Conventional wisdom: Americans tend to get steadily wiser as they get older |
It is commonly thought that age brings wisdom. And this is largely true, it seems – unless you are Japanese. In which case, by the time you are 25, you are likely to be just as wise as your elders, an astonishing new study reveals. Americans, however, are more conventional and develop deep understanding over time, according to research by the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. In one of the tests, designed to measure five crucial aspects of reasoning, US citizens’ scores improved by 22 percent over 50 years. But, in the examination scored out of 100, both 25-year-old and 75-year-old Japanese participants had an average quotient of 51 for intergroup wisdom – the idea of understanding society. With Americans, on the other hand, results from the same tests varied between averages of 45 and 55 between the two age groups. Also, interpersonal wisdom – the understanding of relationships between individuals – the scores of the 225 US participants climbed from 46 to 50. In the case of the 186 Japanese people recruited by lead researcher Igor Grossmann, their scores actually dropped slightly from 53 to 52. The tests also recorded other unexpected results. Given the US reputation of an individualistic society, you might expect its participants’ interpersonal wisdom to be higher than their supposedly more collectivist Japanese counterparts. Yet the study showed that by 75, the Japanese scored higher in the interpersonal wisdom and Americans, in fact, achieved higher results in the intergroup variety. Dr Grossman suggested that perhaps, then, you need individual skills when society is collective, and social ones when it is individualistic. His study, published in Psychological Science and reported in The Economist, recruited Japanese and Americans with a range of different occupations. (Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.) (Agencies) |
大眾普遍認(rèn)為年齡增長(zhǎng)會(huì)帶來(lái)更多智慧。 這似乎很大程度上是正確的,除非你是日本人。一項(xiàng)新研究揭示了一個(gè)驚人的結(jié)果,日本人在達(dá)到25歲時(shí),很可能擁有與年長(zhǎng)的人一樣多的智慧。 不過(guò),加拿大安大略省滑鐵盧大學(xué)開展的這一調(diào)查顯示,美國(guó)人在這方面更合乎常規(guī),隨著年歲的增長(zhǎng)而加深認(rèn)知。 在其中一項(xiàng)對(duì)推理能力的測(cè)試中,年長(zhǎng)五十歲的美國(guó)參與者得分要高出22%。該測(cè)試的目的是對(duì)參與者推理能力的五個(gè)重要方面進(jìn)行考量。 但是,在對(duì)25歲及75歲的日本人進(jìn)行測(cè)試時(shí),他們的團(tuán)體智商——社會(huì)認(rèn)知能力的平均分都是51(滿分為100分)。 而當(dāng)美國(guó)人接受同樣的測(cè)試時(shí),兩個(gè)年齡群的平均分則分別為45和55。 此外,在人際交往的智慧(即對(duì)個(gè)體間關(guān)系的認(rèn)知)方面,225名美國(guó)參與者的分?jǐn)?shù)隨年齡增長(zhǎng)由46分增至50分。 首席研究員伊戈?duì)?格羅斯曼收集了186名日本人在這方面的數(shù)據(jù),他們的分?jǐn)?shù)實(shí)際上還略微跌落,從53降至52。 這一系列測(cè)試還記錄了其他意想不到的結(jié)果。 鑒于美國(guó)人一直被視為個(gè)人主義社會(huì),你可能會(huì)猜想美國(guó)人的人際交往智慧會(huì)比更集體化的日本對(duì)手要高。 但是,研究顯示,75歲以下的日本人在人際交往智慧上要超越美國(guó)人,而事實(shí)上,美國(guó)人的團(tuán)體智慧得分要高于日本人。 格羅斯曼博士建議,或許在集體主義社會(huì)里你需要個(gè)人能力,而在個(gè)人主義社會(huì)中你需要社交能力。 他的研究刊登在《心理科學(xué)》雜志上并被《經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)人》報(bào)道。此次研究廣泛招募了來(lái)自不同行業(yè)的美國(guó)人和日本人。 相關(guān)閱讀 職場(chǎng)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)中外貌和頭腦一樣重要 (中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)英語(yǔ)點(diǎn)津 陳丹妮 編輯:Julie) |
Vocabulary: individualistic: 個(gè)人主義的 |