首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health [A]Does the language we speak determine how healthy and rich we will be? New re
How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health [A]Does the language we speak determine how healthy and rich we will be? New re
admin
2018-07-24
31
问题
How Your Language Affects Your Wealth and Health
[A]Does the language we speak determine how healthy and rich we will be? New research by Keith Chen of Yale Business School suggests so. The structure of languages affects our judgments and decisions about the future and this might have dramatic long-term consequences.
[B]There has been a lot of research into how we deal with the future. For example, the famous marshmallow(棉花糖)studies of Walter Mischel and colleagues showed that being able to resist temptation is predictive of future success. Four-year-old kids were given a marshmallow and were told that if they did not eat that marshmallow and waited for the experimenter to come back, they would get two marshmallows instead of one. Follow-up studies showed that the kids who were able to wait for the bigger future reward became more successful adults.
[C]Resisting our impulses for immediate pleasure is often the only way to attain the outcomes that are important to us. We want to keep a slim figure but we also want that last slice of pizza. We want a comfortable retirement, but we also want to drive that dazzling car, go on that dream vacation, or get those gorgeous shoes. Some people are better at delaying gratification(满足)than others. Those people have a better chance of accumulating wealth and keeping a healthy life style. They are less likely to be impulse buyers or smokers, or to engage in unsafe sex.
[D]Chen’ s recent findings suggest that an unlikely factor, language, strongly affects our future-oriented behavior. Some languages strongly distinguish the present and the future. Other languages only weakly distinguish the present and the future. Chen’ s recent research suggests that people who speak languages that weakly distinguish the present and the future are better prepared for the future. They accumulate more wealth and they are better able to maintain their health. The way these people conceptualize the future is similar to the way they conceptualize the present. As a result, the future does not feel very distant and it is easier for them to act in accordance with their future interests.
[E]Different languages have different ways of talking about the future. Some languages, such as English, Korean, and Russian, require their speakers to refer to the future explicitly. Every time English-speakers tell about the future, they have to use future markers such as "will" or "going to". In other languages, such as Mandarin, Japanese, and German, future markers are not obligatory(强制性的). The future is often talked about similar to the way present is talked about and the meaning is understood from the context. A Mandarin speaker who is going to go to a seminar might say "Wo qu ting jiangzuo" , which translates to "I go listen seminar". Languages such as English constantly remind their speakers that future events are distant. For speakers of languages such as Mandarin future feels closer. As a consequence, resisting immediate impulses and investing for the future is easier for Mandarin speakers.
[F]Chen analyzed individual-level data from 76 developed and developing countries. This data includes people’ s economic decisions, such as whether they saved any money last year, the languages they speak at home, demographics(人口统计资料), and cultural factors such as " saving is an important cultural value for me". He also analyzed individual-level data on people’ s retirement assets, smoking and exercising habits, and general health in older age. Lastly, he analyzed national-level data that includes national savings rates, country GDP and GDP growth rates, country demographics, and proportions of people speaking different languages.
[G]People’ s savings rates are affected by various factors such as their income, education level, age, religious connection, their countries’ legal systems, and their cultural values. After those factors were accounted for, the effect of language on people’ s savings rates turned out to be big. Speaking a language that has obligatory future markers, such as English, makes people less likely to save money for the future. This effect is as large as the effect of unemployment. Being unemployed decreases the likelihood of saving by about 30 percent as well. Similar analyses showed that speaking a language that does not have obligatory future markers, such as Mandarin, makes people accumulate more retirement assets, smoke less, exercise more, and generally be healthier in older age. Countries’ national savings rates are also affected by language. Having a larger proportion of people speaking languages that does not have obligatory future markers makes national savings rates higher.
[H]At a more practical level, researchers have been looking for ways to help people act in accordance with their long-term interests. Recent findings suggest that making the future feel closer to the present might improve future-oriented behavior. For instance, researchers recently presented people with renderings of their future selves made using age-progression algorithms(算法)that forecast how physical appearances would change over time. One group of participants saw a digital representation of their current selves in a virtual mirror, and the other group saw an age-morphed version of their future selves. Those participants who saw the age-morphed version of their future selves allocated more money toward a hypothetical savings account. The intervention brought people’ s future to the present and as a result they saved more for the future.
[I]Chen’ s research shows that language structures our future-related thoughts. Language has been used before to alter time perception with surprising effects. Ellen Langer and colleagues famously improved older people’ s physical health by simple interventions including asking them to talk about the events of twenty years ago as if they were happening now. Talking about the past as if it were the present changed people’ s mindsets and their mindsets affected their physical states. Chen’ s research points at the possibility that the way we talk about the future can shape our mindsets. Language can move the future back and forth in our mental space and this might have dramatic influences on our judgments and decisions.
More often than not, refraining ourselves from enjoying immediate pleasure out of impulse is the mere way of obtaining the goals that are significant for us.
选项
答案
C
解析
题干大意:通常制止我们自己享受眼前快乐的冲动是完成重要目标的唯一途径。由题干中的“enjoying immediate pleasure out of impulse”“the mere way of obtaining the goals that are significant for us”可以定位到文中C段第一句话,该句提到“抵制住享受即时快乐的冲动往往是我们取得重要成果的唯一途径”,与题干相吻合。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Fx47777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
Domesticviolenceisaseriouscrimecausingserioussocialproblems.Itisviolenceathome,usuallythehusbandbeatinghiswi
Top10WaystoImproveYourCommunicationSkillsA)Effectivecommunicationisoneofthemostimportantlifeskillswecanlearn
Ifyouweretotape-recordoneofDavidLetterman’scomedyroutines,memorizeitwordforword,andstandupbeforeyourfriends
ArebooksandtheInternetabouttomerge?A)Thedifferencebetweene-booksandtheInternetisminimal,andweshouldbegladt
Newresearchshowsthatchildrenbornafterunplannedpregnanciesdevelopmoreslowlythanchildrenwhoseparentsbadplannedth
A、Twoofhisworkerswereinjuredatwork.B、Twoofhisemployeescommittedtheft.C、Someofhisequipmentwasdamagedinafire
A、Becauseshethreatenedtheirstatus.B、Becauseshewastooaggressive.C、Becausetheyhadsexdiscrimination.D、Becausetheyd
A、Withdrawasmuchmoneyfromthebankashewishes.B、Obtainmoreconvenientservicesthanotherpeopledo.C、Enjoygreatertru
Thefactis,theworldhasbeenfindinglessoilthanithasbeenusingformorethantwentyyearsnow.Notonlyhasdemandbeen
Shadowplayisatraditionalfolkart,anditsorigincanbetracedbacktotheWesternHanDynasty.Itisanancientformofst
随机试题
她突然从窗口转过身,站到壁镜面前。她的眼睛晶莹明亮,可是她的脸在二十秒钟之内却失色了。她迅速地把头发解开,让它披落下来。……这时,德拉美丽的头发披散在身上,像一股褐色的小瀑布,奔泻闪亮。头发一直垂到膝盖底下,仿佛给她铺成了一件衣裳。她又神经质地赶快把头
A.休克代偿期B.无休克C.重度休克D.中度休克呼吸深快,反应迟钝,皮肤苍白,脉搏140次/分,血压50/20mmHg,无尿
糖代谢包括分解代谢和合成代谢两个方面。糖的合成代谢途径有糖原合成、糖异生等。糖的分解代谢是体内获得能量的主要方式,有以下几条途径。当动物在缺氧或剧烈运动时,氧的供应不能满足肌肉将葡萄糖完全氧化的需求。葡萄糖生成乳酸并释放能量,这个通路为
患者平素短气日久,动则尤甚,吸气不利,心慌,脑转耳鸣,腰酸腿软,劳累后哮喘易发;或畏寒,肢冷,面色苍白,舌质胖嫩,苔白,脉沉细。诊为患者哮证多年,平素食少,脘痞,便溏或食油腻易于腹泻,往往因饮食失常而诱发,倦怠乏力,气短不足以息,语言无力,舌质淡,苔薄
平肝息风药的适应证有( )。
生活垃圾填埋场垃圾渗滤液排入Ⅳ、V类水域或者三类海域,BOD5排放限制为()mg/L。
资料:x股票与Y股票的收益状况如下:根据资料回答。[2008年5月三级真题]股票X与股票Y的预期收益率是()。
以下几个称谓,哪一个不是指裴斯泰洛齐?()
如果说社会是大海,人生是小舟,那么作为这个小舟引航的灯塔和远航的风帆,指引人生方向、决定事业成败的是
Boardingtimes:30minutesbeforedeparturetimefordomesticand1hourforinternationalflights.
最新回复
(
0
)