The Art of Thinking Clearly （索书号：B811.05/1）

  作者罗尔夫•多贝里，1966年出生于瑞士琉森，获得瑞士圣加仑大学企管硕士学位、经济哲学博士学位，是全球商业书摘网站getAbstract创办人之一，长期担任《法兰克福汇报》、瑞士《周日报》专栏作者，已有7部作品问世，包括文学小说和非文学类作品。《清醒思考的艺术》甫一出版，即荣登《明镜周刊》畅销书冠军宝座，后被翻译成13种语言出版发行。
  《清醒思考的艺术》用了99篇简单但不失重点的小文章讲述了一些常见的认知谬误，并提出了对抗的小妙招，帮助读者看清思考盲点，清除决策障碍，选对思考方法，做出正确选择。每个思考错误搭配一幅风格独特的插画，叙述清晰、幽默、耐人寻味，实用性与娱乐性兼具。

  今天，小编有幸邀请到东北财经大学国际商务外语学院刘小鹏副教授，带大家一起来赏析这本心理学著作。刘老师是鲁迅路外文文献分馆的优秀志愿者，自2019年起在鲁迅路分馆主讲英文沙龙二十余次，深受广大读者的喜爱。
  今天，刘老师为大家讲解《清醒思考的艺术》第四十六至第五十章，我们一起来学习吧！

音频：刘小鹏解读《The Art of Thinking Clearly 》第四十六至五十章

作者简介 

 
    Rolf Dobelli is a bestselling writer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Zurich. Minds, a community of some of the world's most famed and distinguished thinkers, scientists, artists, and entrepreneurs, and a cofounder of getAbstract, the world's largest publisher of compressed knowledge. A novelist, sailor, and pilot.

  罗尔夫·多贝里是一位畅销书作家和企业家，他是杰出人才社群机构苏黎世的创始人，也是世界上最大的压缩知识出版商getAbstract的联合创始人。他不仅是一名小说家，也是一位水手和飞行员。

内容简介——第46-50章

Chapter 46. Be Careful What You Wish For——Hedonic Treadmill

第四十六章  慎重许愿——享乐适应症

  我们毕生都在追寻幸福的方法，幸福像一个诱惑十足的目标，好像我们抓到手就会一劳永逸、永远幸福。不过，你可能不知道，一生幸福本来就是个假象，我们的幸福感往往都会很快消逝。研究显示，在我们取得想要的幸福之后，这种幸福感平均 3 个月后就会烟消云散。无论你是中了彩票、买了大房子、工作晋升还是买了最新款保时捷。

  How well can we predict our feelings? Are we experts on ourselves? Would winning the lottery make us the happiest people alive for years to come? Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says no. He has studied lottery winners and discovered that the happiness effect fizzles out after a few months. So, a little while after you receive the big check, you will be as content or as discontent as you were before. People who change or progress in their careers are, in terms of happiness, right back where they started after around three months. The same goes for people who buy the latest Porsche.

  科学界称这一效应为享乐适应症，它是指我们工作、升迁或者给自己购买更多更漂亮的东西并不能使我们变得更幸福，物质带来的幸福感只有短期效果。相对于幸福，痛苦也是如此。在你失恋、失业、亲人去世的最开始，你会把它们当成人生最大的痛苦。但其实用不了多久， 你就会重新振作起来。

  Science calls this effect the hedonic treadmill: We work hard, advance, and are able to afford more and nicer things, and yet this doesn’t make us any happier. So how do negative events affect us—perhaps a spinal cord injury or the loss of a friend? Here, we also overestimate the duration and intensity of future emotions. For example, when a relationship ends, it feels like life will never be the same. The afflicted are completely convinced that they will never again experience joy, but after three or so months, they are back on the dating scene.

  我们经常会有一个错觉，就是认为当物质标准达到了，我们就会获得长久的幸福。但是享乐适应症向我们证明了，就算有了庞大的物质基础也不会一直幸福，因为幸福感十分短暂，稍纵即逝，这是一个无法改变的现实。但也同样给我们启示，就是与其为了与模糊不清的未来、遥不可及的“幸福”营营役役、煞费苦心，不如抓住当下，认真过好每一天，这才能使我们的生活更加富有质感。

  Wouldn’t it be nice if we knew exactly how happy a new car, career, or relationship would make us? Well, this is doable in part. Use these scientifically rubber-stamped pointers to make better, brighter decisions: (a) Avoid negative things that you cannot grow accustomed to, such as commuting, noise, or chronic stress. (b) Expect only short-term happiness from material things, such as cars, houses, lottery winnings, bonuses, and prizes. (c) Aim for as much free time and autonomy as possible since long-lasting positive effects generally come from what you actively do.

  Follow your passions even if you must forfeit a portion of your income for them. Invest in friendships. For most people, professional status achieves long-lasting happiness, as long as they don’t change peer groups at the same time. In other words, if you ascend to a CEO role and fraternize only with other executives, the effect fizzles out.

 
Chapter 47. Do Not Marvel at Your Existence——Self-Selection Bias

第四十七章  请不要惊讶有你存在——自我选择偏误

  自我选择偏误就是很多事情的后果是我们自己选择所导致的结果，但我们常常将责任推给不相关的人或者事，却没有想到其中有自己的因素在内。

  比如，你是不是也经常遭遇塞车，你在超市、银行排的那条队伍总是行进不前，很多倒霉的事儿都会让你赶上。所以你经常会发出抱怨：“怎么我老是赶上这种事儿，我太倒霉了。”

  Traveling from Philadelphia up to New York, I got stuck in a traffic jam. “Why is it always me?” I groaned. Glancing to the opposite side of the road, I saw carefree southbound drivers racing past with enviable speed. As I spent the next hour crawling forward at a snail’s pace, and started to grow restless from braking and accelerating, I asked myself whether I really was especially unlucky. Do I always pick the worst lines at the bank, post office, and grocery store? Or do I just think I do? Suppose that, on this highway, a traffic jam develops 10 percent of the time. The probability that I will get stuck in a jam on a particular day is not greater than the probability that one will occur. However, the likelihood that I will get stuck at a certain point in my journey is greater than 10 percent. The reason: Because I can only crawl forward when in a traffic jam, I spend a disproportionate amount of time in this state. In addition, if the traffic is zooming along, the prospect never crosses my mind. But the moment it arises and I am stuck, I notice it.

  很多时候，并不是其他人的问题，而是因为你存在或者是你本身导致了所谓的坏结果，你身处于其中却不知。

  Whenever we complain about bad luck, we must be wary of the so-called self-selection bias. The self-selection bias is pervasive. Marketers sometimes stumble into the trap in this way: To analyze how much customers value their newsletter; they send out a questionnaire. Unfortunately, this reaches only one group: current subscribers who are clearly satisfied, have time to respond, and have not canceled their subscriptions. The others make up no part of the sample. Result: The poll is worthless.

 
Chapter 48. Why Experience Can Damage Your Judgment——Association Bias

第四十八章  为什么有时经验使人变蠢——联想偏误

  凯文每次向领导汇报自己近期的工作成就时，都会表现得很完美，但他坚持认为，这是因为他每次都会穿着他印有绿色圆点内裤的缘故，他想：这是我的幸运内裤。

  Kevin has presented his division’s results to the company’s board on three occasions. Each time, things have gone perfectly. And, each time, he has worn his green polka-dot boxer shorts. It’s official, he thinks: These are my lucky underpants.

  珠宝店里的女店员很漂亮，凯文不好意思拒绝，只能买下她推荐给他的一万欧元的订婚戒指。一万欧元显然高出了凯文的预算，但看着试戴戒指给他看的女店员如此漂亮，他联想到自己未来的妻子戴上戒指后同样会光彩照人。

  The girl in the jewelry store was so stunning that Kevin couldn’t help buying the $10,000 engagement ring she showed him. Ten thousand bucks was way over his budget, but for some reason he associated the ring with her and imagined his future wife would be just as dazzling.

  故事中的凯文，犯的思维错误就是联想偏误。要知道，我们的大脑是一部联想机器，联想对我们的影响有利有弊。联想偏误则是其中的弊端现象，它将相互毫无关系的事件联系到一起， 让我们忽略了事情本身的发展方向，只是把目光聚焦于我们的联想之中，让我们产生错误判断。联想偏误也会使我们容易根据以往的经验做判断，从而被以往的经验制约，比如“一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳”。所以，经验有时也会让人变蠢。此时，我们需要做的就是尽量去克服这种联想偏误。

  These false connections are the work of the association bias, which also influences the quality of our decisions. The take-home message from all this is phrased most aptly by Mark Twain: “We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

 
Chapter 49. Be Wary When Things Get Off to a Great Start——Beginner’s Luck

第四十九章  假如开始时一切顺利，请务必多加小心——新手的运气

  赌场中有这样一种现象，就是认为新手一般都有比较好的运气。其实，这是一种思维的错觉。很简单，新手一开始就赢钱可能会继续玩下去，而输钱的人可能就不会玩了。所以，在最后， 你会发现，剩下的新手都是赢了钱的人。这就会让人觉得一般新手都有好运气。

  In the last chapter, we learned about the association bias—the tendency to see connections where none exist. We now come to a particularly tricky branch of the association bias: creating a (false) link with the past. Casino players know this well; they call it beginner’s luck. People who are new to a game and lose in the first few rounds are usually clever enough to fold. But whoever strikes lucky tends to keep going. Convinced of their above-average skills, these amateurs increase the stakes—but they soon will get a sobering wake-up call when the probabilities “normalize.”

  在股市中也常出现这样的情况，比如 20 世纪 90 年代，在最初成功的驱使下，许多投资者投入了自己的全部积蓄购买互联网股票，有些人甚至不惜为此借贷。但他们忽视了一个小小的细节：股票产生的惊人利润与投资者挑选股票的能力毫无关系，不过是市场在走高，这段时间想不挣钱都难。当后来股市暴跌时，许多人都被套了。

  The same goes for the stock exchange. Driven by initial success, many investors pumped their life savings into Internet stocks in the late ’90s. Some even took out loans to capitalize on the opportunity. However, these investors overlooked one tiny detail: Their amazing profits at the time had nothing to do with their stock-picking abilities. The market was simply on an upward spiral. Even the most clueless investors won big. When the market finally turned downward, many were left facing mountains of dot-com debt.

  所以在面对问题时，请不要急着做出判断。新手的运气有可能是灾难性的。你应该像科学家一样，武装自己，保持警觉，以防自欺欺人。

  Beginner’s luck can be devastating, so guard against misconceptions by treating your theories as a scientist would: Try to disprove them. As soon as my first novel, Thirty-five, was ready to go, I sent it to a single publisher, where it was promptly accepted. For a moment I felt like a genius, a literary sensation. (The chance that this publisher will take on a manuscript is one in fifteen thousand.) To test my theory, I then sent the manuscript to ten other big publishers. And I got ten rejection letters. My notion was thus disproved, bringing me swiftly back down to earth.

 
Chapter 50.  Sweet Little Lies——Cognitive Dissonance

第五十章  如何撒点小谎，让自己感觉好一些——认知失调

  狐狸“吃不到葡萄嫌葡萄酸”的故事大家都听说过，这里面狐狸的行为就是典型的认知失调。

  A fox crept up to a vine. He gazed longingly at the fat, purple, overripe grapes. He placed his front paws against the trunk of the vine, stretched his neck, and tried to get at the fruit, but it was too high. Irritated, he tried his luck again. He launched himself upward, but his jaw snapped only at fresh air. A third time he leapt with all his might—so powerfully that he landed back down on the ground with a thud. Still not a single leaf had stirred. The fox turned up his nose: “These aren’t even ripe yet. Why would I want sour grapes?” Holding his head high, he strode back into the forest. The Greek poet Aesop created this fable to illustrate one of the most common errors in reasoning.

  这种思维经常出现在我们的生活中。举个简单的例子：你购买了一辆新车，但你很快就后悔了，因为新车发动机太响、座位不舒服。但是你不能将轿车退回去，因为这会证明你买下这辆车是个错误的决定，而且车行老板也不可能再以原价回购车，除非你降价。面对这种情况， 你只能安慰自己说马达响、座位不舒服，正好可以防止你开车时会睡觉，这很不错，你买回的其实是一辆特别安全的车。

  Suppose you buy a new car. However, you regret your choice soon afterward: The engine sounds like a jet taking off and you just can’t get comfortable in the driver’s seat. What do you do? Giving the car back would be an admission of error (you don’t want that!), and anyway, the dealer probably wouldn’t refund all the money. So you tell yourself that a loud engine and awkward seats are great safetyfeatures that will prevent you from falling asleep at the wheel. Not so stupid after all, you think, and you are suddenly proud of your sound, practical purchase.

  认知失调很多时候并不是一件坏事儿，与其一直纠结于已成定局的烦恼之中，不如阿Q一些，来一点自我安慰，让自己感觉更好一些。毕竟生活总是充满艰难，干嘛还总是纠结于得不到、回不去的痛苦之中呢？

  我们已经全部阅读完《清醒思考的艺术》这本书中的 50个思维错误。我相信，在阅读过程中，你一定会有某个瞬间突然意识到：这个思维错误我曾经犯过，也一定会在阅读之后有所感悟，下次不能再犯这些错误了。这就是书籍的魅力。它给你知识，还能引发你思考，激起你的醒悟。希望大家都能学以致用，以后尽量少犯些思维错误，我们彼此共勉！