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The holiday season brings with it the usual assortment of college bowl games, from the classic Rose, Orange and Sugar, all the way to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl and, my favorite, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Each contest involves the migration across the country of hordes of players, coaches, alumni boosters, band members, mascots -- and, of course, cheerleaders. Remarkably, recent science suggests that if this final group weren't included, it would probably alter the quality of play.
隨著假日賽季的到來，各種大學碗賽也一如既往地紛紛上演。既有“玫瑰碗”(Rose)、“橙子碗”(Orange)、“砂糖碗”(Sugar)這些經典比賽，也有“小凱撒比薩碗”(Little Caesars Pizza Bowl)、“布雷迪牛排碗”(Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl)，以及我最喜歡的“著名的愛達荷土豆碗”(Famous Idaho Potato Bowl)。每一場比賽期間，都有成群結隊的球員、教練、校友助威團、軍樂隊、以及吉祥物在全國奔忙。當然，這當中也少不了拉拉隊的身影。值得一提的是，近期科學研究表明，如果沒有拉拉隊，比賽的質量可能就不一樣了。
All because males can be kind of pathetic.
這一切都可能是因為男人也怪可憐的。
When women are present or when men are prompted to think about women, they act differently, research shows. Well, duh. But in unexpected ways. A 2008 study in the journal Evolutionary Psychology showed that in the mere presence of women as witnesses, men become more likely to jaywalk and to wait until the last second to dash on to a bus. This reflects, no doubt, the well-known belief among men that jaywalking means you're a Roman gladiator of irrepressible virility. As I said, pathetic.
研究表明，當有女性在場、或男性被慫恿去想著女人的時候，他們會有不同的行為。嗯，就是這樣。不過至于行為會怎樣的不同，則是出人意料。2008年《進化心理學》(Evolutionary Psychology)雜志的一篇論文顯示，只要有女性在場，男性就更有可能亂穿馬路、更有可能等到最后一秒再躥上公交車。這一點無疑折射了男人心中眾所周知的一個觀念：亂穿馬路意味著你是一個充滿蓬勃男子氣概的羅馬角斗士。正如我所說的，怪可憐的。
Over the past several years, the pattern has been found repeatedly in studies of male behavior published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the British Journal of Psychology and elsewhere. In some cases, a woman is present; in others, men look at pictures of a woman's face or her legs; in still others, men list what they find to be sexually arousing (versus things that make them happy). In a 2011 paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, this last technique is called, with a straight face, 'inducing mating goals.'
過去幾年里《人格與社會心理學雜志》(Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)、《英國心理學雜志》(British Journal of Psychology)等刊物發表的多篇有關男性行為的論文都發現了上述現象。某些情況下是有女性在現場，另一些情況則是男性看著女人臉蛋或雙腿的照片。還有一些情況，男性列出了他們覺得激發性欲的東西（而不是讓他們快樂的東西）。在《人格與社會心理學公報》(Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin)2011年發表的一篇論文中，后面這種技術被正兒八經地稱為“誘導交配目的”(inducing mating goals)。
Sex-related cues like these have been found to make men more prone to take risks while playing blackjack, to discount the future when making economic decisions and to spend on conspicuous luxury items (but not on mundane expenses). Typically, the effects are strongest in single men. By contrast, these studies uniformly report that cues about males have no such effects on women.
研究發現，像這些與性有關的暗示會讓男性更容易在打21點撲克的時候冒險，更容易在做經濟決策時不顧將來，更容易花錢購買引人注目的奢侈物品（而不是普通的花銷）。一般情況下，這些效應在單身男性身上體現得最為強烈。相比之下，這些研究無一例外地顯示，有關男性的暗示對女性并無此類效應。
There is also a darker side to the tendency of men to show off in the presence of women. As a 2012 study by Sarah Ainsworth and Jon Maner of Florida State University found, 'inducing mating goals' in men made them more likely in a competitive game to punish the opposing guy with loud blasts of noise. The effect was strongest in men with an 'unrestricted sociosexual orientation' -- that is, men who are perpetually on the prowl with a propensity to indiscriminate one-night stands. In another study, men who were primed by the presence of women were found to be more likely to endorse aggressive stances about war (with no change in their stances about the more humdrum issue of trade tariffs).
關于男性在有女性在場時愛顯擺這件事，還有更陰暗的一面。2012年弗羅里達州立大學(Florida State University)莎拉·安斯沃思(Sarah Ainsworth)和約恩·馬內爾(Jon Maner)的一篇論文發現，誘導男性的“交配目的”使他們更有可能在競技中用大吼大叫的方式懲罰對手。這種效應在具有“不受約束的社交性性取向”(unrestricted sociosexual orientation)——即習慣于亂搞一夜情、總是在尋獵目標——的男性身上表現得最為強烈。另一篇論文則發現，當有女性在場時，男性更有可能支持在戰爭問題上采取進攻性立場（對于更為平淡的關稅問題卻沒有立場變化）。
The authors of these studies have generally interpreted their findings to mean that thoughts of women subliminally prompt men to advertise their prowess and attractiveness -- displaying their tail feathers, so to speak, to attract a mate. History certainly has no shortage of men who were rewarded reproductively for their aggressiveness.
上述論文的作者總體上將他們的發現解釋為：想著女人會在潛意識中鼓動男性表現他們的勇氣和帥氣——可以說就是通過展示尾巴上的飾毛來吸引伴侶。歷史上當然不乏因為進攻性而在生殖問題上獲得回報的男人。
But now comes research carried out by Mark van Vugt and Wendy Iredale and reported last year in the British Journal of Psychology. In the presence of women (but not other men), men became more generous in an economic game: They made more contributions to public goods and volunteered more time for charitable causes. In fact, the size of their charitable contributions increased in the presence of women they rated as more attractive. As usual, the presence of men had no such effects on women. As summarized in the title of the paper, this seems a case of 'Men Behaving Nicely: Public Goods as Peacock Tails.'
但現在又有了馬克·范伍格特(Mark van Vugt)和溫迪·艾爾代爾(Wendy Iredale)去年發表在《英國心理學雜志》上的研究。在有女性在場而無其他男性在場的情況下，男性在經濟比賽中變得更加大方：他們的公益捐款將會增加，并自愿拿出更多時間投入慈善事業。事實上，如果有他們認為更加漂亮的女性在場，他們的慈善捐贈額度會變得更多。一如既往地，有男性在場并沒有對女性產生這樣的效應。就像論文題目總結的那樣，這似乎是“男人行善：孔雀尾巴的公益”。
There's an important point here. The allure of the opposite sex makes men more violent, but only, it seems, in circumstances where violence is rewarded with higher status. When status can be achieved in a more socially desirable way, things work differently. In short, with the right social arrangements, this ludicrous tendency of men can be harnessed not only to encourage a ferocious goal-line stand but to make the world a kinder place.
這當中有一個很重要的方面。異性的誘惑使男人變得更加暴力，但似乎只是在有了暴力就會有更高地位的環境中才是這樣。當地位可以通過一種更被社會接受的方式取得時，情況就不一樣了。簡而言之，如果社交安排得當，男性的這種荒唐傾向是可以得到駕馭的，不僅可以鼓勵他們在門線處站崗時保持虎視眈眈，也能讓世界變得更加友善。
