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  3. The holiday season poses a psychological conundrum. Its defining sentiment, of course, is joy — yet the effort to be joyous seem

The holiday season poses a psychological conundrum. Its defining sentiment, of course, is joy — yet the effort to be joyous seem

admin2014-06-25  56
问题     The holiday season poses a psychological conundrum. Its defining sentiment, of course, is joy — yet the effort to be joyous seems to make many of us miserable. It’s hard to be happy in overcrowded airport lounges or while you’re trying to stay civil for days on end with relatives who stretch your patience.
    So to cope with the holidays, magazines and others are advising us to "think positive" — the same advice that Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, was dispensing six decades ago. Variations of Peale’s positive philosophy run deep in American culture, not just in how we handle holidays and other social situations but in business, politics and beyond. Yet studies suggest that affirmations designed to lift the user’s mood through repetition and visualizing future success often achieve the opposite of their intended effect.
    Fortunately, both ancient philosophy and contemporary psychology point to an alternative: a counterintuitive approach that might be termed "the negative path to happiness. " One pioneer of the "negative path" was psychotherapist Albert Ellis. He rediscovered a key insight of the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome: that sometimes the best way to address an uncertain future is to focus not on the best-case scenario but on the worst.
    Just thinking in sober detail about worst-case scenarios can help to sap the future of its anxiety-producing power. The psychologist Julie Norem terms this strategy "defensive pessimism. " Positive thinking, by contrast, is the effort to convince yourself that things will turn out fine, which can reinforce the belief that it would be absolutely terrible if they didn’t.
    In American corporations, perhaps the most widely accepted doctrine of the "cult of positivity" is the importance of setting big goals for an organization. Behind our fixation on goals is a deep unease with feelings of uncertainty. Research by Saras Sarasvathy, an associate professor of business administration suggests that learning to accommodate feelings of uncertainty is not just the key to a more balanced life but often leads to prosperity as well. For one project, she interviewed 45 successful entrepreneurs. Almost none embraced the idea of writing comprehensive business plans or conducting extensive market research. They practiced instead "effectuation. " Rather than choosing a goal and then making a plan to a-chieve it, they took stock of the means and materials at their disposal, then imagined the possible ends. Effectuation also includes the "affordable loss principle. " Instead of focusing on the possibility of spectacular rewards from a venture, ask how great the loss would be if it failed. If the potential loss seems tolerable, take the next step.
    The ultimate value of the "negative path" may not be its role in facilitating upbeat emotions or even success. It is simply realism. The future really is uncertain, after all, and things really do go wrong as well as right. We are too often motivated by a craving to put an end to the inevitable surprises in our lives.
The experiences of 45 entrepreneurs are mentioned mainly to demonstrate______.
选项 A、the change in the management philosophy of American corporations
B、the necessity of setting big goals for an organization
C、the role of negative thinking in people’s success
D、the importance of "the affordable loss principle" in business
答案C
解析 根据题干关键词45 entrepreneurs定位到第五段。本段指出，人们崇尚“积极思考”的表现之一是对目标的执迷，这背后隐藏着对“不确定感”的深深不安，而学会接纳“不确定感”有助于事业成功，随后引入45位成功企业家的事例，指出他们的成功并非依赖目标的确立，而是靠“实施法”，根据现有方法和资源设想可能的结果，并考虑失败后的损失。这是“消极思考”的典型应用。可见本段主要为了说明“消极思考”对事业成功的帮助。[C]为正确选项。
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