TED英語演講：如何放棄做好人

如果你對做一個“好人”的執着阻礙了你成爲一個更好的人，那麼該怎麼辦? 在這篇通俗易懂的演講中，社會心理學家多莉 · 丘格解釋了令人費解的道德行爲其中的心理學 (比如爲什麼我們很難發現自己的偏見並承認錯誤))，並展示了我們如何從承認錯誤開始做更好的自己。“在生活的其他方面，我們都能給予自己成長的空間，然而在這個最重要的方面則不然。” 丘格如是說。下面是小編爲大家收集關於TED英語演講：如何放棄做好人，歡迎借鑑參考。

演講者：Dolly Chugh 多莉 · 丘格

中英對照翻譯

So a friend of mine was riding in a taxi to the airport the other day, and on the way, she was chatting with the taxi driver, and he said to her, with total sincerity, "I can tell you are a really good person." And when she told me this story later, she said she couldn't believe how good it made her feel, that it meant a lot to her. Now that may seem like a strong reaction from my friend to the words of a tota lstranger, but she's not alone.

某天，我的一位朋友乘出租車去機場。在路上，她跟出租車司機閒聊，他用非常真誠的語氣對她說：“我看得出你是個好人。”當她後來告訴我這個故事時，她說這讓她感到無比的開心，那句話對她的意義重大。這看起來像是我朋友對陌生人話語的一種強烈反應，但她並非特例。

I'm a social scientist. I study the psychology of good people, and research in my field says many of us care deeply about feeling like a good person and being seen as a good person. Now, your definition of "good person" and your definition of "good person" and maybe the taxi driver's definition of "good person"-- we may not all have the same definition, but within whatever our definitionis, that moral identity is important to many of us.

我是一個社會科學家。我研究關於好人的心理學，這個領域的研究顯示，大家對自認爲是“好人”，和被他人視爲”好人“的感覺頗爲在意。你對“好人”的定義，或是你對“好人”的定義，可能跟出租車司機定義的“好人”不同，我們也許沒有相同的定義，但不管我們的定義是什麼，這種道德認同對我們很多人都很重要。

Now, if somebody challenges it, like they question us for a joke we tell, or maybe we say our workforce is homogenous, or a slippery business expense, we go into red-zone defensiveness a lot of the time. I mean, sometimes we call out all the ways in which we help people from marginalized groups, or we donate to charity, or the hours we volunteer tononprofits. We work to protect that good person identity. It's important to many of us.

如果有人挑戰這個事實，比如他質疑我們講的笑話，或者他說我們的勞動是同質的，或者是一筆狡猾的商業支出，我們在這些時候會進入一種“紅區警戒”狀態。我的意思是，有時候我們會用各種方式來幫助那些處於社會邊緣的人，或者向慈善組織捐贈，或者自願成爲非營利組織的義工。我們努力捍衛這種好人的身份，這對我們多數人都很重要。

But what if I told you this? What if I told you that our attachment to being good people is getting in the way of us being better people? What if I told you that our definition of "good person" is so narrow, it's scientifically impossible to meet? And what if I told you the path to being better people just begins with letting go of being a good person?

但如果我告訴你們，我們對做好人的嚮往會阻止我們成爲更好的人呢?如果我告訴你們，我們對“好人”的定義很狹隘，在科學角度上是無法實現的呢?又如果我告訴們，你成爲更好的人的路徑只需從拋棄做一個好人開始呢?

Now, let me tell you a little bit about there search about how the human mind works to explain. The brain relies on shortcuts to do a lot of its work. That means a lot of the time, your mental processes are taking place outside of your awareness, like in low-battery, low-powermode in the back of your mind.

那麼，讓我告訴你們一些有關人類大腦是如何運作的研究，來解釋我的說法。大腦依靠捷徑完成很多工作，這意味着大部分時間，你的思維過程發生在你的意識之外，就像大腦處於低電量、低功耗模式下。

That's, in fact, the premise of bounded rationality. Bounded rationality is the Nobel Prize-winning idea that the humanmind has limited storage resources, limited processing power, and as a result, it relies on shortcuts to do a lot of its work. So for example, some scientists estimate that in any given moment ... Better, better click, right? There we go.

其實，這是“有限理性”的前提。“有限理性”是諾貝爾獎得主的觀點，人類大腦的存儲資源是有限的，處理能力是有限的，因此，它依靠捷徑來完成很多工作。所以舉個例子，有些科學家估計在任何時刻…比如打個響指的瞬間，再來一次，這下打響了吧?

At any given moment, 11 million pieces of information are coming into your mind. Eleven million. And only 40 of them are being processed consciously. So 11 million, 40.

在任意一個瞬間，數以千萬計的信息會涌入你的大腦。整整1100萬。而其中只有四十個被有意識地處理。所以1100萬和40做下對比。

I mean, has this ever happened to you? Have you ever had a really busy day at work, and you drive home, and when you get in the door, you realize you don't even remember the drive home, like whether you had green lights or red lights. You don't even remember. You were on autopilot.

你有沒有經歷過這樣的事?在工作超忙的一天，你開車回家，到家門口時，發現你甚至不記得駕車時的事，比如是否過了紅燈或綠燈。你甚至不記得這些。你當時相當於是在“自動駕駛”模式下。

Or have you ever opened the fridge, looked for the butter, swore there is no butter, and then realized the butter was right in front of you the whole time?These are the kinds of "whoops" moments that make us giggle, and this is what happens in a brain that can handle 11 million pieces of information coming in with only 40 being processed consciously. That's the bounded part of bounded rationality.

或者你有沒有開過冰箱，尋找黃油，發誓沒有黃油的痕跡，然後才意識到黃油一直就在你面前?這些都是回想起來讓我們覺得好笑的時刻，這就是大腦爲了應付1100萬條涌進來的信息，但只有40條被有意識處理時所發生的事。這就是“有限理性"的有限部分。

This work on bounded rationality is what's inspired work I've done with my collaborators Max Bazerman and Mahzarin Banaji,on what we call bounded ethicality. So it's the same premise as bounded rationality, that we have a human mind that is bounded in some sort of way and relying on shortcuts, and that those short cuts can sometimes lead us astray.

這個關於有限理性的研究提供了我和我的搭檔馬克斯·巴澤曼和馬紮林·巴納吉研究“有限道德”的靈感來源。這和“有限理性”的前提是一樣的，我們的大腦是受束縛的，它需要依賴捷徑，並且這個捷徑有時候會讓我們誤入歧途。

With bounded rationality, perhaps it affects the cereal we buy in the grocerystore, or the product we launch in the boardroom. With bounded ethicality, thehuman mind, the same human mind, is making decisions, and here, it's about who to hire next, or what joke to tell or that slippery business decision.

考慮到人的有限理性，可能它會影響我們在雜貨店買的麥片，或者我們在會議室推出的產品。當“有限道德”發生時，人類的大腦，如同有限理性一樣，在做出決策。比如要僱傭誰?去講什麼笑話?或是那個狡猾的商業決策。

So let me give you an example of bounded ethicality at work. Unconscious bias is one place where we see the effects of bounded ethicality. So unconscious bias refers to associations we have in our mind, the shortcuts your brain is using to organize information, very likely outside of your awareness, not necessarily lining up with your conscious beliefs.

那麼讓我給你們一個有限道德體現在工作中的案例。“無意識偏見”是“有限道德”體現出的一個方面。“無意識偏見”指我們大腦中的聯想，那些大腦用來組織信息的捷徑，很可能在你的意識之外，不一定會符合你的意識信念。

Researchers Nosek, Banaji and Greenwald have looked at data from millions of people, and what they've found is, for example, most white Americans can more quickly and easily associate white people and good things than black people and good things, and most men and women can more quickly and easily associate men and science than women and science.

研究者諾斯，巴納吉和格林沃爾德看過了數百萬人的數據，他們發現的是，例如：多數美國白人能夠更快和更輕鬆地把白人和好事聯繫起來，而非黑人和好事，而且多數人更傾向於把男性跟科學家聯繫起來，而不是把女性和科學家聯繫起來。

And these associations don't necessarily line up with what people consciously think. They may have very egalitarian views, in fact. So sometimes, that 11 million and that 40 just don't line up.

而這些聯繫不一定與人們有意識的想法一致。事實上，他們可能有非常平等的觀點。所以有時候，1100萬與40的對比並不是很合理。

And here's another example: conflicts ofinterest. So we tend to under estimate how much a small gift -- imagine a ballpoint pen or dinner -- how much that small gift can affect our decision making. We don't realize that our mind is unconsciously lining up evidence to support the point of view of the gift-giver, no matter how hard we're consciously trying to be objective and professional.

這是另外一個例子：利益衝突。我們往往會低估一個小禮物的作用——比如一支圓珠筆或一頓晚餐——這個小禮物能對我們的決策產生多大的影響。我們意識不到自己的大腦會無意識地收集證據來支持送禮人的觀點，無論我們多麼努力地保持客觀和專業。

We also see bounded ethicality -- despite our attachment to being good people, we still make mistakes, and we make mistakes that sometimes hurt other people, that sometimes promote injustice, despite our best attempts, and we explain away our mistakes rather than learning from them.

我們也能看到有界的道德——即便我們希望當一個好人，我們仍會犯錯，我們犯的錯誤有時候會傷害他人，有時候會促進不公，儘管我們盡了最大的努力，我們還爲自己的錯誤辯解，而不是從中學習。

Like, for example, when I got an email from a female student in my class saying that a reading I had assigned, a reading I had been assigning for years, wassexist. Or when I confused two students in my class of the same race -- look nothing alike -- when I confused them for each other more than once, in front of everybody.

比如說，有天我收到了班上女同學的電郵，說我佈置的閱讀材料，這個我指定了好些年的閱讀材料，有性別歧視。或者當我把班上同種族的兩個學生弄混時——他們倆看起來一點也不像——當我在大家面前，不止一次把他們弄混時。

These kinds of mistakes send us, send me, into red-zone defensiveness. They leave us fighting for that good personidentity. But the latest work that I've been doing on bounded ethicality with Mary Kern says that we're not only prone to mistakes -- that tendency towards mistakes depends on how close we are to that red zone.

這些類型的錯誤讓我們……讓我，進入了”紅色警戒區“。它們讓我們爲好人的身份而戰。但是我最近和瑪麗·克恩做的關於有限道德的研究發現我們不僅容易犯錯，犯錯的傾向還取決於我們離紅色區域的距離。

So most of the time,nobody's challenging our good person identity, and so we're not thinking too much about the ethical implications of our decisions, and our model shows that we're then spiraling towards less and less ethical behavior most of the time.

大多數時候，沒人質疑我們的好人身份。所以我們也沒有想太多關於我們決定的倫理意義，我們的模型顯示我們大部分時間都在朝着越來越少的道德行爲發展。

On the other hand, somebody might challenge our identity, or, upon reflection, we may be challenging it ourselves. So the ethical implications of our decisions become really salient, and in those cases, we spiral towards more and more good person behavior, or, to be more precise, towards more and more behavior that makes us feel like a good person,which isn't always the same, of course.

另一方面，有人可能會質疑我們的身份。或者，經過反思後我們會挑戰自己。所以我們決定的倫理意義變得非常突出，在這些情況下，我們會越來越傾向於好人的行爲，或者，更準確地說，越來越傾向於使我們感覺像個好人的行爲，當然，有時候兩者並不一樣。

The idea with bounded ethicality is that we are perhaps over estimating the importance our inner compass is playing in our ethical decisions. We perhaps are overestimating how much ourself-interest is driving our decisions, and perhaps we don't realize how much our self-view as a good person is affecting our behavior, that in fact, we're working so hard to protect that good person identity, to keep out of that red zone, that we're not actually giving ourselves space to learn from our mistakes and actually be better people.

有限道德的觀點是，我們可能高估了我們內在的指南針在道德決策中的重要性。我們可能高估了我們的自身利益驅使我們做出決策的程度，也許我們沒有意識到身爲一個好人的自我認同感對我們的行爲有多大的影響，事實上，我們如此努力地去捍衛我們的好人身份，遠離紅區，以致於我們沒有足夠的空間從錯誤中學習，去真正做一個更好的人。

It's perhaps because we expect it to beeasy. We have this definition of good person that's either-or. Either you are a good person or you're not. Either you have integrity or you don't. Either you are a racist or a sexist or a homophobe or you're not. And in this either-or definition, there's no room to grow. And by the way, this is not what we do in most parts of our lives.

這可能是因爲我們期待它會很容易。我們對好人的定義是非此即彼的。要麼你是好人，要麼不是。要麼你誠實，要麼不誠實。要麼你是種族主義者，或者性別歧視，或者恐同者，要麼都不是。在這個非此即彼的定義中，沒有任何成長的空間。順便說一句：這不是我們在大部分生活中做的事情。

Life, if you needed to learn accounting, you would take an accounting class, or if you become a parent, we pick up a book and we read about it. We talk to experts, we learn from our mistakes, we update our knowledge, we just keep getting better. But when it comes to being a good person, we think it's something we're just supposed to know, we're just supposed to do,without the benefit of effort or growth.

生活中，如果你需要學習會計，你可能會報個會計班，或者如果你成爲父母，我們會去找本書，學習爲人父母之道。我們跟專家交流，我們從錯誤中學習，我們更新我們的知識，我們不斷變得更好。但當涉及到成爲好人時，我們則認爲這是我們應該知道的，我們應該去做的，卻無需獲得努力和成長帶來的好處。

So what I've been thinking about is what if we were to just forget about being good people, just let it go, and instead, seta higher standard, a higher standard of being a good-ish person? A good-ishperson absolutely still makes mistakes. As a good-ish person, I'm making the mall the time. But as a good-ish person, I'm trying to learn from them, own them.

以我在想的是：如果我們忘記做一個好人會怎樣?就這麼隨它去，反之，設立一個更高的標準，一個善良人的更高標準?一個善良的人無疑仍會犯錯誤。作爲一個善良的人，我常常都會犯錯誤。但作爲一個善良人，我試圖從錯誤中學習，解決問題。不逃避錯誤，而是直面它們。

I expect them and I go after them. I understand there are costs to these mistakes. When it comes to issues like ethics and bias and diversity and inclusion, there are real costs to real people, and I accept that. As a good-ish person, in fact, I become better at noticing my own mistakes. I don't wait for people to point them out. I practice finding them, and as a result ...

我知道這些錯誤要付出代價，當涉及到倫理、偏見、多樣性和包容等問題時，這對真實的人來說是真實存在的代價，而我接受這個事實。作爲一個好人，事實上，我變得更善於發現自己的錯誤。我不用等別人指出它們，我鍛鍊自己去尋找它們，結果呢?

Sure, sometimes it can be embarrassing, it can be uncomfortable. We put ourselves in a vulnerable place, sometimes. But through all that vulnerability,just like in everything else we've tried to ever get better at, we see progress. We see growth. We allow ourselves to get better.

當然，這有時候會讓人感到很尷尬，會覺得不舒服。有時，我們會變得很脆弱。但克服了所有的弱點後，就像所有一切我們努力改進的東西一樣，我們可以看到進步。我們可以看到成長。我們允許自己變得更好。

Why wouldn't we give ourselves that? In every other part of our lives, we give ourselves room to grow -- except in thisone, where it matters most.

爲什麼我們不能允許自己變得更好?在我們生活的其他方面，我們都給了自己成長的空間，然而在這個最重要的方面，卻始終無所作爲。

Thank you.(Applause)

謝謝大家。(鼓掌)