評論
打印
Psychology
心理學
Alone in the crowd
人群中的孤獨
Loneliness is a contagious disease
孤獨會傳染
ON THE surface, Framingham, Massachusetts looks like any other American town. Unbeknown to most who pass through this serene place, however, it is a gold mine for medical research. Since 1948 three generations of residents in Framingham have participated in regular medical examinations originally intended to study the spread of heart disease. In the years since, researchers have also used Framingham to track obesity, smoking and even happiness over long periods of time. Now a new study that uses Framingham to analyse loneliness has found that it spreads very much like a communicable disease.
從表面上看，馬薩諸塞州的弗雷明漢人和美國其它城鎮人沒有什么區別。然而這個寧靜，不為人知的地方是對于醫學研究來說，則是個金礦。自1948年，有三代弗雷明漢的居民參與到常規的健康體檢中，最初的目的為了研究心臟病的傳播。從那時候開始，研究人員在弗雷明漢對人們肥胖、吸煙、以及幸福感進行了長時間的跟蹤調查。目前，一項新的研究通過對弗雷明漢的數據分析，表明孤獨的傳播方式極其像一種傳染病。
Feeling lonely is more than just unpleasant for those who yearn to be surrounded by warm relationships—it is a health hazard. Numerous studies show that loneliness reduces fruit-fly lifespans, increases the chances of mice developing diabetes, and causes a host of adverse effects in people, including cardiovascular disease, obesity and weakening of the immune system. Simply being surrounded by others is no cure. In people, the mere perception of being isolated is more than enough to create the bad health effects. However, in spite of its significant impact, precious little is known about how loneliness moves through communities.
孤獨感不僅僅令那些渴望與周圍人建立良好關系的人產生不快，而且還會威脅他們的健康。眾多的研究表明孤獨感會減少果蠅的壽命，增加老鼠得糖尿病的幾率，對人們健康造成一系列不利影響，其中包括心腦血管疾病，肥胖癥以及減弱免疫系統。僅僅有人在身旁并不能起到治療的作用。對人們來說，僅僅感到被孤立就足以產生對健康不利的影響。盡管孤獨感有如此重大的影響 ，但是它是如何在人群中傳播的——卻不為人知。
a host of ：許多；大量 eg：Plants offer a host of health benefits 植物提供有關健康的許多好處。
more than enough ：綽綽有余
Keen to shed some light on the mystery, John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago and his colleagues turned to the Framingham data. They found that all participants in the study were routinely asked to list people who would probably know their whereabouts in the next two to four years. Most importantly, they were asked to describe their relationship with each person as friend, spouse, sibling, neighbour or colleague. The original purpose of such questions was to help the researchers behind the heart-disease project stay in touch with participants even when they moved out of Framingham. But the loneliness team immediately recognised them as a way to identify social interactions.
懷著對揭開謎團的熱切渴望，芝加哥大學的卡西奧普和他的同事研究開始弗雷明漢的數據。他們發現，在以前的研究過程中有要求實驗對象按照常規列出在未來兩到四年可能知道他們行蹤的人。最重要的是，讓他們描述一下自己和這些朋友、愛人，兄弟姊妹，鄰居或同事的關系。提出這些問題的初衷是為了幫助研究人員在心臟病研究的過程中可以和實驗對象一直保持聯系，即使他們離開弗雷明漢。孤獨癥研究小組很快就意識到：他們可以作為一種分辨社交活動的方法。
Between 1983 and 2001, even more useful information was collected when participants were regularly asked to state how many days a week they felt certain feelings. One of the options they were presented with was “I felt lonely”. The answers, when combined with the data on where participants were living and who their friends and family were, allowed Dr Cacioppo and his colleagues to analyse the formation and transmission of isolation.
在1983和2001年之間，研究人員要求實驗對象說明自己感覺某種特定情感一周內有多少天。如此，他們采集了更多有關數據。其中一個選項是“我感到孤獨“。最后的答案，連同實驗對象在哪兒居住以及他們朋友和家人是誰的信息，使得卡西奧普博士和他的同事們能夠分析出孤立感的形成與傳播。
They report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that loneliness formed in clusters of people, and that once one person in a social network started expressing feelings of loneliness, others within the same network would start to feel the same way. The effects spread as far as three degrees of separation. Those who had immediate contact with lonely people were around 50% more likely than average to feel lonely themselves. In people who knew people who had direct contact with lonely people, the figure was 25%. Those with three degrees of separation showed roughly a 10% increase.
他們在《人格和社會心理學》雜志上發表的研究報告稱：孤獨感產生于人群當中，一旦一個人在社交圈中開始表現出孤獨感，在此社交圈的其他人也會有同樣的感受。這種影響會蔓延到3個不同的程度。和孤獨癥患者有直接接觸的那些人，自己也感到孤獨的幾率比正常情況下要多出50%；知道身邊的人接觸過孤獨癥患者的那些人，幾率則多出正常的25%。 三種程度的人群數量都表現出大約10%的增長率。
immediate contact ：直接接觸 同（direct contact）
eg：N Korea had no immediate contact with United States.朝鮮和美國沒有進行直接的接觸。
The reason for the spread, the team argues, is because loneliness causes people to act towards others in a less generous and more negative fashion. As someone becomes lonely, he is more likely to interact with his friends negatively, and they are then more likely to interact with other friends negatively. If these interactions are repeated, the ties of friendships fray and people become lonelier and more isolated.
研究小組認為，造成孤獨感傳播的原因是：孤獨感會使人在對待他人時缺少肚量，更加消極。一旦一個人具有孤獨感，他很有可能在和朋友進行交往時表現得很消極，而這些朋友也很可能會消極地影響他們的朋友。如果這種相互影響重復進行，朋友之間的關系就會變得緊張，人們就會變得更加孤獨，更加自閉。
The effects were more noticeable among friends than family, and stronger among women than men. The researchers argue that this is because the costs of abandoning relationships are lower for friends than they are for family members, and because women look to friends for emotional and social support more than men do. When they fail to receive it, they are more likely to become lonely.
這種影響在朋友間比在家人之間更為明顯，女人之間比男人之間更明顯。研究者認為這是由于舍棄一段友情的代價要比舍棄一段親情的代價小。并且，相較于男人，女人在情感和社會上求助于朋友的次數要多得多。一旦他們無法接受什么，就很可能變得孤獨。
Yet these findings are only the first step. The team of researchers is starting to look at other towns and cities, to see if there are any public policies or city-planning techniques that thwart the spread of loneliness. No solutions have been discovered so far, but through the process of studying other communities the researchers have discovered that when it comes to having clusters of lonely people, Framingham, unfortunately, is very much like any other town in America.
不過這些發現僅僅是研究的第一步。研究小組開始研究其他城鎮的情況，看有沒有一些公共政策或城市規劃技術可以阻止孤獨的傳播。目前還沒有發現解決這一問題的方法，但是，在研究其他社會群體的過程中，遺憾的是，研究者發現，每發現一群孤獨癥患者，就使得弗雷明漢的情況和美國其它城鎮沒什么兩樣。
補充：包孕法：
這種方法多用于英譯漢。所謂包孕是指在把英語長句譯成漢語時，把英語后置成分按照漢語的正常語序放在中心詞之前，使修飾成分在漢語句中形成前置包孕。但修飾成分不宜過長，否則會形成拖沓或造成漢語句子成分在連接上的糾葛。
如：
（1）You are the representative of a country and of a continent to which China feels particularly close.
您是一位來自于使中國倍感親切的國家和大洲的代表。
（2）What brings us together is that we have common interests which transcend those differences.
使我們走到一起的，是我們有超越這些分歧的共同利益。
