做了坏事儿就忘记的叫做不道德健忘症

 ‘Unethical Amnesia²’ Explains Why People Conveniently Forget Their Awful Behavior

“不道德的健忘症”解释了为什么人们很快地忘记他们可怕的行为

It feels bad to be reminded of unsavory actions — accidentally insulting a colleague, forgetting your sibling’s birthday, acting³ a fool at your best friend’s wedding. So you conveniently forget about it.

想起那些让人讨厌的行为的感觉很糟糕-不小心侮辱了同事，忘记自己兄弟姐妹的生日，又或者在朋友的婚礼上像个傻瓜一样。所以你很快就忘记了这些。

According to a new study, there’s a name for that:unethical amnesia.

一项新的研究将这种行为命名为 “不道德的健忘症” 。

做了坏事儿就忘记的叫做不道德健忘症

As author Maryam tells Science of Us, she and her co-author Francesca Gino wanted to examine why people repeatedly do bad things. What the organizational psychologists, of Northwestern University and Harvard Business School, respectively, found is that recalling unsavory actions causes “psychological discomfort,” so people have fuzzier memories of the bad things they’ve done. It has to do with the concept of self: Evidently, it’s natural to discard evidence that you’re not an ethically⁴ pure person.

作者玛利亚姆告诉我们说，她和她的合著者法兰西丝卡．吉诺想调查清楚为什么人们重复得做糟糕的事情。西北大学和哈佛商学院的工业组织心理学家分别发现回忆那些令人讨厌的行为会引起心理上的不适，因此人们对于他们所做的那些糟糕的事情的记忆比较模糊。这与自我观念有关：显而易见，抛弃那些证明你不是一个道德纯粹的人的证据会很自然。

To ferret out this cognitive⁵ mechanism⁶, the researchers did nine experiments with a total of 2,100 participants.

为了确认这一认知机制，研究者们在2100个参与者中做了9个试验。

In two of those experiments, participants were asked to write about ethical¹ or unethical actions from their personal histories. Fitting the hypothesis, unsavory memories were less vivid than the positive ones. And, intriguingly⁷ enough, memories of others’ actions didn’t differ in clarity depending on whether they were good or bad.

在其中的两个试验中，参与者们要求根据自己的过去写下一些道德或者不道德的行为。符合预期的设想，对于不道德的行为的记忆比道德行为的记忆要模糊很多。而且更加有趣的是，关于其他事情，无论好坏，记忆的清晰度都没太大差别。

In another study, participants completed a coin-toss task where they could lie to get more money. Two weeks later, the researchers measured their memory of playing the game and other episodes from that time, like eating dinner. Similarly, the people who cheated in the coin tossing had worse recall than the people who didn’t.

在另一个研究里，参与试验的人通过投掷硬币来完成一个可以用说谎来赚钱的任务。两周后，研究者测试了他们对此次任务的记忆以及期间的其他事情，比如说吃完饭之类的。同样的，在投掷硬币中撒了谎的人的记忆比那些没撒谎的人的记忆差很多。

But it’s not just from direct experience. In another experiment, participants were asked to read a story about cheating or not cheating on an exam, from either a first-person or third-person perspective. Again, the participants who read the story about cheating from the first-person perspective had worse recall, and the third-person readers had no difference.

但是，这不是直接的经验。在另外一个试验中，参与者要求以第一人称或者第三人称的视角读一篇关于考试作弊和未作弊的故事。再次，以第一人称视角阅读考试作弊的参与者的人的记忆很差，而以第三人称阅读的参与者的记忆则没有太大的差别。

As an assistant professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg Business School, explains, the amnesia has a protective quality. We hold ourselves to be moral agents in the world, so evidence of wrongdoing creates all sorts of dissonance between our ideas about ourselves and our actual behavior. The unethical amnesia acts like an “adaptive defensive⁸ behavior,” helping⁹ our egos¹⁰ sidestep unpleasant truths.

西北大学凯洛格商学院的副教授解释道，健忘症有一种保护的特质。在这个世界上，我们一直持道德标准自居，因此那些糟糕行为的证据会在我们的思想和实际行为之间产生不和谐。不道德的健忘症就像是自我适应的防卫行为一样，帮助自我避讳不愉快的真相。

1 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

2 amnesia   

n.健忘症，健忘

参考例句：

• People suffering from amnesia don't forget their general knowledge of objects.患健忘症的人不会忘记关于物体的一些基本知识。
• Chinese medicine experts developed a way to treat amnesia using marine materials.中国医学专家研制出用海洋物质治疗遗忘症的方法。

3 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

4 ethically   

adv.在伦理上，道德上

参考例句：

• Ethically , we have nothing to be ashamed about . 从伦理上说，我们没有什么好羞愧的。
• Describe the appropriate action to take in an ethically ambiguous situation. 描述适当行为采取在一个道德地模棱两可的情况。

5 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。

6 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。

7 intriguingly   

参考例句：

• Intriguingly, she gave to the music a developed although oddly malleable personality. 最神奇的是，她的音乐具有成熟却又很奇怪地极富可塑性。 来自互联网
• Intriguingly, the patients brains were riddled with tangles, but not amyloid plaques. 有趣的是，患者的大脑中充满了各缠结，但并没有粉斑。 来自互联网

8 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

9 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

10 egos   

自我，自尊，自负( ego的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Their egos are so easily bruised. 他们的自尊心很容易受到伤害。
• The belief in it issues from the puerile egos of inferior men. 这种信仰是下等人幼稚的自私意识中产生的。