科学技术

　　The joys of parenthood

　　身为人父的喜悦

　　Father's day

　　父亲节

　　Having children really does make a man more content with life

　　有了自己的孩子的确会让男人更热爱自己的生活

　　WILL fatherhood make me happy?

　　当爸爸会让我开心么？

　　That is a question many men have found themselves asking, and the scientific evidence is equivocal.

　　这是一个许多男人都会问自己的问题，然而科学家们对此的措辞却含糊不清。

　　A lot of studies have linked parenthood—particularly fatherhood.

　　许多研究项目将双亲的身份—尤其是父亲,

　　with lower levels of marital satisfaction and higher rates of depression than are found among non-parents.

　　和低满足感与高压抑感联系起来，而且认为那些没有为人父母的人们则要逍遥许多。

　　Biologically speaking, that looks odd.

　　从生物学的角度来说，以上的观点其实很滑稽。

　　Natural selection might be expected to favour the progeny of men who enjoy bringing them up.

　　因为从自然选择的角度来说，大自然会更加青睐那些由开心的父亲抚养大的孩子。

　　On the other hand, the countervailing pressure to have other children, by other women, may leave the man who is already encumbered by a set of offspring dissatisfied.

　　从另一个角度来看，男人天性受到一种相反的压力，希望和其他女性生育更多的孩子，这种压力可能会让受到现有子女负累的父亲感到不满。

　　To investigate the matter further Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, decided both to study the existing literature, and to conduct some experiments of her own.

　　一位来自加州大学的心理学家，索尼娅·柳博米尔斯基，为了弄清这件事情，决定在研究现存文献的同时，也亲自组织一些实验。

　　The results, just published in Psychological Science, suggest parenthood in general, and fatherhood in particular, really are blessings, even though the parent in question might sometimes feel they are in disguise.

　　她研究的结果，《心理科学》上刚发表了不久。研究结果显示，总体上来说，为人父母，的确是会受到祝福的，即便那些受访的父母很多时候觉得可能自己在接受调查时伪装了些东西。

　　Dr Lyubomirsky's first port of call was the World Values Survey.

　　首先，柳博米尔斯基博士从世界价值观大调查开始着手。

　　This is a project which gathers huge amounts of data about the lives of people all around the planet.

　　这是个浩大的工程，用来收集海量的居住在这个星球各个角落里的人的数据。

　　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.

　　柳博米尔斯基博士从这些数据中调出了6,906份来自美国的数据，用以进行她的研究。这些数据从四个不同的年份里收集获得，涉及了四个方面不同的问题。

　　These were: how many children the responder had;

　　这四个方面是：受访者有多少子女；

　　how satisfied he was with life;

　　他对自己的生活有多大程度的满足感；

　　how happy he was;

　　他的快乐感多大；

　　and how often he thought about the meaning and purpose of life.

　　以及他多少次思考过生活的意义和目标。

　　She found that, regardless of the year the survey was conducted, parents had higher happiness, satisfaction and meaning-of-life scores than non-parents.

　　结果她发现，剔除调查的年份因素之后，为人父母的人群比非父母人群具有更高的快乐感和满足感，生活意义项的得分值也更高。

　　The differences were not huge,

　　这些数据的差别其实并不明显，

　　but they were statistically significant.

　　但是从统计学的角度来看，其意义却非常重大。

　　Moreover, a closer look showed that the differences in happiness and satisfaction were the result of men's scores alone going up with parenthood.

　　另外，仔细查看这些数据会发现，男子在当了父亲后，快乐感和满足感会出现细小的差别，分数会越来越高。

　　Those of women did not change.

　　但是女性则没有变化。

　　Armed with this result, Dr Lyubomirsky conducted her own experiment.

　　有了这个结果做支撑，柳博米尔斯基博士开始着手弄自己的实验了。

　　The problem with projects like the World Values Survey is that,

　　不过诸如世界价值观大调查此类的大工程的问题是，

　　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.

　　它在收集数据时，要求参与者是回忆自己的感受，而不是叙述他们当下的经历，所以这就容易导致他们去深情地，美化地思考他们为人父母的责任，而不是他们当时真实的感受。

　　Dr Lyubomirsky therefore gave pagers to 329 North American volunteers aged between 18 and 94, having first recorded, among other things, their sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, marital status and number of children.

　　为此，柳博米尔斯基博士给329名来自北美地区的志愿者发了调查问卷。这些志愿者从18岁到94岁不等。她第一手记录下他们的性别，年龄，种族，社会经济地位，婚姻状态以及子女的数量。

　　She told them they would be paged at random, five times a day.

　　她告诉他们受访者将会被随机排列，一天五次受访。

　　When they were so paged, they were asked to complete a brief response sheet about how they felt, then and there.

　　当受访者被随机排列好后，将会被要求完成一份简明的答卷，用来调查关于其当时的感受。

　　She did not, however, tell them why she was asking these questions.

　　当然，柳博米尔斯基博士并没有告诉受访者她为何问他们这些问题。

　　The upshot was the same as her findings from the World Values Survey.

　　结果，这次的结局和她在世界价值观大调查项目里得出的结论是一致的。

　　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.

　　相比那些还没做父母的人，为人父母者在他们的人生中显示出了更加积极的情感和更多对他们人生意义的积极思考。

　　Moreover, further analysis revealed that this enhanced enjoyment came from activities which involved children rather than those that did not.

　　同时，通过更加仔细的观察，显示出父亲在上述方面更加典型。另外，更进一步的分析表明了上述的那种积极和欢乐来自于有关孩子的活动。生活中不涉及孩子的日常活动则没有这种效果。

　　It looks, then, as if evolution has bolted into men a psychological mechanism to keep them in the family.

　　所以说，由此可见，似乎自然进化让男人们产生了一种心理学机制，把他们闩在了家庭里。

　　At first sight, it is strange that women do not share this mechanism, but perhaps they do not need to.

　　乍一看，似乎女性没有这种机制很奇怪，但是仔细想想，她们也许根本就不需要这种机制。

　　They know, after all, that the children are theirs, whereas the best a man can do is hope that is true.

　　她们至少知道，自己的孩子一定是自己生的。

　　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 bosom of his family.

　　但是孩子是不是男人自己的血脉，他们只能祈求上天了。所以说，一个男人想做一大堆子子孙孙的父亲的潜在本能，会激励他挣扎着走出家庭的怀抱。

　　Enjoying fatherhood, by contrast, will help keep him in the porch.

　　但是，相反的，身为人父的喜悦，则会让他们在家里的门廊前停住脚步。