【Looking at the 'Dark Side' of Creativity】
TEXT:This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
这里是美国之音慢速英语健康报道 。
Not all cheaters are creative. But apparently enough creative people cheat to interest researchers like Francesca Gino. Professor Gino is a behavioral economist at the Harvard Business School in Massachusetts. Behavioral economists use ideas from psychology to study how people make economic choices.
并非所有的骗子都有创意 。但很显然,他们的创意已经足够引起像Francesca Gino这样的研究人员的兴趣 。Gino教授是马萨诸塞州哈佛商学院的行为经济学家 。行为经济学家使用心理学观点研究人们如何做出经济选择 。
FRANCESCA GINO: "Interestingly, there are actually a lot of examples in the literature, novels, movies, comic books about this idea of the evil genius, but really no empirical evidence for this relationship."
FRANCESCA GINO:“有趣的是,其实有很多像文学、小说、电影、漫画中这一类邪恶天才的例子,但确实没有证据可以证明这种关系 。”
BATMAN (ADAM WEST): "He's terrorized Gotham City, he's baffled the police department and he's held us up to public ridicule."
蝙蝠侠(ADAM WEST):“他让Gotham城人心惶惶,让警察受挫,也让我们遭受公众嘲笑 。”
Fans of old TV shows might recognize Batman and Robin, struggling to catch one of those evil geniuses -- the Joker.
老电视迷可能知道蝙蝠侠和罗宾,他们是奋力追捕邪恶天才之一的“小丑” 。
BATMAN: "Gloating on his own success, he may be planning some super crime and stumble on his own pride."
蝙蝠侠:“他对自己的成功得意洋洋,他可能正策划一些超级犯罪,并被自己的骄傲所绊倒 。”
ROBIN (BURT WARD): "And how do we go about stopping him?"
罗宾:“我们如何去阻止他?”
BATMAN: "Just go about our normal routine and let the venomous viper trap himself."
蝙蝠侠:“我们照常行事,让他自投罗网 。”
ROBIN: "And when he does."
罗宾:“那他什么时候会来呢?”
BATMAN: "Snap!"
蝙蝠侠:“撞击声!”
ROBIN: "Caught in a bat trap!"
罗宾:“抓住了!”
BATMAN: "Right."
蝙蝠侠:“对 。”
Professor Gino was less interested in catching cheaters than understanding them. She tested volunteers to see how creative they were. Then she tested them in situations involving small amounts of money, where they could earn extra by cheating.
Gino教授更刚兴趣的是去了解他们,而不是抓住他们 。她对志愿者进行测试,看他们创意怎么样 。然后她在涉及少量金钱的状况下对他们进行测试,而他们通过欺骗赢得更多钱 。
For example, they took a test and had to copy their answers onto another paper. But on that other paper the correct answers were already lightly marked, supposedly by mistake. The test-takers knew they would earn more for correct answers. They were led to believe they could cheat without getting caught.
例如,他们采取了一项测试,必须将他们的答案复制到另一张纸上 。但在这另一张纸上,假装工作失误,答案已经被轻微的标记出来了 。被测试者知道正确答案可以赚得得更多钱,并被引导他们相信自己可以作弊而不被抓到 。
The results showed that the more creative people were more likely to cheat. By comparison, people who were more intelligent but less creative were not more likely to cheat. Professor Gino says creative people are better at creating excuses to justify their actions to themselves.
结果表明,更富创意的人更可能作弊 。相比之下,更聪明但缺乏创意的人更不可能作弊 。Gino教授称,富有创意的人更善于编造借口为自己的行为做自我辩护 。
FRANCESCA GINO: "What we find is that that creativity leads people to be more morally flexible, so they are much more able to come up with justification for the behavior that they're about to engage in and as a result, they are more likely to cheat."
FRANCESCA GINO:“我们发现,创造力引导人们在道义上更为灵活,所以他们更能够为自己准备进行的行为进行辩解,因此,他们更可能会作弊 。”
She says workplaces that value creativity also create openings for that moral flexibility. Original thinkers may be less likely to follow all the rules.
她说,看重创造力的工作场所也为这种道义上的灵活性制造了空间 。有创造力的思想者是不太可能遵循所有规则的 。”
FRANCESCA GINO: "We think that creativity really helps people resolve this conflict between something that is more longer term --which is the idea of being good and moral -- and then something that is more short term, and is the idea of advancing your own self-interest. And that does not necessarily mean getting money out of cheating, but it could also be getting other types of pleasures or utilities."
FRANCESCA GINO:“我们认为,创造力确实可以帮助人们解决长期上的良好品德和短期上争取自己利益两者之间的冲突 。而且这并不仅仅是指通过行骗获得金钱,还包括获得其它类型的享受或功利 。”
The study shows the "dark side" of creativity, she says.
她说,研究展现出了创造力的“阴暗面 。”
FRANCESCA GINO: "So it's not that we are trying to say that people shouldn't be creative, we are trying to say that they should be creative but they should be thinking about the fact that their creativity can be used for the wrong reasons."
FRANCESCA GINO:“因此,我们并不是想说人们不应该有创意,我们想说的是,他们应该富有创意,但他们应该思考这样一个事实,那就是他们的创意有可能被用于错误的事情之上 。”
Her research with Dan Ariely at Duke University appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
她与杜克大学的Dan Ariely的研究发表在个性与社会心理学杂志上 。