why we hold on to first impressions in a relationship?
原创 2017-12-09 唐老雅 唐老雅英语写作工作室
http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NGdxKSX3AbMuy5CzE25DCA
Why do we hold on to first impressions in a relationship?
为什么我们不愿放弃第一印象？
We need to take responsibility for our mistakes in choosing our partner rather than simply justifying it to ourselves.
The Guardian, December 8, 2017
BY Tim Lott
❒ 老雅/注释
I have been reading Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, a book about cognitive dissonance（不一致） – the phenomenon that arises, with uncomfortable feelings, when two deeply held internal points of view come into conflict with one another. To avoid such feelings, we resort to（诉诸）self-justification（自我辩解）.
老雅注：什么是认知不一致？就是指两种我们都深深认同的观点发生抵牾这种现象。这种现象往往让我们不舒服，为了避免这种不舒服，我们往往采取洗脱自己责任的方式。后文中举了这样一个例子：你和女朋友在最初认识时，你发现她用钱很大方，你用“慷慨率性”来解释她这种行为，但后来在婚姻中，你却用“不负责任”来形容她花钱的行为。这个时候，你不是承认自己当初犯了错，而是自我辩护：当初我没错，错的是她，是她从“慷慨率性”变成了“不负责任”。作者认为，正是这种自我辩护，是一段关系，或者婚姻的最大杀手。
Dissonance 不和谐，不一致
Arise 出现
Resort to 采用，诉诸
Justification 辩护，辩解
Come into conflict with... 与......产生冲突
The book contains a chapter on cognitive dissonance in marriage, which holds this process to be the main culprit（罪人）in the outcome of relationships. "Misunderstandings, conflicts, personality differences and even angry quarrels are not the assassins（杀人者，刺客）of love – self-justification is," the authors remark.
Culprit 罪人，应该担负责任的人/物
Assassin 刺客
家居亲子孩子拍摄
How does cognitive dissonance work? Let’s say partner A has a problem with partner B’s recklessness with money（乱花钱）– as they understand it. Perhaps one of the things that attracted them originally was what they thought of as B’s "generosity（大方慷慨）and spontaneity（率性，主动）". In a relationship, however, the behaviour starts to look irresponsible. How does A resolve the fact that they made a misjudgment about B?
老雅注：本段举例解释认知不一致(cognitive dissonance)现象如何发生，并提出问题：这种现象发生后，人们怎们去解决呢？
reckless 鲁莽的
Generous (adj.) 慷慨大方的（generosity是名词形式）
Spontaneous (adj.) 自发的，主动的（spontaneity是名词形式）
One way is for A to accept that they made that misjudgment and that the responsibility is partly theirs. Another way is for A to carry on maintaining the "positive" dissonance, and convince themselves that B is wonderfully, joyfully open-handed（花钱大方的）even though the joint account is in the red again.
老雅注：本段先列举两种处理的办法：承认错误法；不忘初心法，要么承认自己判断错误了，要么一路走到黑，坚持认为她大方花钱很伟大，很快乐，尽管你们俩的共同账户上的钱已经亮了红灯。【你认为，你自己会采用这两种方法之一吗？】
Misjudgment 错误判断
Carry on 坚持
Open-handed 往好处说是“花钱大方”，往坏处说就是“大手大脚”。
But the easiest way, as it avoids damaging their self-esteem, is for A to decide B has betrayed them and is a "bad person". Such retrospective（回顾性的；回头的）self-justification applies to the whole spectrum（谱系）of domestic behaviour from housework to childcare. It’s not, "If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it", rather, "If I hadn’t believed it, I wouldn’t have seen it."
老雅注：本段讲另一种多数人都可能会采取的办法，即自我辩护法。认为自己当初没错，错在对方，对方是“坏人”。
Betray 欺骗
Retrospective 回顾性的
Spectrum 谱系
What is the "real" situation between a couple? With cognitive dissonance and another related psychological principle, confirmation bias（证实性偏见，即我们倾向于寻找那些证实我们观点的证据）, operating at all times – both affect any particular situation and the writing and rewriting of memory – it is difficult to know "the truth". But often the price of that truth is the realisation that "I was (at least somewhat) wrong" – usually the most painful way of resolving dissonance, and thus the least palatable（可接受的，宜人的）.
老雅注：婚姻中“真实”的情况到底是什么，即到底是谁错了？这里引入了一个心理学原则即，证实性偏见（confirmation bias）来说明我们经常去寻找那些证实我们观点的证据。于是，夫妻间所谓“真实”很难确定。但一旦“真实”起来，我们就得承认当初“我错了”，这对多数人来说，很难接受（palatable）。
confirm 证实
Palatable 可接受的，可口的（我们在作文中一般使用acceptable）。
The longer cognitive dissonance worms its way into memory and our understanding of what has happened, the more powerful it becomes as a predictive（预测性的）factor for conflict, because then a relationship becomes more about what a person "is" as opposed to what they "do". Any behaviour that contradicts that presupposition will be discounted（不予相信）and any evidence that confirms it will be exaggerated（夸大）.
老雅注：这种认知不一致一旦形成思维定势，就为冲突埋下了伏笔，之后大家争吵的就是你做了什么，而是你的本质是什么了。与这个所谓本质冲突的行为，你视而不见，而与这个本质符合的，就被你无限放大。婚姻中，常提到一方说：“当初真是看错你了！”，“你原来是个这样的人！”这并非说明她在认错，相反，她是在把所有过错都推到你身上。
Worm its way into memory 像蚯蚓一样钻入记忆中（很形象的表达！）
Predict 预测（predictive是形容词）
Contradict 与......矛盾
Discount 打折扣，不予考虑，不予采纳
Exaggerate 夸大，放大
If you form an opinion early in your relationship about the other person, and then use every opportunity to screen out information that runs counter to（与......相左）that opinion, then you have a coherent（连贯的）worldview, but possibly an unreliable view of your partner, who – whether they actually improve or not – is trapped within your prejudices.
老雅注：本段继续讲偏见如何形成。对别人形成意见后，你就会自动屏蔽那些与该意见不同的信息，这样你对别人的观点倒是连贯一致的，但对方就被困在你的偏见“网”中央了。
Screen out 屏蔽
Run counter to... 与......不一样 （be different from)
Coherent 连贯的
Prejudice 偏见
Nature,
There is only one solution to this conundrum 【难题】(one I failed to embody in either of my marriages, both now sadly ended) or rather, three solutions – humility, honesty and good faith.
Humility means the ability and courage to say "I may be wrong", so that every time anything goes awry （不对劲）you don’t self-justify. Good faith is the default（默认的，缺省的）position that your partner means well, and is trying, even though they may be failing. Honesty is the hardest, given all the distorting（歪曲的）filters our mind provides – but it is at least to be held as an ideal, as a hedge（树篱；手段）against the temptations of self-justification.
老雅注：解决方法只有一个（或三个）：谦卑，承认自己当时错了；诚实，直面内心；信任。
Go awry 不对劲，出差错
Default 默认的
Distorting 歪曲的
Hedge 手段（我们常用way, method）；树篱
Temptation 诱惑
These stances（态度，立场）have to be mutual（共同的）for there to be any chance of success – if one side holds good faith and the other does not, or if one side is prideful and the other humble, that is a recipe（食谱，这里是原因的意思） for the continuation of self-justification on one side and accumulating（越来越多的）resentment and frustration on both.
老雅注：这些办法要产生效果，需要双方努力方可，只有一方努力，结果更糟糕：一方仍在不停地自我辩护，另一方则变得越来越失望怨恨。
Stance 立场；观点（我们常用attitude, point of view）
Mutual 共同的
Recipe 菜谱配方，可用作原因的意思（我们常用reason, cause）
Accumulating 越来越多的（我们常用increasing）
整理自唐老雅英语写作工作室
Betsy
2018.4.14