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
2019-09-17
14
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.
When judging or deciding something about future, the structure of language exerts an influence on us.
选项
答案
A
解析
题干大意:语言的结构会影响我们对未来的判断或决定。由题干中的“judging or deciding something about future”“the structure of language”可以定位到文中A段最后一句,该句提到“语言的结构会影响我们对未来的判断和决定”,与题干相吻合。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/IBp7777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
TheBritishgovernmentrecentlyannouncedaproposaltointroducehealthcareaccessfeesformigrantsandlong-termvisitorsth
A、Itismoreexcitingthanspacetravel.B、Itismuchcheaperthanspacetravel.C、Itismuchsaferthanspacetravel.D、Itisl
Themedicalworldisgraduallyrealizingthatthequalityoftheenvironmentinhospitalsmayplayasignificantroleinthepro
InAugust,environmentalistsinthePhilippinesvandalized(肆意破坏)afieldofGoldenRice,anexperimentalgrainwhosegeneshadbe
A、Theyshouldbewidelyusedinthefieldofsocialservices.B、Theyshouldbeblamedfortheincreasingunemployment.C、Theysh
A、Ithaslastedfornearly350years.B、Ithaslastedformorethan350months.C、Itseemstobegettingsmaller.D、Itseemsto
A、Itgetsmoneyfromthestate.B、Itcontributesmoneytocharity.C、Itoffersfinancialaidforinternationalstudents.D、Itge
A、Aboutfivemonths.B、Morethanhalfayear.C、Halfamonth.D、15to26months.A新闻中提到,入围的拉拉队员将接受4个半月的训练,A项“五个月左右”与新闻提到的时间最接近,故
A、Professorsandresearchers.B、Foreignguestsandstudents.C、Newspeopleandentertainers.D、Professorsandleaders.C文中谈到,“常常
A、Veryfewofthemareengagedinresearch.B、Theywerenotawardeddegreesuntil1948.C、Theyhaveoutnumberedmalestudents.D
随机试题
右心室平均直径约为
A.血清溶菌酶明显升高B.过氧化酶染色阴性C.常见Auer小体D.易见ph染色体E.NAP积分明显增多类白血病反应可见
土地增值税的纳税人应于转让房地产合同签订之日起()日内,到房地产所在地的主管税务机关办理纳税申报。
背景资料某光缆线路工程采用直埋敷设方式,途中需穿越生态环境脆弱的国家级生态保护区,部分路段沿电气化铁路敷设。施工单位对施工方案进行了策划,编制了详细的施工组织设计,工程顺利开工。测试中发现部分光缆对地绝缘不合格,且光纤接续衰减
经济法律关系中最广泛的客体是物。()
新教的主要特点是()。
城市医疗救助的申请是由申请人向户籍所在地的()提出书面申请。
胡蜂在本能的作用下__________地营造自己的生活、生育中心,它的巢是一个__________的纸房子。蔡伦如果在改进造纸术之前目睹过胡蜂的建筑过程而受到启发,无疑便是世界上最早的仿生学家了。依次填入画横线部分最恰当的一项是()。
二进制数111111转换成十进制数是()。
Theword"laser"wascoinedasanacronymforLightAmplificationbytheStimulatedEmissionofRadiation.Ordinarylight,from
最新回复
(
0
)