生死七秒钟 (上)｜读心术的奥秘与压力下决策

读心术，有趣的应用心理学(网络图片)

今天开始读《决断2秒间》第6章，以下是大纲

三个致命的错误/ 读心术的理论/脸孔透露心思情绪/ 男人、女人与电灯开关/ 不如跟狗讲道理/时间在生死交关时的角色/「我心中有个声音说：我还不必开枪」/ 惠勒街的悲剧

Diallo悲剧

本章从4名警官误杀外籍移民Diallo的悲剧说起。这起案件发生在美国纽约市的布朗克斯区，这区居民主要以非洲和拉丁美洲后裔居民为主，是纽约有名的贫民区，犯罪率在全国数一数二。

这起案件的评价两极。有人说警察在特殊地段，面对异常事件当然必须快速反应，误杀属于不幸但不是罪恶；另一面，有人则认为这是赤裸裸的种族歧视。

马克威尔认为两者都是可能的解释，并以此为起点切入探讨，为什么这些警官会误读Diallo在慌乱中传达的讯息。

读心术理论

Every waking minute that we are in the presence of someone, we come up with a constant stream of predictions and inferences about what that person is thinking and feeling.

说到读心，人人都是老司机。我们从作孩子起，就观察成人的脸部，以明白他们的意图：轻拍一下是什么意思？抓起手是什么意思？专家认识到表情蘊藏訊息宝库，並深入研究。在最杰出的心理学家眼中，一些脸部照片就足以揭示这个部落是否凶残、有没有同性恋倾向。

明天，我们将回头检视Diallo悲剧中，4名警察无法顺当使用读心术的原因。

Summary

Diallo, a Guinean immigrant, doing low-paid job and having an unassuming figure, was living in Bronx, a high crime rate district. One day after midnight, he was taking some air outside his apartment while some plainclothes police offices was approaching him. Ill at speaking English and feeling the unwelcoming sense of these police, Diallo started running toward home. The police chased after him. When he was cornered in the staircase, and helplessly tried to get his wallet (maybe in wish giving his money to the seemed robbery gang guys), the police misunderstood him as pulling a gun (Diallo’s black wallet) and fired him.

How can the tragedy happen?

We easily parse complex distinctions in facial expressions. This can be viewed as the most common practices we do every waking minute that we are in the presence of someone. So how can those policemen fail to distinguish fear from dangerous on Diallo’s face? Why do the four officer fail at this most fundamental task?

Words & Phrases

Can we have a word?

I need to speak to you briefly in private.

[syn] I'd like (to have) a word with you.; Could I have a word with you?

“Can we have a word?” The police said to the suspect.

stutter

a tendency to stutter while speaking.

Later, it emerged that Diallo had a stutter, so he may well have tried to say something but simply couldn’t.

‘She's p-perfectly j-justified,’ he said with his intermittent stutter

agitate

make (someone) troubled or nervous.

But Diallo was growing more and more agitated, and Carroll was starting to get nervous, too

the thought of questioning Toby agitated him extremely

pick up on

to become alert to something; to take notice of something; to learn or catch on to something

When we meet someone new, we often pick up on subtle signals

It is picking up on subtle, fleeting cues in order to read someone’s mind—and there is almost no other impulse so basic and so automatic and at which, most of the time, we so effortlessly excel.

parse

analyze (a sentence) into its parts and describe their syntactic roles.

We easily parse complex distinctions in facial expression

They can parse complex words and sentences; but this parsing takes more work than reading simpler, clearer prose.

infer

This practice of inferring the motivations and intentions of others is classic thin-slicing.

pick up on可以与上面2个单字用法一起记

After we are picking up on new cues, we are parsing them and inferring the cause-and-effect of the signals.

open–and–shut

able to be settled or decided very quickly and easily

On the other side were those who saw what happened as an open-and-shut case of racism.