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Inspiration can be a hard thing to pin down.
灵感是件难以确定的事情。
It's not the same as creativity, even though they often go hand-in-hand.
尽管它与创造力经常相辅相成，但两者却截然不同。
But then again, inspiration is often the jumping-off point for creativity... although, sometimes a creative thought is the spark for inspiration.
不过灵感往往始于创造力，尽管有时创意思维是灵感的源泉。
Then there's the whole issue of how to actually get inspired, because it seems like every article on Pinterest tells you something different.
那怎样才能真正获得灵感又成问题了，因为品趣志（Pinterest）上每篇文章好像都在讲些不同的东西。
Thankfully, scientists haven't spend much time on Pinterest and have come to the rescue with actual research.
值得庆幸的是，科学家们并没在品趣志上花费太多时间，而是通过实际研究来出面帮忙。
In the last few decades, they've actually begun to understand inspiration, and they've even found evidence-backed ways to encourage it to happen.
在过去的几十年里，他们实际上已经开始理解灵感，甚至找到了事实依据来催生灵感。
So add this one to your Pinterest board, we guess.
我看可以把这个加到你的品趣志上了吧。
Some of the most important studies on inspiration have come from two psychologists: Todd Thrash and Andrew Elliot.
一些关于灵感最重要的研究来自两位心理学家：托德·瑟拉什和安德鲁·艾略特。
Starting in the early 2000s, they studied inspiration from every angle: what it is, how it works, who gets it most, and what situations bring it about.
从21世纪初开始，他们从各个角度研究灵感：灵感是什么，如何工作，谁获得的灵感最多，什么样的情境能催生灵感。
And they were able to turn this nebulous concept into something more concrete and researchable.
他们将这个模糊的概念变成更具体和可研究的内容。
According to them, inspiration has three main qualities. One is evocation — it's evoked spontaneously, without your conscious control.
根据他们的说法，灵感有三个主要特征。第一是唤起性——它自发产生，不受意识控制。
Another is approach motivation, or the feeling that you just must make your vision happen right this second.
第二是趋向动机，也就是你必须在对的时刻启动自己的想象力。
And the third — which is probably inspiration's most famous feature — is transcendence.
第三个是超越性，这可能是灵感最有名的特征了。
It's that sense of clarity and single mindedness where all of your other concerns just fall away.
当你所有的顾虑全部消失殆尽，就会出现这种明晰和专心的感觉。
And great, wonderful words fall out of your brain and it in the keyboard. That's just me, I don't know how you create.
然后壮美的词汇会跃然于脑海之中，随指尖敲打到键盘上。我就是这样啦，不知道你们是怎么进行创造的。
But that's how I do it. The researchers also noted that you can both be inspired by something, where you appreciate
反正我是这样。研究人员还指出，你可能从某件事中获得灵感，
the value of an inspirational thing for its own sake, and be inspired to do something.
你欣赏这件鼓舞人心的事本身蕴含的价值，你也可能被激励去做某件事。
That's where you feel motivated to extend that value to yourself, your work, or the world.
这时你感到想要将这种价值扩展给自己、扩展到你的工作中或推向世界。
According to Thrash and Elliot, real inspiration includes both.
根据瑟拉什和艾略特的说法，真正的灵感两者兼具。
Over the years, these two researchers have been able to put meaningful words to what inspiration is.
多年来，两位研究人员一直都用富含意义的词语来表达灵感。
But they're not only ones who have studied it. Other papers have also focused on inspiration,
但他俩不是唯一研究灵感的人。还有其他文章也将把灵感作为关注点
and they've shown that — to no one's real surprise — amazing things happen when you're inspired.
这些研究的结果发现当人们获得灵感时，神奇的事情就会随之发生，这并一结果并不出人意料。
Research has found that it makes people more productive, more creative, and more satisfied with life overall.
研究发现，灵感使人们更富有成效，更具创造力，对生活也更满意。
For example, in a study where almost 150 undergrads were given a writing assignment,
例如，在一项研究中，研究人员给近150名本科生分配写作任务，
those who reported being more inspired wrote things that their peers judged to be more creative.
那些报告说自己获得灵感的学生所写的文章，让其它人读后感觉更富创造性。
They also wrote more and deleted fewer words. Also, in a sample of almost 200 U.S. patent holders,
他们文章写得更长，删掉的字也更少。另一项研究则将近200名美国专利持有人作为研究样本。
those who reported being inspired most frequently also often had the most patents.
那些最经常受到灵感启发的人也常常拥有最多的专利。
Of course, that all sounds great, but the question we really want to know is, how do you actually make this feeling happen?
当然，这一切听起来很棒，但我们真正想知道的是，如何才能引发灵感？
Well, for one thing, you don't make it happen — that's the point of the “evocation”. It has to happen on its own.
首先，你无法让它发生，这就是“唤起”的意义所在，它必须自己发生。
That said, researchers have found a few qualities that can encourage it to show up.
据说研究人员已经发现了一些可以催生灵感出现的品质。
In their first study, Thrash and Elliot uncovered correlations between people's personality traits and how often they were inspired.
在瑟拉什和艾略特的第一项研究中，他们发现了人格特质与获得灵感的频率之间的相关性。
They found that inspiration is more associated with openness to experience than it is to conscientiousness.
他们发现灵感更多地与开放体验相关，而不是与责任心相关。
That suggests that to be inspired, you need to be accepting of what comes rather than trying to control those possibilities.
这表明想要获得灵感，需要接受所发生的事情，而不是试图控制要发生事情的可能性。
Inspiration was also linked to intrinsic motivation, and negatively correlated with extrinsic motivation.
灵感也与内在动机有关，与外在动机则呈负相关。
That is, those who were most frequently inspired weren't driven by some external reward, like money or a promotion.
也就是说，那些经常获得灵感的人并不是受到金钱或升职等外部奖励的驱使。
They were motivated by something within them. In a sense, feeling inspired was its own reward.
他们是受到内心某种东西所驱动。从某种意义上说，获得灵感本身就是回报。
But don't think that all it takes is to gaze up at the clouds and wait for this feeling to come, either.
但也不要以为只是仰望云朵，就能等来灵感。
Another trait associated with it was work mastery — that is, having well-developed skills.
与灵感相关的另一个特征是精通工作——即拥有成熟的技能。
It was also negatively associated with competitiveness and fear of failure. The lesson there?
灵感还与竞争力和对失败的恐惧负相关。有没有获得些启发？
Get good at what you do and hater's gonna hate, don't listen to them.
做好自己的工作，讨厌你的人会对此恨之入骨，但不要听他们的。
There's a lot to sort through there, but if you want to make inspiration happen, there are ultimately four research-backed ways to help it along.
想要催生灵感，需要做很多事，我为你送出四种经研究证明有效的方法。
First, don't pressure yourself. Trying brings willful control into the mix, and that's opposite to the spontaneous nature of inspiration.
首先，不要给自己压力，对出现的各种想法不要过分控制，让它们自由融合，这与灵感的自发本性相对。
Second, get in a good head space. Thrash and Elliot found that two precursors to inspiration are optimism and self-esteem.
第二，让头部中充满愉悦的感觉。瑟拉什和艾略特发现灵感的两个前兆是乐观和自尊。
If you're feeling down, it's harder to trust that the feeling will come. Third, do something else that's related to the task at hand.
如果你感到沮丧，是很难获得灵感的。第三，做一些与手头任务有关的事情。
For an example of this in action, researchers in a 2019 study asked 21 design students to
对于这一点，研究人员在2019年进行过一项研究，他们要求21名设计专业的学生
come up with solutions to open-ended design prompts, like “a device to fold hand towels.”
对“折叠手巾的装置”等开放式设计提示给出解决方案。
Each problem was paired with a list of words that either came directly from the problem,
每个问题都与一个单词列表配对，这些单词要么直接来自问题，
was somewhat related to the problem, or was completely unrelated.
要与问题相关，要么与问题完全不相关。
And those who got a list of related words came up with more ideas for a longer period of time.
那些领到与问题相关单词列表的学生，会在更长的时间内提出更多的想法。
So if you're working hard, waiting for your muse to arrive, maybe take a break to admire the work of others in your field.
所以，如果你正在努力等待灵感的到来，也许可以休息休息，欣赏一下你所在领域其他人的工作成果。
Talk to your friends about what they're working on. Read up on one of your heroes.
和朋友谈谈他们正在做的事情，读读书写你心目中的一位英雄的文章。
Let your mind wander around the fringes of your focus, and inspiration might pay you a visit.
让你的思绪围绕你关注的问题焦点徘徊，灵感可能就会随之而来。
Finally, it's probably worth developing your skills, too. Remember, “work mastery” is associated with more frequent inspiration,
最后一点，也可以开发一下你的技能水平。记住，“精通工作”与获得更多的灵感相关，
and Thrash and Elliot also found it's a precursor to this feeling happening in the first place. Plus, it's important in its own right.
瑟拉什和艾略特也发现它是产生灵感的前兆。而且，精通工作本身就很重要。
In that study that gave people writing assignments, those who reported being more inspired wrote more creative pieces,
在让学生写文章的那项研究中，那些报告获得更多灵感的学生写出的文章更富有创意，
sure, but pieces written by those who reported putting in more effort were rated as having more technical merit.
但是那些报告付出更多努力的学生所写的作品，则被认为更富技巧性。
So for the best work, you need both. And that just goes to show that, for as great as this feeling is,
所以，为了达到最好的效果，需要两者兼具。这就表明，尽管获得灵感的感觉超棒，
being inspired isn't the only way to make something that you're proud of, and that is great.
但获得灵感并不是唯一的方法让你创造出让自己感到自豪的东西，这也超棒啊。
Working hard is important, too. And indeed, it might even be that the hard work has to come first.
努力工作也很重要。事实上，也许应该把努力工作排在第一位。
Sometimes, though, hard work doesn't have to feel hard. If there's anything we know at SciShow,
不过，有时候，努力工作并不会感到辛苦。如果说在心理科学秀中学到了什么，
it's that learning can actually be really interesting and a lot of fun — which is why we're excited about The Great Courses Plus.
那就是学习实际上可以非常有趣，所以我们才对The Great Courses Plus感到兴奋不已。
It's a subscription-based, on-demand video learning service, and it's packed with amazing lectures and courses.
这是一款订阅型点播视频学习服务，里面有很多精彩的讲座和课程。
We're talking top-notch content from Ivy League professors, great universities worldwide,
有常春藤盟校教授的精彩讲座，全球优秀大学的课程，
and experts from places like National Geographic, The Smithsonian, and the Culinary Institute of America.
以及国家地理、史密森学会和美国烹饪学院等专家的带来的分享。
They have more than 11,000 video lectures to choose from, and they're not just about science.
包括11000多个视频讲座，而且不仅是科学方面的。
You can learn about math, literature, history, or even things like how to become a better photographer.
你可以学习数学、文学、历史，甚至可以找到提升摄影技能的课程。
There's a great course by a National Geographic photographer, for example, that treats photography like problem-solving, which is cool to think about.
比如，有一个由国家地理摄影师教授的超棒课程，它将摄影视为解决问题的方法，特别酷。
And it definitely makes me feel inspired. Right now, The Great Courses Plus is giving SciShow viewers the chance to try their content for free!
这真是给了我灵感。现在，心理科学秀的观众可以免费收看The Great Courses Plus的课程！
And if you choose to subscribe after the trial, you'll be supporting SciShow, as well.
如果你在试看后选择订阅，那也是对我们节目的支持。
To learn more, you can visit thegreatcoursesplus.com/SciShowPsych, or just click the link in the description to start the free trial.
可以访问thegreatcoursesplus.com/SciShowPsych了解更多信息，或单击说明中的链接开始免费试看。
