VOA慢速英語: 你怎么那么聰明？（雙語）

你怎么那么聰明?

You may have heard people say that hard work is more important than the intelligence you are born with. Recently, researchers noted changes in the brains of individuals immediately after they were told this.

你可能聽說過人們常說努力工作比天生聰明更為重要。最近，研究人員注意到當人們聽到這句話后，大腦里即刻的變化。

Hans Schroder led a study at Michigan State University. Mr. Schroder is a student at the university. As he noted, whether or not what people were told was true, “giving people messages that encourage learning and motivation may promote more efficient performance.”

漢斯·施羅德領導了密歇根州立大學的一項研究，施羅德先生是這所大學的一名學生。正如他所說，無論人們所聽到的是否是真的，只要是對人們的學習和動機給予鼓勵的信息，就可能促進人們更高效的表現(xiàn)。

In the study, two groups read different stories about intelligence. One story said intelligence levels are a product of our genetic material and cannot be changed. The researchers called this, the “fixed mindset.” The other story discussed how difficult living environments probably made individuals like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein highly intelligent. Researchers called this the “growth mindset.”

在這項研究中，研究人員讓兩組人閱讀了關于智力的不同故事。一個故事是說，智力水平是遺傳基因的產(chǎn)物，是無法改變的。研究人員稱其為“固定心態(tài)”另一個故事討論了是如何艱苦的生活環(huán)境成就了像列奧納多·達·芬奇和愛因斯坦這樣的高智商天才。研究人員將其稱為“增長心態(tài)”。

Later, the researchers tested the groups’ members on what they had just read. Mr. Schroeder and his team watched their brain activity as they answered questions about the main subjects in the story.

后來，研究人員對剛讀完故事的組成員進行了測試，施德羅先生和他的研究團隊在他們回答所讀故事的主題時，觀察了他們的大腦活動。

The researchers say they found that small messages about our abilities can have a big effect on our beliefs about what we are able to do.

研究人員稱，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)關于我們能力的小的信息，可以對我們能夠做什么的信仰產(chǎn)生很大的影響。

The people who read that intelligence comes from genes worked to answer the questions correctly. But their test results did not improve on later exams.

那些讀了智力是來源于基因故事的人們正確的回答了問題。但是他們的測試結(jié)果在后續(xù)的測試中并沒有提高。

But the opposite was true among those who read that intelligence can come from hard work. They showed what the researchers called a more efficient brain response after they were told their answer was wrong. This suggests they thought they could give the correct answer on the next test. And the more these individuals thought about their mistakes, the faster they answered the questions on the next test.

相反那些讀了智力可以來自努力工作的人們，在被告知他們的回答是錯誤的之后，卻顯示了研究人員所說的那種更為有效地大腦反應。這就表明，他們認為在接下來的測試中，他們可以給出正確的答案。這些人對他們前面所犯的錯誤想的越多，在接下來的測試中就回答的越快。

The researchers say the study showed that those who had a growth mindset made efforts to improve and adapt. They say even a small amount of time spent on changing the mindset, or beliefs, of individuals can affect how their brain operates. In their words, “messages about how much our abilities can change affect learning, achievement, and performance.”

研究人員稱，該研究表明，那些有“增長心態(tài)”的人們會去努力的改善提高和適應。他們稱即使是人們花費少量的時間去改變心態(tài)和信念，也可以影響他們大腦的運作。用他們的話說就是“關于我們的多少能力可以改變的信息，可以影響我們的學習、成就和表現(xiàn)。”

The study was published in the journal Biological Psychology. I’m Christopher Cruise.

該研究被發(fā)表在《生物心理學》雜志上，我是克里斯多夫·克魯斯。