评论
打印
Games can be a very effective way towards financial independence.
要实现财务独立，游戏是一个非常有效的方法。
They keep us attentive to the task.
游戏让人着迷。
Gaming has become the largest form of entertainment in the world.
它已经成为世界上最大的娱乐形式。
It dwarfs all other forms of media, from streaming to social media and the box office.
它使所有其他形式的媒体相形见绌，不论是从流媒体到社交媒体还是电影票房。
But what is it about gaming that has us so transfixed?
但究竟是什么让我们对游戏如此着迷？
Games by design are meant to reinforce behavior and keep you coming back.
游戏的设计是为了强化行为，让玩家不断对游戏上瘾。
The brain loves novelty.
大脑喜欢新奇的东西。
So when I have something new in my environment, I get a little reward response in my brain that says focus on this thing.
因此，当环境中有新的东西时，大脑中就会有一个小小的奖励反应，并告诉你专注于这件事。
Games are using techniques that activate dopamine and oxytocin in our brains, and that puts our minds in hyper-focused immersive states.
游戏能够激活我们大脑中的多巴胺和催产素，这使我们的头脑处于高度集中的沉浸状态。
Games reduce the stress of making decisions, and so app designers have now used game structures to help people learn new information, make new decisions.
游戏减少了我们做决定的压力，现在应用程序设计师已经使用游戏结构来帮助人们学习新信息，做出新决定。
And one of the most interesting applications is in financial decision-making.
而最有趣的应用之一是在财务决策方面。
So if games have such a strong influence over our brains, how can we leverage games to make better financial decisions?
那么，如果游戏对我们的大脑有如此巨大的影响，我们如何利用游戏来做出更好的财务决策？
And if we do, what's the worst that could happen?
如果我们这样做，最坏的情况会是什么？
This is Your Brain on Money.
欢迎观看《金钱的大脑》栏目。
Meet Paul Zak.
我们将介绍一下保罗-扎克。
He's a neuroscientist and a professor at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California.
他是一位神经科学家，是南加州克莱蒙特研究生大学的教授。
And he's looked deep into our brains on games.
他深入研究了我们在玩游戏时的的大脑反应。
I'm a Martian.
我是一个火星人。
I don't really understand the humans.
我对人类不是很了解。
And so I spent 25 years running experiments to try to understand why people do what they do.
因此，我花了25年时间进行实验，试图了解人们为什么要做他们所做的事情。
We all want instant gratification, but to get good stuff later, we have to save money, and that's a painful stimulus for the brain.
我们都想立即得到满足，但为了以后得到好东西，我们必须省钱，这对大脑来说是一种痛苦的刺激。
So it's actually processed like pain when I have to give something up, like give up money.
因此，当我不得不放弃一些东西时，比如放弃钱，它实际上是非常痛苦的。
And so overcoming that requires metabolic energy, but the brain's a very lazy organ.
因此，克服这一点需要新陈代谢的能量，但大脑是一个非常懒惰的器官。
It takes so much energy to run your brain that it wants to idle most of the time.
运行大脑需要如此多的能量，以至于它想在大多数时间内处于闲置状态。
The brain compensates for its laziness by forming pathways that allow us to achieve tasks on autopilot.
大脑通过形成允许我们在自动驾驶仪上实现任务的路径来补偿其懒惰。
And these are called habits.
而这些被称为习惯。
The deep question is how do we change habits?
一个深刻的问题是我们该如何改变习惯？
Two core things have to happen in the brain to influence your decision-making.
在大脑中有两件核心的事情会影响你的决策。
The first is you have to attend to that information.
第一是你必须关注信息。
That's driven by the brain's production of dopamine.
这是由大脑产生的多巴胺驱动的。
The second thing you've gotta get my lazy brain to care about the outcomes, and that caring is driven by emotional resonance, and that's associated with the brain's production of oxytocin.
第二件事是得让我懒惰的大脑关心结果，而这种关心是由情感共鸣驱动的，这与大脑产生的催产素有关。
Paul calls the combination of these two events neurologic immersion, and it's essential in helping develop new and better habits.
保罗把这两个事件的结合称为神经沉浸，它对帮助培养新的和更好的习惯至关重要。
One area people often experience this brain state is while playing games.
人们经常在玩游戏时会体验到这种大脑状态。
Some of the gamification apps focus so much on fun, as opposed to a learning experience that they just are like any other game You might as well play Candy Crush.
一些游戏化的应用程序注重乐趣，而不是学习经验，以至于它们就像其他游戏一样平庸，还不如玩糖果粉碎机。
Financial decisions are hard.
财务决策是很难的。
So by breaking down tasks in a platform that makes it fun to make difficult decisions, people are able to better understand what they're doing, but also able to change what their default behavior is.
因此，通过在一个平台上分解任务，使做出困难的决定变得有趣，人们能够更好地理解自己在做什么，也能够改变自己的默认行为。
And we get in the habit of, for example, savings.
而且我们养成了一个习惯，比如说，储蓄。
We met with the developers of a gamified savings app to see what techniques they use to change behavior.
我们会见了一个游戏化储蓄应用程序的开发者，想看看他们使用什么技术来改变人们的行为。
This is Lindsay Holden, and she's the co-founder and CEO of Long Game.
这是林赛-霍尔登，她是Long Game的联合创始人和首席执行官。
A lot of people have trouble engaging with their finances.
很多人在财务方面有困难。
So how do we get you to start changing your behavior?
那么，我们如何让你开始改变自己的行为？
Lindsay and her team are using incentives called prize-linked savings accounts to increase their users' savings habits.
林赛和她的团队正在使用名为 "有奖储蓄账户 "的激励措施来提高用户的储蓄习惯。
Inside the app, users open an FDIC-insured savings account.
在该应用程序中，用户开设了一个由FDIC保险的储蓄账户。
Every time they save money,
每当他们存钱的时候。
they're rewarded with access to mini-games that have cash prizes, which help grow their savings even further.
他们就会得到奖励，参加有现金奖励的小游戏，这有助于进一步增加他们的储蓄。
And those little rewards encourage users to save more.
而这些小奖励鼓励用户储蓄更多的钱。
The prize money is won on top of interest so users' money is never at risk.
奖金是在利息的基础上赢得的，所以用户的钱永远不会有风险。
They move the fun part of spending money, like buying lottery tickets, into a savings component.
他们把花钱的乐趣部分，如买彩票，转移到储蓄部分。
People actually really love lottery.
人们实际上真的很喜欢彩票。
The lottery today is a $70billion industry in the US, and the people that are buying Lotto tickets are the people that least should be buying Lotto tickets.
今天的彩票在美国是一个700亿美元的产业，而购买乐透票的人是最不应该购买乐透票的人。
And so how can we redirect that spend into something that's helping them in their lives?
因此，我们如何才能将这些支出转为对他们的生活有帮助的东西？
Prize-linked savings is a really good way we can do that.
与奖金挂钩的储蓄是一个非常好的方法，我们可以做到这一点。
To illustrate how this affects the brain, Paul conducted an experiment with a woman named Julia.
为了说明这对大脑的影响，保罗请一个叫朱莉娅的女人做了一个实验。
There's a need to measure brain activity during gamification tasks, so that we understand how to optimally design these games so that people learn effectively what they're doing and don't just waste time picking up coins.
测量游戏化任务中的大脑活动，以便我们了解如何优化设计这些游戏，使人们有效地学习他们正在做的事情，而不只是浪费时间去捡硬币。
These immersion peaks tell us that this game is capturing her emotionally, right?
这些沉浸式的高峰告诉我们，这个游戏在情感令她着迷，对吗？
It's really creating a great experience for her.
它真的为她创造了一个很好的体验。
But not all gamification leads to better habits.
但不是所有的游戏化都能带来更好的习惯。
Apps that focus on financial decision-making in which there's a high return to taking risk can also establish negative pathways in the brain where you're training the brain to take more and more risk.
专注于金融决策的应用程序，其中有一个高回报的风险，也可以在大脑中建立负面的路径，你正在训练大脑承担越来越多的风险。
And so you want to be careful that the games you're playing are not driving you towards behaviors that may not be adaptive outside the game world.
因此，你要小心，你玩的游戏不会驱使你走向在游戏世界之外可能不适应的行为。
Our brains are wired or easy, short-term decision-making that gives instant gratification, and a lot of finance decisions require patience, discipline, and ultimately a lot of help.
我们的大脑是有线的，或者说是简单的、短期的决策，能带来即时的满足感，而很多金融决策需要耐心、规则，最终还需要很多帮助。
One of those most interesting things we found is that people want help when it comes to making difficult decisions.
我们发现的那些最有趣的事情之一是，当涉及到做出困难的决定时，人们需要寻求帮助。
And so there's a large portion of the US and world population that are either unbanked or underbanked, and part of that is just lack of knowledge.
因此，在美国和世界人口中，有很大一部分人要么没有银行账户，要么银行账户不足，其中一部分人是是缺乏相关知识。
In my view, any app that helps you be a more effective saver is probably a good app, but I think we have to do a lot more work to really understand the underlying neuroscience of gamification.
在我看来，任何帮助你成为一个更有效的储蓄者的应用程序可能是一个好的应用程序，但我认为我们必须做更多的工作来真正了解游戏化的潜在神经科学。
And so we need to continue to design games that teach you more about how to "level up in life," not just level up in the game.
因此，我们需要继续设计更能教人们如何 "提高生活水平"的游戏，而不仅仅是提高打游戏的水平。
