【英语语言学习】悲观的思考方式是可以传染的

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, I'm David Greene.

 

And I'm Renee Montagne.

 

In Your Health today: The connection between depression and dementia.

 

GREENE: But first, freshmen¹ are heading to college this fall and about now they might be getting their roommate assignments. Some colleges allow students to pick their roommates, others assign roommates to students. And there is some new information about the effects that college roommates might have on each other.

 

NPR's social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam regularly comes into to discuss research he finds. And he is in the studios with me. Hey, Shankar.

 

SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE²: Hi, David.

 

GREENE: So I'm thinking about my college roommates and the influences they might have had on me.

 

(LAUGHTER)

 

GREENE: I mean am I going to like what you're about to tell us?

 

VEDANTAM: So it turns out that your college roommates actually have a pretty big effect on your mental health. And to understand what that effect is, what you need to know is that researchers have found that the risk of depression is connected to something called your cognitive³ style.

 

GREENE: Cognitive style, is that just sort of the way we think about things?

 

VEDANTAM: Exactly, so bad things happen to all of us but we don't all think about those bad things in exactly the same way. I spoke⁴ with psychologist Gerry Haeffel, he's at the University of Notre Dame⁵, and he gave me an example. Here he is.

 

GERALD HAEFFEL: Two people both lose their jobs. The question is why is it that one person becomes depressed⁶ and another one doesn't? Some people are people are going to think that losing their job means that they're a failure and they're going to brood about their negative mood. And that person is at risk for depression.

 

GREENE: OK, so we have two people who might be responding to the same problem. I'm guessing that the person who kind of just brushes it aside might be less likely to get depressed, the person who kind of broods about it is more likely to get depressed.

 

VEDANTAM: Yeah exactly, so if you're a student you don't think that failing one exam is the same thing as being a failure. You know, you distract yourself, you go out and you tell yourself I'm going to bounce back. I'll start...

 

GREENE: You get over it.

 

VEDANTAM: Yeah, exactly. So here's the last: What happens if you suddenly stop spending time with somebody who has a very different cognitive style than you? Now, when students show up at Notre Dame, they are assigned roommates. The students to get to pick who they are roommates are - it's fairly random⁷. Right? So regularly, people who have a positive attitude are going to get paired up with someone who has a negative attitude.

 

And what Haeffel found is that in just three months, roommates started to infect one another with their cognitive style. Here he is again.

 

HAEFFEL: What we found is that these thinking styles were contagious⁸. If you came to college and you had a roommate who had a very negative thinking style, your own thinking style became more negative.

 

GREENE: OK, I don't want to oversimplify it. But I mean are we saying that if we come to college in a good mood, and we end up kind of feeling depressed a few months later, it's all our roommates' fault?

 

(LAUGHTER)

 

VEDANTAM: Well, on average that is sort of what Haeffel is saying, that having a negative person around you a lot of the time has an effect on you. But it's also important to remember, David, that this actually works both ways. So it's true that the brooders made cheerful kids more, you know, broody. But it's also true that the cheerful kids made the brooders more cheerful. So now, instead of blaming themselves when something went wrong, the brooders started saying, Well, you know, it's just the circumstances and I'll bounce back - I'll start doing better.

 

So it's almost as if the thinking styles of the two roommates were converging⁹. Right? Haeffel is a depression researcher. And what he finds is that six months after you start spending lots of time with somebody with a more negative attitude, your risk for depression significantly rises.

 

GREENE: Let's broaden this out, if we can, and get some perspective. I mean if we take this beyond college, how important is it that we find people who are upbeat...

 

(LAUGHTER)

 

GREENE: ...you know, to spend time with to make sure that we don't get depressed?

 

VEDANTAM: This is why I like spending time around you, David, because you're always cheerful.

 

(LAUGHTER)

 

GREENE: Nice of you.

 

VEDANTAM: But, you know, the truth is in life we can't always surround ourselves with cheerful people. Right? People are going to come in all shapes and sizes. The big take away for me from Haeffel's study, is that these Cognitive Styles are actually quite malleable¹⁰. It used to be that we thought that the styles were fairly fixed¹¹. You know, once your brooder you're always going to be a brooder. Or once your cheerful person, you always stay at cheerful person.

 

What this experiment is showing us is that our peers and networks have a really powerful effect in shaping us. When we start spending time with somebody who is of very different temperament¹², it's the psychological equivalent of essentially¹³ landing in a new country. And so, our natural cognitive style - this mental language that we've always spoken - doesn't work anymore in this new country. And you have to start learning this new language.

 

And so, the take away for me is with effort in time we can all change our cognitive styles.

 

GREENE: It's an upbeat ending to this chat.

 

VEDANTAM: I think so.

 

GREENE: It's been great sharing a room with you you've been a wonderful influence, Shankar.

 

(LAUGHTER)

 

GREENE: Thanks a lot.

 

VEDANTAM: Thanks, David.

 

GREENE: That's NPR's Shankar Vedantam and you can follow him on Twitter @hiddenbrain.

1 freshmen   

n.（中学或大学的）一年级学生( freshman的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We are freshmen and they are sophomores. 我们是一年级学生，他们是二年级学生。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• University freshmen get lots of razzing, but they like the initiation. 大一新生受各种嘲弄，但是他们对这种入门经验甘之如饴。 来自辞典例句

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

4 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

5 dame   

n.女士

参考例句：

• The dame tell of her experience as a wife and mother.这位年长妇女讲了她作妻子和母亲的经验。
• If you stick around,you'll have to marry that dame.如果再逗留多一会，你就要跟那个夫人结婚。

6 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

7 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。

8 contagious   

adj.传染性的，有感染力的

参考例句：

• It's a highly contagious infection.这种病极易传染。
• He's got a contagious laugh.他的笑富有感染力。

9 converging   

adj.收敛[缩]的，会聚的，趋同的v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的现在分词 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集

参考例句：

• Plants had gradually evolved along diverging and converging pathways. 植物是沿着趋异和趋同两种途径逐渐演化的。 来自辞典例句
• This very slowly converging series was known to Leibniz in 1674. 这个收敛很慢的级数是莱布尼茨在1674年得到的。 来自辞典例句

10 malleable   

adj.(金属)可锻的;有延展性的；(性格)可训练的

参考例句：

• Silver is the most malleable of all metals.银是延展性最好的金属。
• Scientists are finding that the adult human brain is far more malleable than they once thought.科学家发现成人大脑的可塑性远超过他们之前认识到的。

11 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

12 temperament   

n.气质，性格，性情

参考例句：

• The analysis of what kind of temperament you possess is vital.分析一下你有什么样的气质是十分重要的。
• Success often depends on temperament.成功常常取决于一个人的性格。

13 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。