国家地理 我们为什么说谎(8)

Much of the knowledge we use to navigate¹ the world comes from what others have told us. Without the implicit² trust that we place in human communication, we would be paralyzed as individuals and cease to have social relationships. "We get so much from believing, and there's relatively³ little harm when we occasionally get duped," says Tim Levine, a psychologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who calls this idea the truth default theory.

许多我们用来探索世界的知识来源于他人的口中，没有我们在人际交往中的隐含信任，我们就会受限于个体，并且不再具有社会关系。伯明翰阿拉巴马大学的心理学家蒂姆·莱文提出的真相默认理论指出，“我们从信仰中收获颇丰，当我们偶尔被欺骗时，伤害是较小的。”

Being hardwired to be trusting makes us intrinsically gullible⁴. "If you say to someone, 'I am a pilot,' they are not sitting there thinking: 'Maybe he's not a pilot. Why would he say he's a pilot?' They don't think that way," says Frank Abagnale, Jr., a security consultant⁶ whose cons⁵ as a young man, including forging checks and impersonating an airline pilot, inspired the 2002 movie Catch Me if You Can. "This is why scams work, because when the phone rings and the caller ID says it's the Internal Revenue Service, people automatically believe it is the IRS. They don't realize that someone could manipulate the caller ID."

信任是天生的，这使我们本质上容易受骗。“如果你告诉别人‘我是一个飞行员’，他们不会坐在那里想：‘也许他不是一个飞行员，为什么他要说自己是一个飞行员呢？’这不是他们思考的方式。” 安全顾问弗兰克·阿巴内尔说。弗兰克在年轻时伪造支票并冒充航空公司的飞行员，他的经历成了2002年上映的电影《逍遥法外》的灵感源。“这就是诈骗行为起作用的原因，因为当电话响起，来电显示表明对方是国税局时，人们自然会相信是国税局。他们没有意识到有人可以操纵来电显示。”

Robert Feldman, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts, calls that the liar's advantage. "People are not expecting lies, people are not searching for lies," he says, "and a lot of the time, people want to hear what they are hearing." We put up little resistance to the deceptions⁷ that please us and comfort us -- be it false praise or the promise of impossibly high investment returns. When we are fed falsehoods by people who have wealth, power, and status, they appear to be even easier to swallow, as evidenced by the media's credulous⁸ reporting of Lochte's robbery claim, which unraveled shortly thereafter.

马萨诸塞大学的心理学家罗伯特·费尔德曼称这是骗子的优势。他说：“人们并不期待谎言，人们也并不在寻找谎言，很多时候，人们都愿意听取他们听到的声音。”我们几乎不反对给我们带来欢喜与安慰的欺骗，无论是虚假的赞美还是不可估量的高投资回报的承诺。当我们被拥有财富、权力和地位的人欺骗时，似乎更容易轻信谎言，正如媒体轻信了罗切特的抢劫声明，而这件事不久后就真相大白。

Researchers have shown that we are especially prone⁹ to accepting lies that affirm our worldview. Memes that claim Obama was not born in the United States, deny climate change, accuse the U.S. government of masterminding the terrorist strikes of September 11, 2001, and spread other "alternative facts," as a Trump¹⁰ adviser¹¹ called his Inauguration¹² crowd claims, have thrived on the Internet and social media because of this vulnerability. Debunking¹³ them does not demolish¹⁴ their power, because people assess the evidence presented to them through a framework of preexisting beliefs and prejudices, says George Lakoff, a cognitive¹⁵ linguist¹⁶ at the University of California, Berkeley. "If a fact comes in that doesn't fit into your frame, you'll either not notice it, or ignore it, or ridicule¹⁷ it, or be puzzled by it -- or attack it if it's threatening."

研究人员表明，我们特别容易接受那些印证我们的世界观的谎言。奥巴马并未出生在美国，否认气候变化，指责美国政府策划“9·11事件”，并传播其他“替代事实”（特朗普的顾问在回答关于总统就职典礼参与人数的问题时提出该词），诸如此类的梗之所以在互联网和社交网络上大肆传播，正是因为这种弱点。加州大学伯克利分校的认知语言学家乔治·拉科夫说，揭穿谎言并不驳倒谎言，因为人们通过一个预先存在的信仰和偏见的框架来评估提供给他们的证据。“如果一个事实不符合你的框架，你将不会注意到它，或者忽略它，或者嘲笑它，或对它感到困惑 ，或者判定它是威胁的话就攻击它。”

1 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

2 implicit   

a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的

参考例句：

• A soldier must give implicit obedience to his officers. 士兵必须绝对服从他的长官。
• Her silence gave implicit consent. 她的沉默表示默许。

3 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

4 gullible   

adj.易受骗的；轻信的

参考例句：

• The swindlers had roped into a number of gullible persons.骗子们已使一些轻信的人上了当。
• The advertisement is aimed at gullible young women worried about their weight.这则广告专门针对担心自己肥胖而易受骗的年轻女士。

5 cons   

n.欺骗，骗局( con的名词复数 )v.诈骗，哄骗( con的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The pros and cons cancel out. 正反两种意见抵消。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• We should hear all the pros and cons of the matter before we make a decision. 我们在对这事做出决定之前，应该先听取正反两方面的意见。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

7 deceptions   

欺骗( deception的名词复数 )； 骗术，诡计

参考例句：

• Nobody saw through Mary's deceptions. 无人看透玛丽的诡计。
• There was for him only one trustworthy road through deceptions and mirages. 对他来说只有一条可靠的路能避开幻想和错觉。

8 credulous   

adj.轻信的，易信的

参考例句：

• You must be credulous if she fooled you with that story.连她那种话都能把你骗倒，你一定是太容易相信别人了。
• Credulous attitude will only make you take anything for granted.轻信的态度只会使你想当然。

9 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

10 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

11 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

12 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。

13 debunking   

v.揭穿真相，暴露( debunk的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The debunking of religion has been too successful. 对于宗教的揭露太成功了。 来自互联网

14 demolish   

v.拆毁(建筑物等)，推翻(计划、制度等)

参考例句：

• They're going to demolish that old building.他们将拆毁那座旧建筑物。
• He was helping to demolish an underground garage when part of the roof collapsed.他当时正在帮忙拆除一个地下汽车库，屋顶的一部份突然倒塌。

15 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。

16 linguist   

n.语言学家；精通数种外国语言者

参考例句：

• I used to be a linguist till I become a writer.过去我是个语言学家，后来成了作家。
• Professor Cui has a high reputation as a linguist.崔教授作为语言学家名声很高。

17 ridicule   

v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄

参考例句：

• You mustn't ridicule unfortunate people.你不该嘲笑不幸的人。
• Silly mistakes and queer clothes often arouse ridicule.荒谬的错误和古怪的服装常会引起人们的讪笑。