VOA慢速英语2011--Looking at the 'Dark Side' of Creativity

Health Report - Looking at the 'Dark Side' of Creativity

健康报道 - 创造力的“阴暗面”

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 1 enough creative people cheat to interest researchers like Francesca Gino. Professor Gino is a behavioral economist 2 at the Harvard Business School in Massachusetts. Behavioral economists 3 use ideas from psychology 4 to study how people make economic choices.

并非所有的骗子都富有创造力。但显然他们已经足够引起弗朗西斯卡·吉诺（Francesca Gino）一类研究人员的兴趣。吉诺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抉择。



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."

吉诺：“有趣的是，实际上文学、小说、电影、漫画中有很多关于这种邪恶天才的例子，但这种联系确实没有任何实证证据。”



BATMAN (ADAM WEST): "He's terrorized Gotham City, he's baffled the police department and he's held us up to public ridicule 5."

蝙蝠侠：“他让哥谭城人心惶惶，让警察倍感挫折，也让我们遭受公众嘲笑。”



Fans of old TV shows might recognize Batman and Robin 6, struggling to catch one of those evil geniuses -- the Joker.

老电视迷可能知道蝙蝠侠和罗宾，他们竭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：“他对自己的成功沾沾自喜，他可能正策划一些超级犯罪，并栽倒在自己的骄傲上。”



ROBIN (BURT WARD): "And how do we go about stopping him?"

罗宾：“我们如何阻止他？”



BATMAN: "Just go about our normal routine and let the venomous viper 7 trap himself."

蝙蝠侠：“我们以不变应万变，让他自陷囹圄。”



ROBIN: "And when he does."

罗宾：“这时候呢”



BATMAN: "Snap!"

蝙蝠侠：“我们迅速出击！”



ROBIN: "Caught in a bat trap!"

罗宾：“抓住他！”



BATMAN: "Right."

蝙蝠侠：“对。”

An English examination at Dongguan Technology Institute in Guangdong province, China, in 2007. Students were given different test versions in an effort to prevent cheating.

Professor Gino was less interested in catching 8 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.

与抓骗子相比，吉诺教授更乐意去了解他们。她对志愿者进行测试，看他们创造力怎么样。然后她在涉及小额钱的状况下对他们进行测试，如果他们作弊（即行骗）会赢得更多钱。



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，他们参加一项测试，必须将他们的答案抄到另一张纸上。但在这另一张纸上，装作工作失误，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赢得更多钱，并被引导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 9 their actions to themselves.

结果表明，更富创造力的人更可能作弊。相比之下，更聪明但创造力较差的人更不可能作弊。吉诺教授称，富有创造力的人更能制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 10 for the behavior that they're about to engage in and as a result, they are more likely to cheat."

吉诺：“我们发现，创造力导致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做辩护，结果就是，他们更容易作弊。”



She says workplaces that value creativity also create openings for that moral flexibility 11. 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当。有创造力的思想者可能更不太可能遵循所有规则。”



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."

吉诺：“我们认为，创造力的确可以帮助人们解决两者之间的冲突，即长远上的品行端正和短期上的自私自利两者之间的冲突。而且这并不仅仅是指通过行骗获得金钱，还包括获得其它形式的享受或功利。”



The study shows the "dark side" of creativity, she says.

她说，研究彰显出了创造力的“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."

吉诺：“所以我们并不是想说人们不应该富有创造力，我们想说的是，他们应该富有创造力，但他们应该考虑到一个事实，那就是他们的创造力也可能被用到歧途。”



Her research with Dan Ariely at Duke University appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

她与杜克大学丹·阿雷利（Dan Ariely）的这一研究发表在个性与社会心理学杂志上。



And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. I'm Christopher Cruise.

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Contributing: Rose Hoban