Talking about ourselves--whether in a personal conversation or through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter--triggers the same
sensation of pleasure in the brain as food or money, researchers reported Monday.
周一发布的一份研究报告称,无论是在私人谈话中,还是在Facebook和Twitter这样的社交媒体上,谈论自己都能在我们的大脑中激发出类似食物或金钱所带来的愉悦感。
About 40% of
everyday speech is
devoted to telling others about what we feel or think. Now, through five brain imaging and behavioral experiments, Harvard University neuroscientists have uncovered the reason: It feels so rewarding, at the level of brain cells and synapses, that we can't help sharing our thoughts.
在我们的日常谈话中,约有40%的内容用来向他人表达我们的感受和想法。通过五个大脑成像及行为实验,哈佛大学(Harvard University)的神经学科学家发现了其中的缘由──与他人分享想法时,脑细胞和脑突触层面的活动会让我们产生非常强烈的满足感,让我们情不自禁地去这么做。
'Self-disclosure is extra rewarding,' said Harvard neuroscientist Diana Tamir, who conducted the experiments with Harvard
colleague Jason Mitchell. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 'People were even
willing to forgo money in order to talk about themselves,' Tamir said.
哈佛大学神经学科学家戴安娜•塔米尔(Diana Tamir)说,"自我表现格外让人满足,为了谈论自己人们甚至愿意放弃金钱。"塔米尔与哈佛大学的同事杰森•米切尔(Jason Mitchell)合作完成了这些实验,他们的研究发现发表在《美国国家科学院学报》(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)上。
To assess people's
inclination for what the researchers call 'self disclosure,' they conducted
laboratory tests to see whether people placed an
unusually high value on the opportunity to share their thoughts and feelings. They also monitored brain activity among some volunteers to see what parts of the brain were most excited when people talked about themselves as opposed to other people. The dozens of volunteers were
mostly Americans who lived near the university.
为了评估人们对研究人员所说的"自我表现"的欲望,研究人员在实验室中展开实验查证人们是否会异乎寻常地看重与他人分享想法和感受的机会。他们还监测了部分志愿者的大脑活动,以此观察人们在谈论自己而不是他人时哪些大脑区域最为兴奋。参与实验的数十名志愿者大多数为住在哈佛附近的美国人。
(This story and
relatedbackground material will be
available on The Wall Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)
在数项测试中,如果志愿者选择回答有关他人(如巴拉克•奥巴马总统(Barack Obama))而不是自己的问题,研究人员会发给他们一些现金作为激励,现金数额有所浮动,最高为四美分。测试的问题包括他们是否喜欢滑板滑雪或者是否喜欢吃匹萨上的蘑菇等随意的话题,其他问题则涉及智力、好奇心或进取心等个性特征。
In several tests, they offered the volunteers money if they chose to answer questions about other people, such as President Barack Obama, rather than about themselves, paying out on a sliding scale of up to four cents. Questions involved
casual matters such as whether someone enjoyed snowboarding or liked mushrooms on a pizza. Other queries involved
personality traits, such as intelligence,
curiosity or aggression.
尽管谈论他人能获得现金激励,人们还是常常愿意放弃17%至25%的可能收入来谈论自己,以便向他人表露自己的个人信息。塔米尔说,"我们开玩笑说这些钱可是用来探究你们的想法的。"
Despite the
financial incentive, people often preferred to talk about themselves and
willingly gave up between 17% and 25% of their
potential earnings, so they could reveal personal information. 'We joked that this was the penny for your thoughts study,' Tamir said.
科学家们在相关测试中使用了功能性磁共振成像扫描仪跟踪与心理活动相关的神经元之间的血液流动的变化,以此观察人们在谈论自己的信念和选择而不是思考有关他人的事情时,哪些大脑区域的反应最强烈。
In
related tests, the scientists used a functional
magnetic resonance imaging scanner, which tracks changes in blood flow between neurons associated with
mental activity, to see what parts of the brain responded most
strongly when people talked about their own beliefs and options, rather than speculating about other people.
总体而言,在自我表现行为发生的同时,隶属中脑边缘多巴胺神经系统的大脑区域的活动往往会突然增强。该系统与性、食物或金钱带来的成就感和满足感存在关联。
Generally, acts of self disclosure were accompanied by spurts of heightened activity in brain regions belonging to the meso-limbic dopamine system, which is associated with the sense of
reward and
satisfaction from food, money or sex.
得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校(University of Texa at Austin)的心理学家杰米•彭尼贝克(Jamie Pennebaker)说道,"我认为确实是这样的,我们非常喜欢别人倾听我们说话的感觉,否则我们还上tweet干嘛呢?"彭尼贝克的研究领域为人们如何处理秘密和自我表现,他并未参与此项研究项目。
'It rings true to me,' said
psychologist Jamie Pennebaker at the University of Texas at Austin, who studies how people handle secrets and self-disclosure, but was not involved in the project. 'We love it if other people listen to us. Why else would you tweet?'