less is more

Why people forget that less is often more

为什么人们总忘记“少即是多”？

A paper published in Nature suggests that humans struggle with subtractive thinking. The research was motivated by everyday observation rather than psychological theory, says Gabrielle Adams, the paper's first author, who cites folk wisdom such as "less is more" and "keep it simple".

一篇发表在《自然》杂志的论文提到，人类并不擅长减法思维。这一论文的第一作者，加布丽埃勒·亚当斯表示，该研究的出发点是日常观察，而非心理学理论。她还引用了民间智慧，例如“少即是多”和“保持简单”。

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Along with colleagues at the University of Virginia, Dr Adams conducted a series of observational studies. In one, participants were asked to alter a pattern on a grid of coloured squares to make it symmetrical. Although that could be done equally well by adding new squares or by deleting existing ones, 78% chose the additive option. Other tasks gave similar results. Asked to alter an essay they had written, 16% cut words while 80% added them.

亚当斯博士同她在弗吉尼亚大学的同事一起，进行了一系列观察性研究。在其中一个实验中，参与者被要求对一个彩色方块格子纸上的图案进行调整。虽然加入新的方块或是减少原有的方块都能很好地做到这一点，但是 78% 的参与者选择了增加新的方块。另外的实验也得出了类似的结论。当参与者被要求修改他们所写的论文时，16% 的人选择删减文字，而 80% 的参与者增加了字数。

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Nor was this tendency confined to the lab. Of 827 suggestions received by the new boss of an American university for how the institution could be improved, 581 involved adding new things, such as more grants for studying abroad. Just 70 suggested removing something, such as preferential admissions for children of alumni.

这样的倾向并不只局限于实验室当中。美国一所大学的新任校长收到了 827 条关于如何改进学校的建议，其中 581 条涉及增加新的内容，例如增加出国留学的补助金。只有 70 条建议涉及删除一些旧规定，例如对校友子女的优先录取政策。

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What all this amounts to is evidence for a new entry in the list of "cognitive biases" that skew how humans think.*** The 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded for demonstrating that humans are not "rational" in the way economists had used the word. Instead of thinking a problem through and coming up with an ideal solution, they tend to use cognitive shortcuts that are fast and — mostly — "good enough".

所有这些都表明，在歪曲人类思维方式的“认知偏差”清单中，又出现了一个新的偏差。2002 年，诺贝尔经济学奖被授予了一项研究，该研究论证了人类不像经济学家所说的那样是“理性”的。比起充分考虑问题、想出理想的解决方案，人们更倾向于运用又快又似乎“足够好”的认知捷径。

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Such research has inspired an entire field dedicated to working out when such shortcuts lead people astray. Dr Adams and her colleagues, meanwhile, are keen to probe their result in more detail. One question is whether the preference for addition is innate or learned.

相关的研究启发了一整片新领域，这片领域致力于研究，在什么情况下，这些认知捷径会让人们误入歧途。与此同时，亚当斯博士与她的同事们，正努力对研究结果进行更详细的研究，例如继续探究人类对于做加法的偏好是先天的还是后天习得的。

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主编：桃子

品控：桃子

审核：大仔

重点词汇

struggle with

费劲地做某事，努力应付某事

例句：The airline is struggling with high costs.

例句：I'm really struggling with the essay.

subtractive

/səbˈtræk.tɪv/

adj. 减法的

相关词汇：subtraction（n. 减法）

less is more

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