad for us overall.
我们通常能很好地意识到某件事从整体上对我们来说是好是坏。
Like, no one is suddenly surprised to discover that their colonoscopy was "a thrilling adventure, so can you please schedule another for me."
就像，人们不会突然惊讶地发现，结肠镜检查是“一次激动人心的冒险，所以你能帮我再安排一次吗?”
But people regularly make mistakes about how good or bad something will be, and how much of a lasting impression it will leave on their lives.
但是人们经常会犯一些错误，比如某件事情会有多好或多坏，给他们的生活留下的印象有多持久。
Take, for example, breaking up with a romantic partner.
举个例子，和一个浪漫的伴侣分手。
Most of the time, it's a sad and stressful experience, but people are bad at guessing how awful they'll actually feel.
大多数时候，你会感到悲伤和压力，但是人们不善于猜测自己的真实感受有多糟糕。
In one study, researchers recruited 69 college freshmen who were all in relationships and then tracked them for nine months.
在一项研究中，研究人员招募了69名恋爱中的大学新生，并对他们进行了为期9个月的跟踪调查。
By the end of the study, 26 of them had broken up with their partners.
研究结束时，其中26对情侣已经分手。
The team found that before the breakup, people had a good sense of how quickly they'd get over it,
研究小组发现，分手前，人们很清楚自己能多快从失恋中走出来，
but were bad at guessing how they'd feel immediately following the breakup.
但不善于猜测分手后的感受。
Turns out it wasn't as bad as they thought it would be.
最后证明，结果并没有他们想象的那么糟。
But what's weirder is that reporting being in love in the relationship made their guesses worse.
但更奇怪的是，在恋爱报告中，他们的猜测更糟糕。
Being in love made people think the breakup would be much more devastating, but it wasn't as distressing as they predicted.
恋爱中的人觉得分手会是毁灭性的打击，但实际并没有他们预想的那么痛苦。
That's called the impact bias, and it often shows up in studies on affective forecasting.
这就是影响偏差，情感预测的研究中经常出现这种情况。
We predict that experiences will be much more intense than they actually turn out to be:
我们预测的会比实际发生的要强烈得多：
good things will be ecstatic, bad things will be traumatic.
好事会让人狂喜，坏事会让人痛苦。
The kind of narrative you can construct around the event might also be a factor.
围绕这一事件的叙事方式也可能是一个因素。
For example, one study had 91 people go through a job interview,
例如，一项研究让91人参加面试，
where they were told the outcome would be determined by either a single person or by a panel of people.
这些人被告知结果将由一个人或一组人决定。
They also made predictions of how they'd feel about not getting the job, and reported how they felt after being rejected—
他们还预测了得不到这份工作的感受，并就被拒绝之后的感受做了研究。
which all of them were, given that it was secretly a fake interview.
这些面试背地里是假的。
People's reported happiness was lower when they were interviewed by a panel than when a single person made the decision,
人们在接受小组访问时的幸福感比单独做决定时的幸福感要低。
which makes sense from an outside perspective.
从外部视角来看，这是有道理的。
It's easy to put a positive spin on it when there's a single person who can't see how great you are, compared to a whole panel.
和整组人相比，当一个人看不到你有多好的时候，你很容易就会往积极方面去想。
But the subjects couldn't predict that difference.
但受试者无法预测这种差异。
They all guessed they'd feel about equally bad.
他们都认为感觉同样糟糕。
One reason we're so bad at guessing our own future emotions is what's known as the focusing illusion.
我们之所以不善于猜测自己未来的情绪，原因之一就是所谓的“聚焦错觉”。
It describes the idea that, to quote one of the researchers who coined the term, "nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it."
它描述了这样一种观点，用研究人员的话来说，“思考一件事时，你的想法要比生活中的事情更重要。”
Your current context matters a lot when thinking about the future.
当你思考未来时，当前的环境很重要。
For example, when people try to predict how they'll feel if they break up with their partner or if they get a bad grade,
例如，当人们试图预测如果他们和伴侣分手或者他们的成绩不好，他们会有什么感觉时，
they focus on those "if"s, but ignore all the other stuff that will be going on in their lives at the same time.
他们只关注那些“如果”的情况，而忽略了生活中同时发生的其他事情。
And some studies have found that when you help people think about how life's going to go back to normal by reminding them about all the other experiences they'll have after the event, their predictions get better.
一些研究发现，当通过提醒该事之后的其它经历来帮助人们思考如何回归正常生活时，他们的预测效果会好一些。
There are also ways you can re-calibrate your own emotional barometer to get a better sense of what your future experiences will be like.
还有一些方法可以让你重新校准自己的情绪，以便更好地了解你的未来。
One option is to use what psychologists call surrogates; and ask someone who is currently experiencing whatever you are considering.
一种选择是使用心理学家所说的代理人，问问那些正在经历你正在考虑事情的人。
People tend to dislike using other people's reports to decide how they themselves will feel,
人们往往不喜欢因为别人的话来决定自己的感受，
because they usually think other people's preferences and experiences are more different from their own than they actually are.
因为他们通常认为别人的喜好和经历与自己的更不一样。
But in studies, when people do learn about other people's experiences, their own predictions generally improve.
但在研究中，当人们了解到其他人的经历时，他们自己的预测效果通常会有所改善。
For example, researchers had 220 volunteers make predictions about how they'd feel when watching a funny video and trying a new food.
例如，研究人员让220名志愿者预测他们在观看一段有趣的视频并尝试一种新食物时的感受。
Some subjects were given a report from either a friend or stranger about how much the other person liked it, while others just guessed without outside information.
一些受试者从朋友或陌生人那里得到一份关于对方有多喜欢，而另一些受试者只是在没有外界信息的情况下猜测。
And it seemed like having the information from another person, whether they were a friend or a stranger, made people's predictions better.
似乎从另一个人那里得到的信息，不管是朋友还是陌生人，都能让人们的预测更准确。
Of course, a strategy that works for funny videos and new foods might not translate to more important or controversial decisions.
当然，此策略只适用于搞笑视频和新食物，可能并不适用更重要或更具争议的决定。
And I'm definitely not telling you to go ask a random stranger whether you should marry your girlfriend or become a lawyer and do whatever they say.
我绝对不是让你随便去问一个陌生人，你是应该娶你的女朋友，还是成为一名律师，然后照他们说的去做。
I don't think the ethics boards have approved that particular avenue of research yet.
我认为伦理委员会还没有批准这一研究的特定途径。
But it might help to keep all this in mind the next time you're worried about the future.
但是当你下次担心未来的时候，记住这些策略可能会有所帮助。
Chances are, even if things go wrong, it won't be as bad as you expect.
可能，即使事情出了差错，也不会像你想的那么糟糕。
And when you're feeling like a giant ball of anxiety, that can be kind of comforting.
当焦虑情绪无法排解时，这可能会是一种安慰。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych!
感谢收看本期心理科学秀！
And thanks especially to our Patreon community for their support.
特别感谢Patreon对本节目的支持。
It's because of you that we were able to create this channel in the first place.
正是因为有了你们，才有我们的节目。
If you're not yet a patron and want to help us continue providing free science education for anyone who wants to learn, check us out at patreon.com/scishow.
如果你想帮助我们继续为任何想学习的人提供免费的科学教育，请登录patreon.com/scishow。
