So why do you think the rich should pay more in taxes? Why did you buy the latest iPhone? Why did you pick your current partner? And why did so many people vote for Donald Trump? What were the reasons, why did they do it?
为什么你认为富人就要多交税? 你为什么要买最新的 (苹果手机)iphone? 你为什么选择了你现在的伴侣? 还有为什么有那么多人 投了唐纳德·特朗普的票? 这背后的原因是什么, 他们为什么这样做?
So we ask this kind of question all the time, and we expect to get an answer. And when being asked, we expect ourselves to know the answer, to simply tell why we did as we did. But do we really know why? So when you say that you prefer George Clooney to Tom Hanks, due to his concern for the environment, is that really true? So you can be perfectly sincere and genuinely believe that this is the reason that drives your choice, but to me, it may still feel like something is missing. As it stands, due to the nature of subjectivity, it is actually very hard to ever prove that people are wrong about themselves.
我们一直都问这些问题, 并且也希望得到答案。 我们也会被问到这些问题, 也希望自己知道答案, 能够简单的回答 为什么我们要这么做。 但是我们真的知道为什么吗? 当你说你喜欢乔治·克鲁尼 多过汤姆·克鲁斯, 是因为你觉得 前者更关注环境问题, 那是真的吗? 你能够诚心诚意的相信 那就是驱使你做出选择的原因, 但是对于我来说, 这其中还是遗漏了一些东西。 事实表明,由于 主观臆断的自然属性, 很难证明人们自己会 对自己有错误的认知。
So I'm an experimental psychologist, and this is the problem we've been trying to solve in our lab. So we wanted to create an experiment that would allow us to challenge what people say about themselves, regardless of how certain they may seem. But tricking people about their own mind is hard. So we turned to the professionals. The magicians. So they're experts at creating the illusion of a free choice. So when they say, "Pick a card, any card," the only thing you know is that your choice is no longer free. So we had a few fantastic brainstorming sessions with a group of Swedish magicians, and they helped us create a method in which we would be able to manipulate the outcome of people's choices. This way we would know when people are wrong about themselves, even if they don't know this themselves. So I will now show you a short movie showing this manipulation. So it's quite simple. The participants make a choice, but I end up giving them the opposite. And then we want to see: How did they react, and what did they say? So it's quite simple, but see if you can spot the magic going on. And this was shot with real participants, they don't know what's going on.
我是一个实验心理学家, 这个问题是我们实验室 长久以致力解决的问题。 我们计划设计一个实验, 能够使我们挑战 人们对自己的认知, 不论看起来他们多么的认同自己。 但是欺骗人们的思想是困难的。 于是我们转向专业人员。 魔术师。 他们很善于创造 一个自由选择的幻觉。 当他们说:“选张卡片,任意一张“, 你能知道就是你的选择不再随意。 因此我们和一组瑞典的魔术师, 来了几轮精彩的头脑风暴, 他们帮我们想出了一些方法, 能够让我们操控人们选择的结果。 这样一来我们就能知道 人们何时对自己的认知是错误的, 甚至他们自己都没意识到这一点。 我现在给你播放一段短片 来演示这种操控。 这相当简单。 参与者要做出选择, 但我最终会给出 与他们的选择相反的结果。 到时我们想看的是: 他们的反应如何,他们怎么说。 这很简单,但是要看你 能不能看出到底发生了什么。 这里拍摄的都是真实的参与者, 他们对幕后的一切毫不知情。
(Video) Petter Johansson: Hi, my name's Petter.
(短片)培特·乔纳森: 嗨,我的名字是培特。
Woman: Hi, I'm Becka.
女士:嗨,我是贝卡。
PJ: I'm going to show you pictures like this. And you'll have to decide which one you find more attractive.
培特:我要给你看像这样的图片。 然后你要决定哪一张最吸引你。
Becka: OK.
贝卡:好的。
PJ: And then sometimes, I will ask you why you prefer that face.
培特:然后我还会问你 为什么你喜欢那张脸。
Becka: OK.
贝卡:好的。
PJ: Ready? Becka: Yeah.
培特:准备好了吗? 贝卡:好了。
PJ: Why did you prefer that one?
培特:为什么你喜欢那一张?
Becka: The smile, I think.
贝卡:笑容,我认为。
PJ: Smile.
彼得:笑容。
Man: One on the left. Again, this one just struck me. Interesting shot. Since I'm a photographer, I like the way it's lit and looks.
男士:左边的那张。 这张恰巧使我很着迷。 很有趣的拍照。 我是摄影师,比较喜欢 它展现光线与容貌的方式。
Petter Johansson: But now comes the trick.
(旁白)培特: 下面,见证奇迹的时刻到了。
(Video) Woman 1: This one.
(短片)女士1: 这一张。
PJ: So they get the opposite of their choice. And let's see what happens.
(旁白)培特:他们拿到的是 之前没有选的那张照片。 让我们来看看会发生什么事。
Woman 2: Um ... I think he seems a little more innocent than the other guy.
(短片)女士2: 嗯。。。 我认为他看起来 比另一个人无辜些。
Man: The one on the left. I like her smile and contour of the nose and face. So it's a little more interesting to me, and her haircut.
男士:左边的这位。 我喜欢它的笑容, 还有她鼻子和脸的轮廓。 有点儿意思, 还有她的头发。
Woman 3: This one. I like the smirky look better.
女士3:这一张。 我喜欢这种得意的笑容。
PJ: You like the smirky look better?
培特:你比较喜欢得意的表情?
(Laughter)
(观众笑声)
Woman 3: This one.
女士3:这一张。
PJ: What made you choose him?
彼得:你为什么选这张?
Woman 3: I don't know, he looks a little bit like the Hobbit.
女士3:我不知道,他看起来 有点儿像霍比特人。
(Laughter)
(观众笑声)
PJ: And what happens in the end when I tell them the true nature of the experiment? Yeah, that's it. I just have to ask a few questions.
(旁白)培特: 当我告诉他们 这个实验的真实目的后, 会发生什么事呢? (短片)是的,就是这些。 我还要问一些问题。
Man: Sure.
男士:当然。
PJ: What did you think of this experiment, was it easy or hard?
培特:你觉得这实验怎么样, 感觉容易还是难?
Man: It was easy.
男士:容易。
PJ: During the experiments, I actually switched the pictures three times. Was this anything you noticed?
培特:在实验当中, 我其实将照片偷换了三次。 你有注意到什么了吗?
Man: No. I didn't notice any of that.
男士:不,我没有注意到什么。
PJ: Not at all? Man: No. Switching the pictures as far as ...
培特:一点都没有吗? 男士:没有。 换照片是怎么回事。。。
PJ: Yeah, you were pointing at one of them but I actually gave you the opposite.
培特:就是你选了其中的一张, 而我给你的是另外一张。
Man: The opposite one. OK, when you -- No. Shows you how much my attention span was.
男士:相反的那张, 好的,当你—— 不,这是展示我的 注意力持续时间多长。
(Laughter)
(观众笑声)
PJ: Did you notice that sometimes during the experiment I switched the pictures?
培特:在实验进行当中, 你有注意到 我有几次偷换了照片了吗?
Woman 2: No, I did not notice that.
女士2:不,我没有注意到。
PJ: You were pointing at one, but then I gave you the other one. No inclination of that happening?
培特:你指的一张,但是 我给你的却是另外一张。 没有发现吗?
Woman 2: No.
女士2:没有。
Woman 2: I did not notice.
女士2:我没有注意到。
(Laughs)
(笑声)
PJ: Thank you.
培特:谢谢。
Woman 2: Thank you.
女士2:谢谢。 (短片结束)
PJ: OK, so as you probably figured out now, the trick is that I have two cards in each hand, and when I hand one of them over, the black one kind of disappears into the black surface on the table. So using pictures like this, normally not more than 20 percent of the participants detect these tries. And as you saw in the movie, when in the end we explain what's going on, they're very surprised and often refuse to believe the trick has been made. So this shows that this effect is quite robust and a genuine effect. But if you're interested in self-knowledge, as I am, the more interesting bit is, OK, so what did they say when they explained these choices?
培特:那么你现在大概能猜到了, 骗术就是,我每只手里 都拿了两张牌, 当我把背面那张牌推过去的时候, 黑色那张原本被选的牌就在 黑色桌面的映衬下消失,被我藏起来了。 像这样使用照片, 通常有不到20%的 参与者会发现这些骗局。 正如你在影片中看到的, 最后我向他们解释 发生了什么的时候, 他们都非常的惊讶并且通常 拒绝相信其中有诈。 这就表明,这种效应 是十分强烈而又真实的。 但是,如果你和我一样对 “自知之明”感兴趣的话。 最有趣的部分是: 他们会如何解释 自己所作出的选择?
So we've done a lot of analysis of the verbal reports in these experiments. And this graph simply shows that if you compare what they say in a manipulated trial with a nonmanipulated trial, that is when they explain a normal choice they've made and one where we manipulated the outcome, we find that they are remarkably similar. So they are just as emotional, just as specific, and they are expressed with the same level of certainty.
为此,我们做了很多关于 这个实验当中口头报告的分析。 这张图表明, 如果你将有骗局的那组的说辞 和没有骗局的那组相比较, 你会发现,他们对自己 正常选择的解释 和经过操控后的解释是 非常相似的。 他们都同样的情绪化,目标明确, 并且他们表达的 肯定程度也处于同一水平。
So the strong conclusion to draw from this is that if there are no differences between a real choice and a manipulated choice, perhaps we make things up all the time.
从这个实验中得到的 强有力的结论是, 如果在真正的选择和 被操控的选择之间没有差异的话, 或许我们一直都在编造理由。
But we've also done studies where we try to match what they say with the actual faces. And then we find things like this. So here, this male participant, he preferred the girl to the left, he ended up with the one to the right. And then, he explained his choice like this. "She is radiant. I would rather have approached her at the bar than the other one. And I like earrings." And whatever made him choose the girl on the left to begin with, it can't have been the earrings, because they were actually sitting on the girl on the right. So this is a clear example of a post hoc construction. So they just explained the choice afterwards.
但是我们也做过研究, 尝试将实际的面容 与和他们的描述相匹配。 然后我们发现了这样的事情。 这个男性参与者,他偏好左面的女人, 但结果他却是选的右边的那位。 然后,他给出的解释是: “她明艳动人, 我宁可在酒吧碰到是她 而不是另外一位。 并且我喜欢这耳环。“ 但开始不管是什么理由 让他选择了左边的女人, 耳环肯定不是其中一个, 因为,右边的女人才戴耳环。 这明显是一个“事后构建”的例子。 因此,他们只是后来 才对作出的选择进行解释。
So what this experiment shows is, OK, so if we fail to detect that our choices have been changed, we will immediately start to explain them in another way. And what we also found is that the participants often come to prefer the alternative, that they were led to believe they liked. So if we let them do the choice again, they will now choose the face they had previously rejected. So this is the effect we call "choice blindness." And we've done a number of different studies -- we've tried consumer choices, choices based on taste and smell and even reasoning problems.
那么这个实验表明, 如果我们没有发现 自己的选择被调换了, 我们会立即开始用 另外一种方式来解释。 我们还发现 参与者会渐渐喜欢上另外那个, 他们被引导,从而相信 那就是他们喜欢的。 如果我们再让他们做出一次选择, 他们就会选择曾经 被他们拒绝掉的那个。 这就是我们所说的 “选择盲目性”效应。 并且我们做了很多不同的研究—— 我们在消费者选择上做过实验, 建立在味觉和嗅觉上的实验, 甚至还有推理问题。
But what you all want to know is of course does this extend also to more complex, more meaningful choices? Like those concerning moral and political issues.
但你们都想知道的是, 这个现象能否适用于更复杂, 更有意义的选择上呢? 比如那些关注于 道德和政治的问题。
So the next experiment, it needs a little bit of a background. So in Sweden, the political landscape is dominated by a left-wing and a right-wing coalition. And the voters may move a little bit between the parties within each coalition, but there is very little movement between the coalitions. And before each elections, the newspapers and the polling institutes put together what they call "an election compass" which consists of a number of dividing issues that sort of separates the two coalitions. Things like if tax on gasoline should be increased or if the 13 months of paid parental leave should be split equally between the two parents in order to increase gender equality.
下一个实验需要一些背景知识。 在瑞典,国家的政治事务是 由左翼和右翼的联合政府主导。 投票人可能会在每个联盟中的 两党之间有一点点犹疑, 但在不同的联盟之间 就没有那么多犹疑。 在每次选举之前, 报纸或投票机构, 合起来拿出一个所谓的 “选举指南”, 这个包含了一系列的具有 分化性的问题, 用来分离开两个联盟。 那些议题包括, 比如燃油费是否要增加, 或者,父母是否应该平均 享用那个13个月的产假, 以便增加性别平等的机会。
So, before the last Swedish election, we created an election compass of our own. So we walked up to people in the street and asked if they wanted to do a quick political survey. So first we had them state their voting intention between the two coalitions. Then we asked them to answer 12 of these questions. They would fill in their answers, and we would ask them to discuss, so OK, why do you think tax on gas should be increased? And we'd go through the questions. Then we had a color coded template that would allow us to tally their overall score. So this person would have one, two, three, four five, six, seven, eight, nine scores to the left, so he would lean to the left, basically. And in the end, we also had them fill in their voting intention once more.
在瑞典最后一次选举之前, 我们自己做了一个选举指南。 我们走到街上去问路人, 问他们是否愿意 做一个快速的政治调查问卷。 首先,我们让他们在两个联盟 之间说出他们的选举倾向。 然后让他们回答这12个问题。 他们会写出他们的答案, 然后我会让他们来讨论, 好,为什么你认为要增加燃油税? 我们接着把问题都问完。 然后我们用涂有颜色的模版 记录他们的总分数。 因此,这个人将会有1,2,3,4 5,6,7,8, 9分记在左边。 因此,基本上他会倾向于左翼。 最后,我们再让他们填写投票意向。
But of course, there was also a trick involved. So first, we walked up to people, we asked them about their voting intention and then when they started filling in, we would fill in a set of answers going in the opposite direction. We would put it under the notepad. And when we get the questionnaire, we would simply glue it on top of the participant's own answer. So there, it's gone. And then we would ask about each of the questions: How did you reason here? And they'll state the reasons, together we will sum up their overall score. And in the end, they will state their voting intention again.
当然,这里也有诈。 首先,我们找到一些路人, 询问他们的投票意向, 然后当他们填写的时候, 我们会填写一份相反的答案, 并放在写字板的下方。 然后,当我们拿到填好的问卷时, 会直接把它粘到参与者 自己的答案上面。 于是乎,它不见了。 然后,我们会再问他们这几个问题: 这里你给出的理由是什么? 然后他们会陈述理由, 同时,我们还会算他们的总分。 最后,他们还会再次陈述 自己的投票意向。
So what we find first of all here, is that very few of these manipulations are detected. And they're not detected in the sense that they realize, "OK, you must have changed my answer," it was more the case that, "OK, I must've misunderstood the question the first time I read it. Can I please change it?" And even if a few of these manipulations were changed, the overall majority was missed. So we managed to switch 90 percent of the participants' answers from left to right, right to left, their overall profile.
那么,我们首先了解到的是, 这些小把戏很少会被揭穿。 即便被发现,他们也不会觉得, "好吧,你肯定是换掉了我的答案,“ 更可能是这样, “好吧,我第一次读题目的时候 一定是误解它了。 我可以换回答案吗?“ 即便部分被篡改的答案 被改回来了, 总的来说,大部分还是被忽略了。 我们成功替换了90%参与者的答案, 从左翼到右翼,从右翼到左翼, 他们整个的概述。
And what happens then when they are asked to motivate their choices? And here we find much more interesting verbal reports than compared to the faces. People say things like this, and I'll read it to you. So, "Large-scale governmental surveillance of email and internet traffic ought to be permissible as means to combat international crime and terrorism." "So you agree to some extent with this statement." "Yes." "So how did you reason here?" "Well, like, as it is so hard to get at international crime and terrorism, I think there should be those kinds of tools." And then the person remembers an argument from the newspaper in the morning. "Like in the newspaper today, it said they can like, listen to mobile phones from prison, if a gang leader tries to continue his crimes from inside. And I think it's madness that we have so little power that we can't stop those things when we actually have the possibility to do so." And then there's a little bit back and forth in the end: "I don't like that they have access to everything I do, but I still think it's worth it in the long run." So, if you didn't know that this person just took part in a choice blindness experiment, I don't think you would question that this is the true attitude of that person.
当他们被问及为什么会 选择这个答案时,会发生什么事呢? 在这里,我们发现了比起面部测试 更有趣的口头报告。 人们这样说,我读给你们听。 他们说:“ 政府大规模针对 电子邮件和网络系统的监管 应当是被允许的,这意味着 可以打击国际犯罪和恐怖组织。“ “那么在一定程度上 你是同意这一陈述的。” “是的”。 “那么,这里你给的理由是什么?” “嗯,鉴于打击国际犯罪 和恐怖主义是非常困难的, 我想那应该就是 可以采用的工具。” 然后有个人记起早上的 报纸上有一段论述。 “就像早上报纸讲的那样, 据说,他们能够监听到从狱中 打进打出的电话, 比如是否有黑帮头目想在狱中 继续从事他的犯罪活动。 我认为不可思议的是, 我们有希望 阻止此类事情发生, 但是却没有足够的 能力做到这一点。“ 最后还有一段犹豫不决的说辞: “我不喜欢他们介入到 我做的任何事情中, 但我还是认为这是长久之计。“ 如果你不知道这个人刚刚 参加了那个盲选实验, 我想你不会质疑 这就是那个人的真实态度。
And what happens in the end, with the voting intention? What we find -- that one is also clearly affected by the questionnaire. So we have 10 participants shifting from left to right or from right to left. We have another 19 that go from clear voting intention to being uncertain. Some go from being uncertain to clear voting intention. And then there is a number of participants staying uncertain throughout. And that number is interesting because if you look at what the polling institutes say the closer you get to an election, the only people that are sort of in play are the ones that are considered uncertain. But we show there is a much larger number that would actually consider shifting their attitudes.
那么最后的投票意向是怎样呢? 我们发现,人的思想也明显 受到了问卷的影响。 我们有10个参与者 从左翼转到右翼, 右翼换到左翼。 还有另外19个人的投票意向从 明确变到不明确。 有些人的投票意向由不明确 转向明确。 还有很多参与者从头到尾都不确定。 这个数字很有意思, 因为,你若去看 民意调查机构的说法, 越接近大选时, 还能够受到影响的人, 就是那些犹豫不决的人。 但是,我们的试验表明 有相当一部分人 实际上还会考虑转变他们的态度。
And here I must point out, of course, that you are not allowed to use this as an actual method to change people's votes before an election, and we clearly debriefed them afterwards and gave them every opportunity to change back to whatever they thought first. But what this shows is that if you can get people to see the opposite view and engage in a conversation with themselves, that could actually make them change their views. OK.
在这里我还想指出的是,当然 你会被禁止在大选之前 使用这项手段来 改变人们的投票意向。 之后我们还很清楚地告诉了他们, 我们给他们改回原来 他们所想的答案的机会。 但是这个试验表明, 如果你可以让这些人们 看到与他们相对的观点,并且 让他们仔细斟酌自己的想法, 那就可以使他们改变他们的观点。 好的。
So what does it all mean? What do I think is going on here? So first of all, a lot of what we call self-knowledge is actually self-interpretation. So I see myself make a choice, and then when I'm asked why, I just try to make as much sense of it as possible when I make an explanation. But we do this so quickly and with such ease that we think we actually know the answer when we answer why. And as it is an interpretation, of course we sometimes make mistakes. The same way we make mistakes when we try to understand other people. So beware when you ask people the question "why" because what may happen is that, if you asked them, "So why do you support this issue?" "Why do you stay in this job or this relationship?" -- what may happen when you ask why is that you actually create an attitude that wasn't there before you asked the question.
那么这一切都是什么意思? 我认为这里到底发生了什么呢? 首先, 那些我们所谓的自知之明 其实是我们的自我诠释。 我明白我做了一个选择, 而当我被问起为什么时, 我仅仅是想让我的解释 听起来尽可能的合理。 但是我们迅速并且很容易地 完成了这一过程, 就是我们会误以为 自己已经知道答案了。 因为这仅仅是一种诠释, 当然我们时常会犯错误。 当我们尝试去理解他人时, 我们会以同样的方式犯错误。 当你问别人“为什么”的 问题时要小心, 因为将会发生的事是, 如果你问他们, “为什么你会支持这个主张?” “你为什么从事这份工作, 或持续这段感情?“ 其实你已经建立了一种态度, 这种态度在你问 这个问题之前并不存在。
And this is of course important in your professional life, as well, or it could be. If, say, you design something and then you ask people, "Why do you think this is good or bad?" Or if you're a journalist asking a politician, "So, why did you make this decision?" Or if indeed you are a politician and try to explain why a certain decision was made.
当然这在你的职业生涯中也很重要, 或可能很重要。 比如你设计了一样东西, 然后问人们, “你为什么说它好,或者坏?” 或者如果你是一个记者, 你问一个政治家, “你为什么要做这个决定?” 或者你就是一个政治家, 并且尝试解释做出 某一决定的原因。
So this may all seem a bit disturbing. But if you want to look at it from a positive direction, it could be seen as showing, OK, so we're actually a little bit more flexible than we think. We can change our minds. Our attitudes are not set in stone. And we can also change the minds of others, if we can only get them to engage with the issue and see it from the opposite view. And in my own personal life, since starting with this research -- So my partner and I, we've always had the rule that you're allowed to take things back. Just because I said I liked something a year ago, doesn't mean I have to like it still. And getting rid of the need to stay consistent is actually a huge relief and makes relational life so mush easier to live.
这一切看起来会有些让人不安。 但是如果你从一个 正面的角度来看, 这可能就表明, 好吧,我们实际上比 自己想的要更灵活些。 我们可以改变我们的想法。 我们的态度也不是一成不变的。 并且我们也可以 改变其他人的想法, 只要让他们深入讨论问题, 并从对立的角度来看。 在我个人的生活中, 自从我开始这个实验—— 我和我的合作者, 我们一直遵守一项原则, 就是你可以反悔。 就像我说的, 一年前我喜欢的东西, 并不意味着我现在还要喜欢它。 摆脱对维持一致性的需要, 其实是一个巨大的解脱,并且 可以让我们更好的经营人际关系。
Anyway, so the conclusion must be: know that you don't know yourself. Or at least not as well as you think you do.
总之,结论就是: 要明白你不懂你自己。 或者,至少不像 你想的那么了解自己。 谢谢。
Thanks.
(鼓掌)
(Applause)