Sidewalk Rage: Mental Illness or 'Altruistic Punishment?'
人行道躁狂现象探究：心理障碍还是利他惩罚？
Maia Szalavitz
http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/17/sidewalk-rage-mental-illness-or-altruistic-punishment/
导读：这种类似于人类选择和情绪的研究在心理学中非常常见，我的感觉是，这个时代节奏快，连带人们的情绪也处于一种一触即发的状态，非常容易生气恼火。过去，人人都慢悠悠的时代里，火气肯定没那么足，也不会出现什么人行道躁狂、车道愤怒的现象了。不过这篇文章却从自我控制和社会角度等来研究人的情绪，给人耳目一新的感觉。
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For many residents of New York City, our bodies are our cars. So rather than engaging in "road rage" against slow or erratic drivers on a highway, New Yorkers descend into "sidewalk rage," paroxysms of fury directed at people who exhibit irrational, obstructive walking behavior on Manhattan's crowded concrete. But is this reaction a sign of mental illness — or could it perhaps reflect an evolutionary adaptation that may have enabled the development of cooperation?
对于许多纽约市居民来说，我们的车形同于我们的身体。所以在高速公路上遇到开得慢或开着玩的古怪司机时，纽约居民已经习惯了，不再轻易因此愤怒，反倒陷入一种“人行道躁狂”现象，对于那些在曼哈顿拥挤的水泥路上无理地阻碍前进的人忍不住发火起来。但是，这种反应是心理疾病的征兆还是促使人们合作发展的进化适应反映？
I will admit personally to fits of pique when slow tourists fail to keep to the right, or insist on standing side-by-side on escalators, blocking the left-hand fast lane, like some of those described in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.
我承认我自己碰上时也会或多或少生气，《华尔街日报》最近有一篇文章专门描述了这样的场景，比如慢吞吞的游客不靠右走，自动扶梯上总爱肩并肩，让人不能从左边快速赶路等。
That article came down on the side of sidewalk rage as psychiatric disorder. Shirley Wang writes:
文章将“人行道躁狂”视为某种心理障碍，作者雪莉.王写道：
Researchers say the concept of "sidewalk rage" is real. One scientist has even developed a Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to map out how people express their fury. At its most extreme, sidewalk rage can signal a psychiatric condition known as "intermittent explosive disorder," researchers say. On Facebook, there's a group called "I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People in the Back of the Head" that boasts nearly 15,000 members.
研究人员表示“人行道躁狂”这一概念是真实存在的。一位科学家甚至编制出行人攻击行为量表测量人们如何表达愤怒。最极端的情况下，“人行道躁狂”预示着某种被称为间歇性爆发障碍的精神疾病。在Facebook上，有人成立了“我暗自想从背后敲那些慢吞吞的人！”这样的群组，成员达到了近1万5千人。
For the rare folks who act out in dangerous ways, sidewalk or road rage may indeed signal illness. But the idea raises the much more interesting question of why so many otherwise normal people also feel the same intense emotion when navigating around slow hordes — and have to temper their impulses to act on their anger — in the first place.
对于极少数真正表现出危险行为的人来说，人行道或车道躁狂现象真的显示出预示着某种疾病预兆。但是这种观点引发了人们更多好奇的探寻，为什么其他那么多的正常人面对慢吞吞的行人时，明明情绪上感受同样强烈，却能首先抑制住自己那种将愤怒付诸于具体行为的冲动呢？
Which brings me to what researchers call "altruistic punishment." While it sounds like an oxymoron, altruistic punishment is basically how social norms get enforced. So when you expel a huffy "Excuse me!" to the rude sidewalk clogger in front of you who has stopped midstride to check his BlackBerry, you're trying to discourage behavior that endangers other members of the society. It's called "altruistic" punishment, because your efforts to protect civility come at personal cost with little chance of personal benefit: you are far more likely to get an obscene gesture or even a punch in the mouth than a thank you.
原因可用研究者称之为利他惩罚的现象来解释。这个术语听起来有点自相矛盾，但正因为有利他惩罚，社会规范才得以巩固。当你不耐烦地对一个停在路中间查看黑莓手机而挡住你去路的人说出“抱歉，让一下！”的话时，你其实是在避免、阻止自己危害社会其他成员的具体行为。这种现象就是利他惩罚，你的行为和努力，以对个人利少弊多的代价换来了文明礼貌，结果呢，你很可能招来他人不文明的手势，甚至换来他人迎面一拳。
Many evolutionary psychologists believe, however, that without altruistic punishment, cooperation could not have evolved. In simulations of "selfish" versus "cooperative" strategies for living, for instance, researchers have found that altruistic or cooperative creatures beat out selfish ones only in an environment in which the failure to cooperate is actively detected and punished. Sidewalk rage — anger over the selfish violation of a cooperative social norm that protects the group — is a nice example of that.
然而许多进化心理学家相信，如果利他惩罚现象不存在，人类合作也不可能产生。举例来说，合作和自私的生存策略模拟中，研究者发现，只有在一种情况下，即合作失败将受到监控和惩罚时，利他或合作行为个体才能战胜自私个体。人行道躁狂——对于违反合作型社会规范(维系保护群体)的自私者们的愤怒，恰恰就是最好的例子。
Reinforcing that theory is the result of a recent study that explored whether altruistic punishment is an act of deliberation and self-control, or, as one might expect from the case of sidewalk rage, an emotional impulse. Researchers found a connection between impulsiveness and altruistic punishment, suggesting that the phenomenon is more the result of emotion (like sidewalk rage) than reason.
最近有人研究了利他惩罚是否是思考与自我控制的结果，因为人们期望控制人行道躁狂这种情绪冲动。该研究结果强化了我们前面提到的理论。研究者发现了冲动与利他惩罚行为之间存在关联，表明这种现象更多出于情绪（譬如人行道躁狂），而非出于理性思考而产生。
In the study, researchers measured participants' impulse control by subjecting them to a test similar to the famous Stanford marshmallow test, which allows people to gain more goodies later if they can resist the temptation of a smaller reward now.
研究中，研究者采用了非常类似于著名的斯坦福大学棉花糖实验的测试，来测量被试的冲动控制性，如果人们越能抵御现有的小奖励，之后他们将获得更多奖赏。
The participants were also asked to play an "ultimatum game" in which two people have to split a sum of money. The first person gets to decide how the loot is divided, but if the second person rejects the offer, no one gets anything. In other words, it's a situation in which you can punish someone for being unfair or selfish — but only at a cost to yourself.
被试们还参加了一个最后通牒游戏。游戏中，两个人组队分割金钱，第一个人拥有如何分配金钱的权利，但是如果第二个人反对的话，两个人什么都得不到。换一句说，第一个人的处境是，他可以自私，表现得不公平，但是换来的代价只会是自己的损失。
Adding a twist to the experiment, some volunteers were given medication that depleted the amount of serotonin in their brains; others were given placebo. Low levels of serotonin have been linked with impulsive and irrational behavior, so reducing it could help determine whether self-control and altruistic punishment are affected by it in the same way.
实验设计中还添加了另一变量。一些志愿者服用了某种消耗大脑血清素的药物，其他的被试则服用的是安慰剂。低血清素含量与不理智的冲动行为相关，所以降低血清素水平能确定自我控制和利他惩罚行为同样受血清素水平影响。
And indeed, in the low serotonin condition, participants were more likely both to make impulsive choices in the delayed-reward test and to punish those who behaved uncooperatively in the ultimatum game, supporting the idea that altruistic punishment is driven by emotion, specifically, anger.
事实上，低血清素情况下，被试更可能在延迟奖赏实验中作出冲动型选择，在最后通牒游戏中更倾向于惩罚不合作的人。结果证明了利他惩罚确实由情绪尤其是愤怒驱使表现出来的。
So take heart, readers. If you find yourself fuming at those who behave in ways that are uncivil in your culture, you may be exhibiting an emotion that was a key part in allowing civilization to exist in the first place. And to those who want to avoid enraging New Yorkers: keep right and let us pass!
所以，读者们，振作起来吧！假如你发现自己对那些不文明的行为的人火冒三丈时，也许你不过是首先文明地宣泄出情绪，而不是直接野蛮地冲突动武。那些妨碍他人的人们，请不要再惹怒纽约市民吧，请靠右走，让我们过去吧！
