经济学人06:拥有子女确实能让男人对生活更加满意

 　　Science and Technolgy.

　　科技。

　　The joys of parenthood.

　　为人父母的快乐。

　　Father's day.

　　父亲节。

　　Having children really does make a man more content with life.

　　拥有子女确实能让男人对生活更加满意。

　　WILL fatherhood make me happy? That is a question many men have found themselves asking, and the scientific evidence is equivocal. A lot of studies have linked parenthood-particularly fatherhood-with lower levels of marital¹ satisfaction and higher rates of depression than are found among non-parents.

　　父亲的身份能让自己幸福快乐吗？很多男人都会问自己这个问题，但是至今依然没有一个明确的科学解答。很多关于父母身份（特别是父亲）的研究都显示，有子女的父母有着更低的婚姻满意度和更高的忧郁症比例。

　　Biologically speaking, that looks odd. Natural selection might be expected to favour the progeny² of men who enjoy bringing them up. On the other hand, the countervailing pressure to have other children, by other women, may leave the man who is already encumbered³ by a set of offspring dissatisfied.

　　从生物学角度来说，这有点奇怪，因为自然选择趋向于选择那些乐于带孩子男人的后代，反过来看，男性要和其他女性生育更多子女的压力可能会让那些已有子女的父亲感到不满。

　　To investigate the matter further Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, decided⁴ both to study the existing literature, and to conduct some experiments of her own. The results, just published in Psychological Science, suggest parenthood in general, and fatherhood in particular, really are blessings⁵, even though the parent in question might sometimes feel they are in disguise.

　　来自加州大学河滨分校的心理学家Sonja Lyubomirsky进行了更为深入的研究，她从现有文献和自己的实验同时入手，其结果发表在《心理学》上。研究表明，父母身份，特别是父亲的身份是相当重要的，尽管那些问题父母有时候可能并没有注意这一点。

　　Dr Lyubomirsky's first port of call was the World Values Survey. This is a project which gathers huge amounts of data about the lives of people all around the planet. For the purposes of her research, Dr Lyubomirsky looked at the answers 6,906 Americans had given, in four different years, to four particular questions. These were: how many children the responder had; how satisfied he (or she) was with life; how happy he was; and how often he thought about the meaning and purpose of life.

　　Lyubomirsky博士首先进行世界价值观调查，这个步骤要收集生活在世界各地的人的大量数据。为了达到研究目的， Lyubomirsky博士在四个不同的年份分别询问了6906个美国人四个不同的问题，这四个问题分别是：受访者有多少个孩子；他（或她）对生活有多满意；他有多幸福；他多久考虑一次生命的意义。

　　She found that, regardless of the year the survey was conducted, parents had higher happiness, satisfaction and meaning-of-life scores than non-parents. The differences were not huge, but they were statistically⁶ significant. Moreover, a closer look showed that the differences in happiness and satisfaction were the result of men's scores alone going up with parenthood. Those of women did not change.

　　她发现，比起没有子女的父母，有子女的父母有着更高的幸福感、满意度和生活意义分数。虽然差距不算太大，但统计上很明显，此外，深入分析后发现，在幸福感和满意度上的差距主要来自于父母身份中父亲的分数，女人的分数对其影响不大。

　　Armed with this result, Dr Lyubomirsky conducted her own experiment. The problem with projects like the World Values Survey is that, because participants are asked to recall their feelings rather than stating what they are experiencing in the here and now, this might lead them into thinking more fondly in hindsight about their parenting duties than they actually felt at the time. Dr Lyubomirsky therefore gave pagers to 329 North American volunteers aged⁷ between 18 and 94, having first recorded, among other things, their sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, marital status and number of children. She told them they would be paged at random⁸, five times a day. When they were so paged, they were asked to complete a brief response sheet about how they felt, then and there. She did not, however, tell them why she was asking these questions.

　　根据这个结果，Lyubomirsky博士开始着手自己的实验。但是在调查世界价值观的时候还存在一些问题，因为受访者是被要求回忆他们当时的感受，而不是描述此时此刻正在经历的事，事后的觉悟可能会让他们把作为父母的责任想得更令人喜爱。所以Lyubomirsky博士在北美选择了329位18至94岁的志愿者，并给他们配备了寻呼机，此外，记录原始数据还包括他们的性别、年龄、种族、社会地位、婚姻状况和子女的数目。她告诉志愿者她会随机呼叫他们，每天5次，当他们被呼叫时，他们会被要求完成一份简短的回复表，这个表主要是关于他们当场感觉，但是她并没有告诉他们她为什么要问那些问题

　　The upshot was the same as her findings from the World Values Survey. Parents claimed more positive emotions and more meaning in their lives than non-parents, and a closer look revealed that it was fathers who most enjoyed these benefits. Moreover, further analysis revealed that this enhanced enjoyment⁹ came from activities which involved children rather than those (such as watching television alone, or cooking) that did not.

　　实验结果和世界观调查结果一样，比起无子女的双亲，正常父母有着更加积极的情绪和更好的生活体验，并且父亲们更加享受这份关系。此外，深入研究还发现与子女相关的活动比没有子女父母的活动（比如独自看电视，做饭）更能增加快感。

　　It looks, then, as if evolution has bolted into men a psychological mechanism¹⁰ to keep them in the family. At first sight, it is strange that women do not share this mechanism, but perhaps they do not need to. They know, after all, that the children are theirs, whereas the best a man can do is hope that is true. That, and a man's potential to father an indefinite number of offspring if he can find willing volunteers, might encourage him to stray from the bosom¹¹ of his family. Enjoying fatherhood, by contrast, will help keep him in the porch.

　　在这一点看来，就像进化论把男人带入了"融入家庭"的心理机制，女人们却没有分享到这个特性，乍看之下还有点奇怪，这或许是因为她们根本不需要，毕竟孩子总是她们的，而男人最多只能祈祷孩子确实是自己。此外，如果能找到情投意合的异性，男人总有与其产下更多后代的潜在欲望，这些都会驱使男性偏离家庭生活，所以还是让他好好享受为人之父的快乐，这才会让他乐意留在家里。

1 marital   

adj.婚姻的，夫妻的

参考例句：

• Her son had no marital problems.她的儿子没有婚姻问题。
• I regret getting involved with my daughter's marital problems;all its done is to bring trouble about my ears.我后悔干涉我女儿的婚姻问题, 现在我所做的一切将给我带来无穷的烦恼。

2 progeny   

n.后代，子孙；结果

参考例句：

• His numerous progeny are scattered all over the country.他为数众多的后代散布在全国各地。
• He was surrounded by his numerous progeny.众多的子孙簇拥着他。

3 encumbered   

v.妨碍，阻碍，拖累( encumber的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The police operation was encumbered by crowds of reporters. 警方的行动被成群的记者所妨碍。
• The narrow quay was encumbered by hundreds of carts. 狭窄的码头被数百辆手推车堵得水泄不通。 来自辞典例句

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 blessings   

n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福

参考例句：

• Afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise. 塞翁失马，焉知非福。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We don't rely on blessings from Heaven. 我们不靠老天保佑。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 statistically   

ad.根据统计数据来看，从统计学的观点来看

参考例句：

• The sample of building permits is larger and therefore, statistically satisfying. 建筑许可数的样本比较大，所以统计数据更令人满意。
• The results of each test would have to be statistically independent. 每次试验的结果在统计上必须是独立的。

7 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

8 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

9 enjoyment   

n.乐趣；享有；享用

参考例句：

• Your company adds to the enjoyment of our visit. 有您的陪同，我们这次访问更加愉快了。
• After each joke the old man cackled his enjoyment.每逢讲完一个笑话，这老人就呵呵笑着表示他的高兴。

10 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

11 bosom   

n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的

参考例句：

• She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
• A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。