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 total stranger, but she's not alone.
有一天,我朋友搭計程車去機場, 在路上,她和計程車司機聊天, 司機很誠懇地對她說: 「我看得出來,你真的是個好人。」 後來,當她告訴我這個故事時, 她說她無法相信, 那句話讓她感覺這麼好, 那對她而言意義重大。 那只是個完全陌生的人所說的話, 我朋友的反應似乎很強烈, 但她並不孤單。
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 definition is, that moral identity is important to many of us.
我是社會科學家。 我研究的是好人的心理。 我的領域中的研究指出, 我們很多人會非常在乎 「感覺自己是個好人」 和「被視為是個好人」。 你對於「好人」的定義、 你對於「好人」的定義, 還有也許那位計程車司機 對於「好人」的定義—— 我們可能都有不同的定義, 但不論我們的定義是什麼, 在那定義中的道德身分 對許多人而言是很重要的。
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 to nonprofits. We work to protect that good person identity. It's important to many of us.
如果有人挑戰它, 比如他們質疑我們所說的笑話, 或是也許我們說 大家的勞動力是同樣的, 或是棘手的營業支出, 大多時候,我們會進入 防禦的紅色警戒區。 我的意思是,有時我們會大聲說出 我們用了哪些方式 去幫助被邊緣化的族群, 或是我們捐錢給慈善機構, 或是我們在非營利機構 當了幾小時的志工。 我們會努力保護那個好人的身分。 那對許多人而言是很重要的。
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?
但如果我告訴你這件事呢? 如果我告訴你,我們 對於「當好人」的依附感 其實會阻礙我們 成為「更好的人」呢? 如果我告訴你, 我們對於「好人」的 定義非常狹隘, 在科學上來看,要成為 這種人是不可能的呢? 如果我告訴你,邁向 成為「更好的人」之路 開始於放下想要當好人的執念呢?
Now, let me tell you a little bit about the research 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-power mode in the back of your mind. That's, in fact, the premise of bounded rationality. Bounded rationality is the Nobel Prize-winning idea that the human mind 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.
讓我跟各位稍微 說明一下這個研究, 人腦如何運作的研究, 來解釋這個現象。 大腦在做許多工作時,要仰賴捷徑。 那就表示,大多時候 你不會意識到你的 心理過程正在發生, 就像是在你的大腦背景 以省電模式在運作。 事實上,那就是 「有限理性」的前提。 有限理性這個概念贏得了諾貝爾獎, 指出人腦中用來儲存的資源有限, 處理的能力也有限, 因此,它在做許多工作的時候 會需要仰賴捷徑。 比如, 有些科學家估計,在任何時刻…… (彈指)彈好一點,有了。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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.
在任何時刻, 都會有一千一百萬則資訊 進入你的大腦。 一千一百萬。 當中只有四十則會被有意識地處理。 所以,一千一百萬,四十。
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. 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.
你有沒有遇過這種狀況? 你是否曾經忙了一天的工作, 開車回家, 進了家門, 你才發現你都不記得 你是怎麼開車回來的, 經過的是紅燈或綠燈都不記得? 你都不會記得。你是在自動駕駛。 或者,你是否曾經打開冰箱, 想要找奶油, 發誓沒有看到裡面有任何奶油, 接著才發現奶油 其實一直都在你面前? 這些是讓我們發笑的 「哎喲」時刻, 會發生這種狀況,就是因為大腦 能夠處理一千一百萬則 輸入的資訊, 但當中卻只有四十則 是有意識地在處理。 那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 shortcuts can sometimes lead us astray. With bounded rationality, perhaps it affects the cereal we buy in the grocery store, or the product we launch in the boardroom. With bounded ethicality, the human 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.
關於有限理性的這項研究, 成為我的靈感, 讓我和麥斯.貝澤曼 及瑪札琳.貝納基合作研究 我們所謂的「有限倫理」。 它的前提和有限理性是一樣的, 也就是,我們的大腦 有某種限制且要仰賴捷徑, 而那些捷徑有時可能會 讓我們偏離正道。 就有限理性來說, 也許它會影響我們 到雜貨店買的麥片, 或是我們在董事會上發表的產品。 就有限倫理來說,人腦, 同樣的人腦, 會做決策, 在這裡,決定的是接下來要僱用誰, 或是要說什麼笑話, 或是棘手的營業支出。
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. 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. 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.
所以,讓我舉個例子 說明有限倫理怎麼運作。 其中一個能看見有限倫理 有什麼效應的地方, 就是無意識偏見。 無意識偏見指的是, 我們的腦中都有一些關聯性, 我們的大腦會用 這些捷徑來組織資訊, 很可能是你沒有意識到的, 不一定會和你的意識信念有一致性。 諾賽克、貝納基, 和格林華德這些研究者 研究了數百萬人的資料, 他們的發現是,比如, 大部分白種美國人 會比較快也比較容易 將白人與好事連結起來, 勝過將黑人與好事連結起來, 而大部分的男性和女性 都會比較快也比較容易 將男性和科學連結起來, 勝過將女性和科學連結起來。 這些關聯性不見得 會和人們有意識時的想法一致。 事實上,這些人可能 有非常平等的觀點。 所以,有時,那一千一百萬則資訊 和那四十則資訊並沒有一致性。
And here's another example: conflicts of interest. So we tend to underestimate 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. 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. 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, was sexist. 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.
還有一個例子。 利益衝突。 我們傾向會低估一個小禮物—— 想像那是一枝原子筆或一頓晚餐—— 一個小禮物對我們的決策 有多大的影響。 我們並不知道,我們的大腦 會無意識地整理出證據 來支持送禮者的觀點, 不論我們的意識多麼努力去反對, 去保持專業,都沒有用。 我們也會看到有限倫理—— 儘管我們很喜愛「當好人」, 我們仍然會犯錯, 我們犯的錯有時會傷害別人, 有時會造成不公正, 儘管我們盡力嘗試了, 而我們會從我們的錯誤中辯解, 而不是從我們的錯誤中學習。 比如, 我收到一封我班上的 一名女學生寄來的電子郵件, 信上提到我分派的一項閱讀作業, 我多年來都會分派 學生做的閱讀作業, 是有性別主義的。 或是,我分不清我班上 兩個同種族的學生—— 他們長得一點也不像—— 我會把他們兩個搞混, 不只一次,且是在大家面前。
These kinds of mistakes send us, send me, into red-zone defensiveness. They leave us fighting for that good person identity. 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. 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.
這些錯誤會讓我們,會讓我, 進入防禦的紅色警戒區。 它們會讓我們努力爭取好人身分。 但我和瑪麗.肯恩最新合作的 有限倫理研究指出, 我們不只經常會犯錯—— 犯錯的傾向是依據我們 有多靠近那紅色警戒區。 所以,大部分的時候, 沒有人會挑戰我們的好人身分, 我們就不會針對 我們決策的倫理意涵想太多, 而我們的模型顯示, 接著,大部分的時候, 我們就會越來越少 做出符合倫理的行為。
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. The idea with bounded ethicality is that we are perhaps overestimating the importance our inner compass is playing in our ethical decisions. We perhaps are overestimating how much our self-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.
另一方面,有人可能 會挑戰我們的身分, 或是,我們在反思的時候, 會自己挑戰自己的身分。 所以,我們決策的倫理意涵 就變得非常突顯, 在那些案例中,我們會 越做越多好人的行為, 或是,更精確地說, 做更多讓我們感覺 自己是個好人的行為, 當然,這兩者不見得是一樣的。 有限倫理的概念是 我們可能高估了 我們的內在羅盤在我們 做倫理決策時的重要性。 我們可能高估了我們的決策 被自利所驅使的程度, 也許我們不知道, 我們把自己視為好人的自我觀點 對我們的行為有多大的影響, 事實上,我們太努力 去保護好人身分, 保持不要踏入紅色警戒區, 以致於我們沒有真正 給予我們自己空間 來從錯誤中學習並成為更好的人。
It's perhaps because we expect it to be easy. 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. 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.
可能是因為我們預期這會很容易。 我們對於好人的定義是 「是這樣,不然就是那樣」。 你要嘛是好人,不然就不是。 你要嘛很正直,不然就是不正直。 你是種族主義者、性別主義者, 或恐同性戀者,不然你就不是。 在「是這樣,不然就是那樣」的 這種定義中,沒有成長的空間。 順便一提,我們在生活中 大部分的時候,都不會這麼做。 在人生中,如果你需要學習會計, 你會去修會計的課程, 或者,如果你初為人父母, 我們就會去找本相關書籍來閱讀。 我們會和專家談, 我們會從錯誤中學習, 我們會把我們的知識更新, 我們會持續變更好。 但談到「做好人」時, 我們認為它是 我們應該知道、我們應該去做的事, 沒有努力帶來的益處或成長。
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, set a higher standard, a higher standard of being a good-ish person? A good-ish person absolutely still makes mistakes. As a good-ish person, I'm making them all the time. But as a good-ish person, I'm trying to learn from them, own them. 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 ... 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.
所以,我一直在想, 如果我們能不要再想著要當好人, 放下這個執念, 取而代之,設定更高的標準, 成為「有好人特徵的人」的 更高標準,如何? 有好人特徵的人絕對還是會犯錯。 身為有好人特徵的人, 我總是在犯錯。 但,身為有好人特徵的人, 我試圖從錯誤中學習,承認錯誤。 我預期會犯錯,然後就去犯錯。 我知道錯誤會造成成本。 如果是像倫理、偏見、 多樣性,及包容這類議題, 會有真正的人需要付出真正的成本, 我接受這一點。 事實上,身為有好人特徵的人, 我變得更會注意到我自己的錯誤。 我不用等其他人點出來。 我練習自己找出自己的錯誤, 結果…… 當然,有時是很丟臉的, 有時會很不舒服。 有時,我們讓自己 處於一個脆弱的位置。 但透過那些脆弱, 就像我們在試著 學得更好的其他事情一樣, 我們會看到進步。 我們會看到成長。 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 this one, where it matters most.
為什麼我們不給自己這樣的東西? 在我們人生中的所有其他部分, 我們都會給自己成長的空間—— 除了這個部分,但在這個部分, 成長空間卻是最重要的。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)