國(guó)家地理:我們?yōu)槭裁凑f(shuō)謊(6)

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On a recent morning, I took an Uber to visit Dan Ariely, a psychologist at Duke University and one of the world's foremost experts on lying. The inside of the car, though neat, had a strong odor of sweaty socks, and the driver, though courteous, had trouble finding her way. When we finally got there, she asked me smilingly if I would give her a five-star rating. "Sure," I replied. Later, I gave her three stars. I assuaged my guilt by telling myself that it was better not to mislead thousands of Uber riders.

最近早上，我乘坐Uber去拜訪杜克大學(xué)的心理學(xué)家丹·艾瑞里，他是世界上最重要的一位謊言專家。這趟行程中，雖然Uber車內(nèi)部很整潔，但車廂里充滿了汗?jié)n的味道，雖然司機(jī)十分禮貌，但總是找不到路。當(dāng)我們最終到達(dá)那里的時(shí)候，她微笑著問(wèn)我能否給她一個(gè)五星好評(píng)?！爱?dāng)然可以?！蔽一卮鸬溃幌萝嚭?，我給了她三顆星。 為了減輕負(fù)罪感，我告訴自己這樣做避免了成千上萬(wàn)的乘客被誤導(dǎo)，總比不說(shuō)來(lái)得好。

Ariely became fascinated with dishonesty about 15 years ago. Looking through a magazine on a long-distance flight, he came across a mental aptitude test. He answered the first question and flipped to the key in the back to see if he got it right. He found himself taking a quick glance at the answer to the next question. Continuing in this vein through the entire test, Ariely, not surprisingly, scored very well. "When I finished, I thought—I cheated myself," he says. "Presumably, I wanted to know how smart I am, but I also wanted to prove I'm this smart to myself." The experience led Ariely to develop a lifelong interest in the study of lying and other forms of dishonesty.

大約在15年前，艾瑞里對(duì)不誠(chéng)實(shí)著迷。他在長(zhǎng)途旅行航班的雜志上翻到了一個(gè)精神狀態(tài)的測(cè)試。他回答了第一個(gè)問(wèn)題，并對(duì)了書后面的要點(diǎn)，檢測(cè)他的回答是否正確。他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己會(huì)迅速地瞟一眼下一個(gè)問(wèn)題的答案。這個(gè)過(guò)程持續(xù)在整個(gè)測(cè)試中，不出意料地，艾瑞里得到了不錯(cuò)的分?jǐn)?shù)?！爱?dāng)我完成的時(shí)候，我覺(jué)得我騙了自己?！卑鹄镎f(shuō)，“我大概想知道自己有多聰明，但同時(shí)我也很想證明自己是聰明的?！边@個(gè)經(jīng)歷使艾瑞里將終生興趣放在了對(duì)說(shuō)謊和其他不誠(chéng)實(shí)行為的研究中。

In experiments he and his colleagues have run on college campuses and elsewhere, volunteers are given a test with 20 simple math problems. They must solve as many as they can in five minutes and are paid based on how many they get right. They are told to drop the sheet into a shredder before reporting the number they solved correctly. But the sheets don't actually get shredded. A lot of volunteers lie, as it turns out. On average, volunteers report having solved six matrices, when it was really more like four. The results are similar across different cultures. Most of us lie, but only a little.

在他和同事在校園或其他地方進(jìn)行的實(shí)驗(yàn)測(cè)試中，被試需要回答20個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的數(shù)學(xué)問(wèn)題。他們必須在五分鐘內(nèi)盡可能多地解決問(wèn)題，并根據(jù)正確答案的數(shù)量來(lái)獲取費(fèi)用。他們被告知需要在報(bào)告正確數(shù)字前將紙張放入粉碎機(jī)。但其實(shí)紙張并沒(méi)有被粉碎。事實(shí)證明，很多志愿者都說(shuō)了謊。志愿者的報(bào)告上顯示平均每個(gè)人解決了6個(gè)問(wèn)題，但實(shí)際上更像四個(gè)。結(jié)果在不同的文化背景中是相似的：大多數(shù)人都會(huì)說(shuō)謊，但一般都無(wú)傷大雅。

The question Ariely finds interesting is not why so many lie, but rather why they don't lie a lot more. Even when the amount of money offered for correct answers is raised significantly, the volunteers don't increase their level of cheating. "Here we give people a chance to steal lots of money, and people cheat only a little bit. So something stops us—most of us—from not lying all the way," Ariely says. The reason, according to him, is that we want to see ourselves as honest, because we have, to some degree, internalized honesty as a value taught to us by society. Which is why, unless one is a sociopath, most of us place limits on how much we are willing to lie. How far most of us are willing to go—Ariely and others have shown—is determined by social norms arrived at through unspoken consensus, like the tacit acceptability of taking a few pencils home from the office supply cabinet.

艾瑞里發(fā)現(xiàn)有趣的并不是為什么會(huì)有那么多人說(shuō)謊，而是為什么人們不說(shuō)更多的謊。即使提高支付給正確答案的報(bào)酬，被試也不會(huì)將欺騙上升一個(gè)等級(jí)?！拔覀兘o被試一個(gè)能偷很多錢的機(jī)會(huì)，但他們只會(huì)偷一點(diǎn)。有些東西阻止我們大多數(shù)人從頭到尾說(shuō)謊?！卑鹄镎f(shuō)。據(jù)他所言，這是因?yàn)槲覀兿Ｍ约赫\(chéng)實(shí)，在某種程度上，我們將誠(chéng)實(shí)內(nèi)化為社會(huì)向我們教授的價(jià)值。這就是為什么，除了反社會(huì)者，大多數(shù)人對(duì)于我們?cè)敢馊鲋e的程度都會(huì)有所控制。我們大多數(shù)人愿意到哪種程度呢？艾瑞里和其他人表示，這是通過(guò)不言而喻的共識(shí)而達(dá)成的社會(huì)規(guī)范來(lái)決定的，就像從辦公室供應(yīng)柜里拿幾支鉛筆的默認(rèn)可接受性一樣。