词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Excuses

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": December 12, 2002

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: Just in time for those unattainable New Year's resolutions, the art -- and danger -- of making excuses.

SCHLENKER: "What excuses do is try to diminish personal responsibility."

RS: Barry Schlenker is a social psychologist at the University of Florida.

SCHLENKER: "So it's an attempt to, in essence, say I'm not as responsible, and hence not as blameworthy, as you might otherwise think."

AA: Professor Schlenker says that, in the 1980s, a lot was written about how people come up with excuses to explain their behavior.

SCHLENKER: "Much of the research showed that excuses can actually produce beneficial consequences in the sense of salvaging¹ self-esteem, making people feel better, maybe even allowing them to keep stronger relationships with others. Because it's a lot nicer if you make up an excuse, for example, for missing a lunch date or turning somebody down than if you say 'I didn't want to go out with you because I didn't like you' or 'I missed the lunch date because I had better things to do.'

"But one of the things that my colleagues and I felt was that the pendulum² may have swung too far the other way now. Indeed, you now see in the psychology³ literature recommendations that, in essence, therapists help their clients generate excuses to make them feel better, to try to focus them on why perhaps some of their problems are not really their fault, they're not bad people."

AA: Professor Schlenker says he and his colleagues thought it was time to document what he calls "the other side of excuses" -- that is, the conditions under which people react very negatively to excuses.

So the researchers recently did a study. They described various hypothetical situations to students, and asked them to evaluate the people involved. In each situation, though, different students got different explanations to evaluate.

RS: For instance, a businessperson misses an important meeting and ends up losing a deal for the company. The person blames getting stuck in traffic. Some students were told that a news report said there had indeed been a traffic backup. Others were told that there had been an accident, but that other employees in the same building had arrived at work pretty much on time.

AA: In another example, a person blames a case of the flu for not getting work completed. Some students were told that the flu was indeed going around and a lot of people in the building were having trouble with work. But other students were told that, while the flu was going around, this was about the only person having trouble getting work done.

RS: So how did the students evaluate the various people and their excuses?

SCHLENKER: "When there was no corroboration⁴ for the excuse, or it was poor, they tended to evaluate the character of the person very low. When asked how good or bad a person it was, they tended to rate him pretty negatively. They also regarded him as very deceitful, very ineffective -- in other words, not the kind of person you'd want to trust with an important job -- very self-absorbed as compared to interested in, say, the company or other people. They liked and respected them less, and they regarded the explanation as much less legitimate⁵ and they blamed him much more for the transgression⁶."

AA: And the lessons to be learned?

SCHLENKER: "To the extent that an excuse can be communicated with the appearance of sincerity⁷, with apparent corroboration, without the attempt to drag somebody else down, under those conditions the excuse then becomes transformed into the reason and I think people are much more likely to accept it. The danger occurs when maybe the apparent sincerity is not quite as great, when cracks seem to occur in the description -- so that maybe the corroboration doesn't turn out to look as good. But to the extent people begin to doubt it, wonder about the corroboration, wonder about if the person really is too self-absorbed, then they can backfire and do exactly the opposite of what the excuse-maker intended, which is to produce very negative evaluations⁸ and an even bigger problem."

RS: "Let me ask you one last question. How would you rate this very popular excuse by schoolchildren: the dog ate my homework. (Laughter)"

SCHLENKER: "Well, I think we can go back to corroboration on that one. That one has been used so often by so many people that it becomes remarkably⁹ ineffective."

RS: "So even though we have a dog at home, and the dog does like homework, I should advise my son that that's not a great excuse to use at school."

SCHLENKER: "Well, my general of thumb is that if you really believe that that is -- if that is really what happened, I'd go for it. But I would also not be surprised if the recipient¹⁰ of that excuse regarded it as a pretty self-serving excuse."

RS: Professor Barry Schlenker at the University of Florida. And that's Wordmaster for this week.

AA: Our programs are on the Web at voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address is [email protected] With Rosanne Skirble, I'm Avi Arditti.

MUSIC: "I'm Sorry"/Brenda Lee

1 salvaging   

（从火灾、海难等中）抢救（某物）( salvage的现在分词 )； 回收利用（某物）

参考例句：

• A shipping company has made a claim for the cost of salvaging a sunken ship. 某轮船公司要求赔赏打捞沉船的费用。（make a claim 要求）
• It is not uncommon to hear that a shipping company has made a claim for the cost of salvaging a sunken ship. 航运公司为打捞沉船的费用而提出要求，这并非奇闻。

2 pendulum   

n.摆，钟摆

参考例句：

• The pendulum swung slowly to and fro.钟摆在慢慢地来回摆动。
• He accidentally found that the desk clock did not swing its pendulum.他无意中发现座钟不摇摆了。

3 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

4 corroboration   

n.进一步的证实，进一步的证据

参考例句：

• Without corroboration from forensic tests,it will be difficult to prove that the suspect is guilty. 没有法医化验的确证就很难证明嫌疑犯有罪。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Definitely more independent corroboration is necessary. 有必要更明确地进一步证实。 来自辞典例句

5 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

6 transgression   

n.违背；犯规；罪过

参考例句：

• The price can make an action look more like a transaction than a transgression.罚款让一个行为看起来更像是一笔交易而不是一次违法行为。
• The areas of transgression are indicated by wide spacing of the thickness contours.那幢摩天大楼高耸入云。

7 sincerity   

n.真诚，诚意；真实

参考例句：

• His sincerity added much more authority to the story.他的真诚更增加了故事的说服力。
• He tried hard to satisfy me of his sincerity.他竭力让我了解他的诚意。

8 evaluations   

估价( evaluation的名词复数 )； 赋值； 估计价值； [医学]诊断

参考例句：

• In fact, our moral evaluations are merely expressions of our desires. 事实上，我们的道德评价只是我们欲望的表达形式。 来自哲学部分
• Properly speaking, however, these evaluations and insights are not within the concept of official notice. 但准确地讲，这些评估和深远见识并未包括在官方通知概念里。

9 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

10 recipient   

a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器

参考例句：

• Please check that you have a valid email certificate for each recipient. 请检查是否对每个接收者都有有效的电子邮件证书。
• Colombia is the biggest U . S aid recipient in Latin America. 哥伦比亚是美国在拉丁美洲最大的援助对象。