人類什麼時候最幸福？
為了收集關於這個問題的數據，馬特·基林斯沃斯開發了一個應用程式，追蹤人們的幸福感，讓大家實時報告自己的感受。
令人驚訝的結果之一是：當我們迷失在當下時，我們往往是最幸福的。另一方面：我們的思緒越亂，我們就越不快樂。
演講者：Matt Killingsworth
演講題目：Want to be happier? Stay in the moment
向上滑動閱覽
So, people want a lot of things out of life, but I think, more than anything else, they want happiness. Aristotle called happiness "the chief good," the end towards which all other things aim. According to this view, the reason we want a big house or a nice car or a good job isn't that these things are intrinsically valuable. It's that we expect them to bring us happiness.
眾所周知，人類為了各種各樣的理想而奮鬥，但是我認為，歸根究底他們要的是幸福。亞里斯多德把稱幸福為「至高無上的精神享受，」所有奮鬥和追求的終極目標。根據這個觀點，我們之所以渴望一間大房子或者一輛豪車或者一個好工作，本質上來說，並不是因為這些東西對我們特別有價值，而是因為我們期待這些財富能給我們帶來幸福。
Now in the last 50 years, we Americans have gotten a lot of the things that we want. We're richer. We live longer. We have access to technology that would have seemed like science fiction just a few years ago. The paradox of happiness is that even though the objective conditions of our lives have improved dramatically, we haven't actually gotten any happier.
在過去的50年裡，我們美國人的物質生活達到了前所未有的高度。我們更富有了，平均壽命更長了，廉價而又實用的科技產品使我們的生活看起來猶如科幻小說一般，僅僅是幾年的功夫。但是令人費解的是，雖然客觀上我們的物質生活水平有了極大的提高，我們的幸福感卻一點也沒增加。
Maybe because these conventional notions of progress haven't delivered big benefits in terms of happiness, there's been an increased interest in recent years in happiness itself. People have been debating the causes of happiness for a really long time, in fact for thousands of years, but it seems like many of those debates remain unresolved. Well, as with many other domains in life, I think the scientific method has the potential to answer this question. In fact, in the last few years, there's been an explosion in research on happiness.
也許是因為這些傳統意義上能增加幸福感的方法，其實對幸福感並沒有什麼大的影響，近些年來越來越多的人對幸福本身產生了濃厚的興趣。很長一段時間，大家都在爭論到底是什麼帶給人類幸福感，事實上這場爭論已經持續了數千年之久，但是看起來這些爭論都沒有令人信服的結果。恩，如同生活中很多領域一樣，我認為科學研究是可以來回答這個問題的。其實，在過去的數年裡，對於幸福的研究有了一些突破性的進展。
For example, we've learned a lot about its demographics, how things like income and education, gender and marriage relate to it. But one of the puzzles this has revealed is that factors like these don't seem to have a particularly strong effect. Yes, it's better to make more money rather than less, or to graduate from college instead of dropping out, but the differences in happiness tend to be small.
比如，我們通過對人口統計學的研究了解到，外界因素諸如收入和教育，性別與婚姻狀況對幸福感有一定的影響，但是令人覺得矛盾的是上面提過的這些都不是決定性的因素。的確，多掙些錢是件好事，大學畢業肯定比中途輟學好很多，但是這些對幸福感的影響都微乎其微。
Which leaves the question, what are the big causes of happiness? I think that's a question we haven't really answered yet, but I think something that has the potential to be an answer is that maybe happiness has an awful lot to do with the contents of our moment-to-moment experiences. It certainly seems that we're going about our lives, that what we're doing, who we're with, what we're thinking about, have a big influence on our happiness, and yet these are the very factors that have been very difficult, in fact almost impossible, for scientists to study.
這不禁讓我們陷入思考中，什麼才是幸福感的決定性因素呢？我覺得這個問題我們還沒有百分之百肯定的答案，但是我認為我們已經找到一種很可能是答案的觀點，就是也許幸福感是取決於生活中各式各樣的瞬間感受。這就好像我們正面對的日常生活中，我們正在做的事情，我們和誰在一起，我們正在考慮什麼，對我們的幸福指數有很大的影響，不僅如此，還有很多因素他們很難，事實上幾乎是不可能，作為研究的素材。
A few years ago, I came up with a way to study people's happiness moment to moment as they're going about their daily lives on a massive scale all over the world, something we'd never been able to do before. Called trackyourhappiness.org, it uses the iPhone to monitor people's happiness in real time. How does this work? Basically, I send people signals at random points throughout the day, and then I ask them a bunch of questions about their moment-to-moment experience at the instant just before the signal.
幾年前，我找到一種研究幸福感的方法，隨時隨地進行研究在人們日常生活中並在全世界範圍內開展，這些我們曾經想都不敢想的事。我們把它命名為trackyourhappiness.org(網址）它能通過iphone實時監測大家的幸福指數。它的工作原理是什麼呢？基本上，我會聯繫他們在一個隨機的時間，隨後我會問他們一些問題，關於他們在我聯繫他們之前的那一瞬間的即時感受。
The idea is that, if we can watch how people's happiness goes up and down over the course of the day, minute to minute in some cases, and try to understand how what people are doing, who they're with, what they're thinking about, and all the other factors that describe our day, how those might relate to those changes in happiness, we might be able to discover some of the things that really have a big influence on happiness.
這麼做的原因是，如果我們可以觀察到他們這一天的幸福指數是上升或者下降的，有些案例是每分鐘聯繫一次，並且儘量找出大家在做什麼，他們和誰在一起，他們在想什麼，和其它所有能描述我們生活的因素，這些因素是如何跟幸福指數聯繫在一起的，我們也許能通過它去發現那些真正能對幸福感產生重大影響的東西。
We've been fortunate with this project to collect quite a lot of data, a lot more data of this kind than I think has ever been collected before, over 650,000 real-time reports from over 15,000 people. And it's not just a lot of people, it's a really diverse group, people from a wide range of ages, from 18 to late 80s, a wide range of incomes, education levels, people who are married, divorced, widowed, etc. They collectively represent every one of 86 occupational categories and hail from over 80 countries.
我們很幸運的通過這個途徑收集到了大量的資料，比我預期的還要多的資料前所未有的多，超過65萬的即時信息來自超過1萬5千名志願者。不但人數眾多，而且分布廣泛，志願者分布在不同的年齡層，從18歲到80歲，不同的收入階層，教育層次，已婚的，離婚的，喪偶的，等等。這些志願者出在86個不同行業並且來自超過80個國家。
What I'd like to do with the rest of my time with you today is talk a little bit about one of the areas that we've been investigating, and that's mind-wandering. As human beings, we have this unique ability to have our minds stray away from the present. This guy is sitting here working on his computer, and yet he could be thinking about the vacation he had last month, wondering what he's going to have for dinner. Maybe he's worried that he's going bald. (Laughter) This ability to focus our attention on something other than the present is really amazing.
在今天剩下的時間裡我要做的是和大家探討一下，其中一部分我們已經研究了一段時間的東西，那就是走神。作為人類，我們有這種獨一無二的能力把我們的注意力從眼前的事物轉移到別處。這個人正坐在電腦前工作，但是他可能正在回味上個月的旅行，考慮一會去哪兒吃晚飯，可能他正在擔心自己快要禿了。這個能力使我們能讓我們把更多注意力轉移到其它地方而不是當下正在做的事，這實在是太驚人了。
It allows us to learn and plan and reason in ways that no other species of animal can. And yet it's not clear what the relationship is between our use of this ability and our happiness. You've probably heard people suggest that you should stay focused on the present. "Be here now," you've probably heard a hundred times. Maybe, to really be happy, we need to stay completely immersed and focused on our experience in the moment. Maybe these people are right. Maybe mind-wandering is a bad thing.
這個能力讓人類以自己獨有的方式學習、設計和理解，至今我們還是不能確定使用這種能力和我們的幸福感有什麼關係。你肯定曾經聽到別人建議你做事情要專心致志，「不要走神，」你肯定聽得耳朵都長繭了。也許，想要幸福，我們應該沉浸並且專注在我們曾經經歷過的美好瞬間。也許這些人是對的，也許走神不是件好事。
On the other hand, when our minds wander, they're unconstrained. We can't change the physical reality in front of us, but we can go anywhere in our minds. Since we know people want to be happy, maybe when our minds wander, they're going to someplace happier than the place that they're leaving. It would make a lot of sense. In other words, maybe the pleasures of the mind allow us to increase our happiness with mind-wandering.
但另一方面，走神可以讓我們的思想無拘無束。我們不能改變在我們面前的現實世界，但是我們的思想卻可以飛到任何地方。我們知道人類渴望得到幸福，也許當我們走神時，思想正飛往比眼前更幸福的地方。這樣就說得通了。換句話說，也許思想中的愉悅通過走神提高了我們的幸福感。
Well, since I'm a scientist, I'd like to try to resolve this debate with some data, and in particular I'd like to present some data to you from three questions that I ask with Track Your Happiness. Remember, this is from sort of moment-to-moment experience in people's real lives. There are three questions. The first one is a happiness question: How do you feel, on a scale ranging from very bad to very good?
好吧，作為一個科學工作者，我希望儘量用數據來解決這個爭論，所以我會特別想展示一些數據給大家。這些數據來自與三個我在追蹤幸福指數中問到過的問題。請記住，這些都來自人們日常生活中的瞬間感受。這裡有三個問題。第一個問題關於快樂：你心情怎麼樣，衡量標準從非常差到非常好？
Second, an activity question: What are you doing, on a list of 22 different activities including things like eating and working and watching TV? And finally a mind-wandering question: Are you thinking about something other than what you're currently doing? People could say no -- in other words, I'm focused only on my task -- or yes -- I am thinking about something else -- and the topic of those thoughts are pleasant, neutral or unpleasant. Any of those yes responses are what we called mind-wandering.
第二個問題，關於行為：你在幹嘛，我們的清單上記錄了22中不同的活動，包括吃飯，工作和看電視？和一個關於走神的問題：你在想些別的事嗎？而不是專心在眼下正在做的這件？有人會回答：沒有——或者換個說法，我正專注在我的工作上——有人會說是的——我正在想些別的事——這些事可能是高興的，平淡無奇的或者不高興的。這些事就是我們所謂的走神了。
So what did we find? This graph shows happiness on the vertical axis, and you can see that bar there representing how happy people are when they're focused on the present, when they're not mind-wandering. As it turns out, people are substantially less happy when their minds are wandering than when they're not. Now you might look at this result and say, okay, sure, on average people are less happy when they're mind-wandering, but surely when their minds are straying away from something that wasn't very enjoyable to begin with, at least then mind-wandering should be doing something good for us.
所以我們發現什麼了什麼？這些柱狀圖為我們描述了各種狀態下的幸福指數，大家可以看到眼前這個柱狀圖代表了人們集中精神在當下時的幸福指數，當他們沒有走神的時候，事實證明，當他們走神的時候相對於沒走神時，人們的幸福指數明顯降低了。現在看著眼前的結果大家可能會說，好吧，一定是這樣，普遍情況下人們在走神的狀態下會覺得不幸福，但是很有可能當人們的注意力從一些令人不爽的事情上轉移到其它地方時，至少這個時候走神能讓我們覺得快樂一點。
Nope. As it turns out, people are less happy when they're mind-wandering no matter what they're doing. For example, people don't really like commuting to work very much. It's one of their least enjoyable activities, and yet they are substantially happier when they're focused only on their commute than when their mind is going off to something else. It's amazing.
不是的。事實證明，人們並不會因為走神而變得更幸福，無論他們正在幹嘛。例如，所有人都很不喜歡每日通勤這檔子事，它是公認的最令人不愉快的活動，即便如此當人們只把注意力放在趕路上的時候，依然會感覺比走神到其它事情上更快樂一點。太讓人吃驚了。
So how could this be happening? I think part of the reason, a big part of the reason, is that when our minds wander, we often think about unpleasant things, and they are enormously less happy when they do that, our worries, our anxieties, our regrets, and yet even when people are thinking about something neutral, they're still considerably less happy than when they're not mind-wandering at all. Even when they're thinking about something they would describe as pleasant, they're actually just slightly less happy than when they aren't mind-wandering. If mind-wandering were a slot machine, it would be like having the chance to lose 50 dollars, 20 dollars or one dollar. Right? You'd never want to play.
是什麼導致了這樣的結果呢？我認為部分原因是，很大程度上吧，是因為當我們走神的時候，我們經常會想起一些不太愉快的事情，這些事情比眼下正在做的事情悲慘多了，我們的擔心，憂慮，心中的悔恨，即便是當人們正在想一些平淡無奇的事情，人們的幸福指數依然低於集中精神的時候。甚至當人們想著那些令人愉悅的事情時，人們的幸福指數依然略低於不走神的時候。如果把走神看成一臺老虎機，跟它賭只有三種結果，輸50塊，輸20塊或者輸一塊錢。對吧？你肯定不想玩它。
So I've been talking about this, suggesting, perhaps, that mind-wandering causes unhappiness, but all I've really shown you is that these two things are correlated. It's possible that's the case, but it might also be the case that when people are unhappy, then they mind-wander. Maybe that's what's really going on. How could we ever disentangle these two possibilites? Well, one fact that we can take advantage of, I think a fact you'll all agree is true, is that time goes forward, not backward. Right? The cause has to come before the effect.
索然我已經說了很多關於幸福感的建議，假設走神也許會降低我們的幸福感，但是我真正想為大家展示的是「走神」和「幸福感」兩者是有關聯的。也許走神會降低幸福感，但是也有可能是另一種情況，人們因為覺得不幸福才走神，也許這才是真相。我們怎麼才能從這兩種可能性中解脫出來？好吧，我們可以利用一個事實，我認為這個事實 大家都同意它的存在，這就是時間總是向前的，而不是倒退的。對吧？原因一定出現在結果之前。
We're lucky in this data we have many responses from each person, and so we can look and see, does mind-wandering tend to precede unhappiness, or does unhappiness tend to precede mind-wandering, to get some insight into the causal direction. As it turns out, there is a strong relationship between mind-wandering now and being unhappy a short time later, consistent with the idea that mind-wandering is causing people to be unhappy. In contrast, there's no relationship between being unhappy now and mind-wandering a short time later. In other words, mind-wandering very likely seems to be an actual cause, and not merely a consequence, of unhappiness.
我們很幸運的從大家那裡搜集到這些數據，據此我們可以觀察並且找出，是走神在痛苦之前出現，還是痛苦在走神之前出現，通過這種以因果為導向的方法。事實證明，很多時候人們剛剛走神了以後會覺得不快樂，這很符合我們對於走神會降低幸福指數的推測。相比之下，沒有證據表明走神發生在人們覺得不快樂之後。換句話說，走神看起來很像是是導致不幸福的真正原因，而不是結果，不幸福的後果。
A few minutes ago, I likened mind-wandering to a slot machine you'd never want to play. Well, how often do people's minds wander? Turns out, they wander a lot. In fact, really a lot. Forty-seven percent of the time, people are thinking about something other than what they're currently doing. How does that depend on what people are doing? This shows the rate of mind-wandering across 22 activities ranging from a high of 65 percent —
就在剛才，我把走神比喻成一臺無人問津的老虎機。恩，人們走神的頻率有多高呢？數據證明，走神的現象非常普遍。事實上，簡直是無時無刻。47%的時間裡，人們都在思考別的事情而不是眼下正在做的。走神與否跟正在做的事情有什麼關係呢？這裡我們可以看到22種活動的走神比重有的活動走神時間長達65%——
when people are taking a shower, brushing their teeth, to 50 percent when they're working, to 40 percent when they're exercising, all the way down to this one short bar on the right that I think some of you are probably laughing at. Ten percent of the time people's minds are wandering when they're having sex. (Laughter) But there's something I think that's quite interesting in this graph, and that is, basically with one exception, no matter what people are doing, they're mind-wandering at least 30 percent of the time, which suggests, I think, that mind-wandering isn't just frequent, it's ubiquitous. It pervades basically everything that we do.
當人們洗澡，或者刷牙的時候，當人們在工作的時候50%的時間出在走神中，當人們在運動的時候40%的時間出在走神中，依次往下直到最短的這個柱狀圖，我相信很多人都會笑出來的。當他們在做愛的時候10%的時間在走神。但是我認為這張圖告訴了我們一些很有意思的事情，這就是，基本上沒有例外，無論人們在做什麼，他們都會走神，至少在30%的時間裡走神，這告訴我們，我認為，走神不僅僅頻繁的出現，走神無處不在，走神遍布在所有的人類活動中。
In my talk today, I've told you a little bit about mind-wandering, a variable that I think turns out to be fairly important in the equation for happiness. My hope is that over time, by tracking people's moment-to-moment happiness and their experiences in daily life, we'll be able to uncover a lot of important causes of happiness, and then in the end, a scientific understanding of happiness will help us create a future that's not only richer and healthier, but happier as well. Thank you.
我們聊了這麼多，我已經給大家講了一些關於走神的觀點，一個已被明確證實的存在於幸福方程式中的變量。我希望隨著時間的過去，通過追蹤人們在日常生活中的即時幸福指數和他們的經歷，我們可以找出那些真正影響我們幸福感的因素，最後，我相信科學並且系統的理解幸福將會為我們創造一個更美好的未來，不僅僅是更富有，更健康，也更加幸福。謝謝你們。
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