谋杀之谜

这里是《隐藏的大脑》。

This is Hidden Brain.

我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

I am Shankar Vedanta.

我们常将所消费的媒体视为心灵的食粮。

We often think of the media we consume as food for the mind.

那些好书、励志电影、鼓舞人心的播客，我们相信它们会让我们变得更智慧、更善良、更优秀。

The right books, the uplifting films, the inspiring podcasts we believe that these will make us wiser, kinder, better people.

中国哲学家老子曾说过：'观其言，察其行。'

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu is supposed to have said, Watch your thoughts, they become your words.

慎其言，因其将化为行。

Watch your words, they become your actions.

慎其行，因其将成习惯。

Watch your actions, they become your habits.

慎其习，因其将铸就品格。

Watch your habits, they become your character.

注意你的品格，它会成为你的命运。

Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

按照这个逻辑，如果我们想成为善良、有道德的人，就应该观看关于好人的电影，阅读关于善良的书籍，消费那些讲述始终做正确事情的高尚人物的故事。

By this logic, if we want to be good, kind, and ethical people, we should watch movies about good people, read books about kindness, and consume stories about high minded individuals who always do the right thing.

随便看看畅销书榜单或票房大卖的电影，你会发现其中很少有高尚的情节和利他的角色。

Glance at any list of bestsellers or movies that crush at the box office, and you don't see many high minded plots and altruistic characters.

相反，你会看到说谎欺骗的人，互相背叛的家人，以及不够朋友的朋友。

No, you find people who lie and cheat, family members who betray one another, friends who are not good friends.

如果我们就是我们所消费的内容，这显然对我们不是什么好兆头。

If we are what we consume, surely this does not bode well for us.

这种矛盾在暴力、血腥和杀戮的故事中表现得最为尖锐，尤其是在恐怖片中。

Nowhere is this tension more acute than in stories of violence, gore, and killing, especially in horror movies.

那些飞溅的鲜血、断肢和令人毛骨悚然的尖叫，目的是让你感到恐惧，而不是受到教化。

The goal of all the spattered blood, severed limbs, and blood curdling shrieks is to make you horrified, not edified.

如果大多数人都想成为好人，那么如何解释那些不仅展现人性最阴暗面、还能想象出最可怕场景的书籍和电影经久不衰的受欢迎程度呢？

If most of us want to be good people, what explains the enduring popularity of books and movies that show us not just the worst of human nature, but the worst that the human imagination can conjure?

本周在《隐藏大脑》及其配套节目《隐藏大脑Plus》中，我们将探讨为何人们会伸长脖子围观车祸现场、对自然灾害视频百看不厌，以及为何故意让自己沉浸于谋杀与混乱的故事中。

This week on Hidden Brain and in a companion episode for Hidden Brain Plus, why we crane our necks to observe car crashes, endlessly gape at videos of natural disasters, and deliberately subject ourselves to tales of murder and mayhem.

我们选择的节目和书籍类型揭示了怎样的自我？

What do the kinds of shows and books we choose say about us?

它们如何塑造我们？

How do they shape us?

科尔顿·斯克里夫纳是亚利桑那州立大学与丹麦奥胡斯大学的研究员。

Colton Scrivner is a researcher at Arizona State University and Aarhus University in Denmark.

作为心理学家，他研究人们消费特定故事的原因及其对心理的影响。

He's a psychologist who studies why we consume certain stories and the effects those tales can have on our minds.

科尔顿·斯克里夫纳，欢迎来到《隐藏大脑》。

Colton Scribner, welcome to Hidden Brain.

你好，尚卡尔。

Hello, Shankar.

感谢邀请我参加节目。

Thanks for having me on.

科尔顿，我了解到你小时候最喜欢的电影是那些有印第安纳·琼斯出场的影片，比如《夺宝奇兵》和《魔域奇兵》。

Colton, as a kid, I understand that your favorite movies were those featuring Indiana Jones, such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Temple of Doom.

这些电影中有哪些场景特别吸引你呢？

What scenes in particular were you drawn to in these movies?

是的。

Yeah.

我小时候就超爱那些电影。

I loved those movies as a kid.

现在成年了依然很喜欢。

I I still love them as an adult.

我可能都数不清看过多少遍了。

I've probably lost count of how many times I've seen them.

我记得小时候会反复看这些电影，但那时候总是记不住片名。

I do remember watching them, you know, on repeat as a kid, and, you know, I could never remember the names of them.

比如有部叫《夺宝奇兵》的。

You know, there's raiders of the of the lost ark.

还有《魔宫传奇》。

There's the Temple Of Doom.

还有《圣战奇兵》。

There's the last crusade.

但我总是通过特定场景来记住它们。

But I always remember them kind of by specific scenes.

所以我记得，比如，哦，这部是有很多老鼠的那部，那部是有条大蛇的，还有那部是那个人的脸像冰淇淋一样融化的。

And so I would remember, you know, oh, well, this one was the one where there were a lot of rats, or this one was the one where there was a big snake, or this is the one where the guy's face melts like an ice cream cone.

这些场景总是让我通过它们来记住电影。

And those scenes were always the ones I guess that's why I remembered them by that.

我是通过电影中那些暴力或恐怖的场景来记住它们的。

I remembered them by kind of the violent scenes or scary scenes that were in the films.

所以如果有人问，你看过《魔宫传奇》吗？

So temple of doom, if someone asked, have you seen temple of doom?

你知道，如果我还是个孩子，我会说，嗯，我想我看过。

And I'm, you know, if I'm a kid, I would say, well, I think so.

那是哪一部来着？

Which one was that?

是不是他徒手掏出还在跳动的心脏的那一部？

Is that the one where he pulls his heart out of his chest and it's still beating?

这就是它们在我脑海中的印象，你知道的，大概就是这样。

That's that's kind of how I would you know, that that's how they sat in my mind.

有一种理论认为，我们之所以寻求关于暴力和血腥的戏剧性故事，是因为我们自己的生活平淡无奇。

So one theory might be that we seek out dramatic stories about violence and gore because our own lives are boring and humdrum.

但有研究表明，在现实生活中发生恐怖事件后，人们对恐怖娱乐的兴趣往往会激增。

But there's research that suggests that in the aftermath of scary things happening in real life, there's often a surge of interest in scary entertainment.

20世纪70年代初，威斯康星大学校园内一名年轻女大学生被谋杀。

In the early 1970s, a young woman, a college student, was murdered on the campus of the University of Wisconsin.

一组心理学家研究了该校学生随后选择的娱乐方式。

A team of psychologists studied the subsequent entertainment choices of students on that campus.

他们发现了什么，科尔顿？

What did they find, Colton?

心理学家研究的是参与者会选择哪种电影作为参与心理学研究的奖励。

What the psychologists were studying was what kinds of films the participants would choose as a reward for taking part in a study, like a psychological study.

在这个案例中，他们所在的小镇当时有两部电影正在上映。

And in this case, in the town they were in, there were two films that were in theaters.

一部是杜鲁门·卡波特的《冷血》，另一部是浪漫喜剧，我不记得那部的名字了。

There was Truman Capote's in Cold Blood, and then there was kind of a rom com, and I can't recall the name of that one.

但他们发现，在这起谋杀案发生后，校园里的学生更倾向于选择恐怖片作为参与研究的奖励。

But what they found is that after this murder occurred, the students on the campus were much more likely to choose the scary film as a reward for taking part in a study.

我了解到研究人员甚至深入分析发现，与受害者同宿舍楼的学生比不同宿舍楼的学生更可能观看恐怖电影。

I understand that the researchers even drilled down and found that students who were in the same dorm as the victim were more likely to watch the scary movie than students who were in different dorms.

没错。

Correct.

是的。

Yeah.

如果你想象这是一张热力图，用不同颜色表示，越接近那栋宿舍楼区域，颜色就越红，他们选择观看杜鲁门·卡波特电影的可能性就越高。

If you think about this like a a heat map, you know, where you have different colors and the closer you got to this dorm, you know, the redder it got, the more likely they were to choose to go see Truman Capote's film.

所以在二十世纪九十年代初，一款名为《真人快打》的超级暴力电子游戏问世了。

So a couple of decades later, the early nineteen nineties, a super violent video game called Mortal Kombat was released.

游戏发行时提供了两个版本供公众院选择。

Two different versions of the game were made available to the public.

为什么会有会推出两个版本？它们的表现如何，Colton？

Why were two versions made available, and how did they fare, Colton?

嗯，《真人快打》在电子游戏领域具有开创性意义。

Well, Mortal Kombat kind of broke ground in video games.

它诞生于电子游戏机正从街机厅走向家庭客厅的转型期。

It came about at a time when, you know, video game consoles were moving from purely being in arcades to now being in the home.

这些全新的游戏故事开始进入千家万户。

You know, you were having these these new stories coming into households.

当时有几家颇具影响力的游戏厂商获得了《真人快打》的发行权。

And what you had is you had a couple of sort of big players, I guess, who were able to sell Mortal Kombat.

其中就包括至今仍极具人气的任天堂娱乐系统。

And one of those was Nintendo Entertainment Systems, which, of course, is still around, still very popular.

他们拥有超级任天堂娱乐系统，并希望发布《真人快打》。

And they had the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and they wanted to release Mortal Kombat.

而世嘉则有Genesis平台。

And then you had the Sega Genesis platform.

这两者的区别在于，任天堂在电子游戏领域树立了家庭友好的形象。

And and the difference between these two is that Nintendo kind of had cultivated this family friendly approach to video games.

所以当这款超级暴力的游戏面世时——你知道的，那种你可以施展终结技，把对手的脊椎从后背抽出来像战利品一样举着的游戏。

And so when this super violent game came out, you know, where you could engage in these finishing moves where you pull an opponent's spine out of their back and hold it up like a trophy.

明白吗？

You know?

当然，这些画面都是用90年代初的像素技术表现的，但仍然相当暴力。

And, of course, this is all just sort of pixelated, you know, early nineteen nineties graphics, but still quite violent.

任天堂认为这完全违背了他们家庭友好的游戏理念，但他们知道《真人快打》会大获成功。

What Nintendo decided was that that was simply too much for their family friendly approach to video games, but they knew that Mortal Kombat would be successful.

于是他们达成的折中方案是：在他们的主机版本中，游戏里的血液会被替换成一种灰白色调。

So the compromise they struck was that for their systems, the blood in the game would actually be turned to kind of a grayish color.

他们将其称为汗水而非血液。

And they called they called it sweat rather than blood.

几乎就像是角色在流汗而非流血。

It's almost like the fighters were sweating instead of bleeding.

许多终结技不得不被修改或完全移除。

And many of the finishing moves had to be altered or or removed entirely from the game.

当时世嘉是规模小得多的游戏公司，而超级任天堂在美国家庭的普及率大概是世嘉的五倍。

Now Sega, which was a much smaller video game company at the time and, you know, Super Nintendo Entertainment Systems outnumbered Sega by probably five to one in American households.

世嘉在《真人快打》上下了重注，决定不做删减。

And Sega kinda took a big bet on Mortal Kombat and said, no.

我们要原汁原味呈现这款血腥游戏。

We're gonna show it in all of its all of its gory glory.

卡诺胜出。

Kano wins.

完美胜利，终结技。

Flawless Victor Fatality.

所以他们保留了血红色的设定。

And so they left the the blood red.

他们将其保留为血液而非汗水。

They left it as blood rather than sweat.

他们保留了所有的终结技原样不变。

They left all the finishing moves as they were.

令任天堂意外的是，世嘉Genesis版本的游戏销量以数倍优势超过了任天堂版本。

And surprising to Nintendo, I think, the Sega Genesis version of the game outsold the Nintendo version of the game by several factors.

哇。

Wow.

换句话说，尽管它更加暴力，尽管许多人可能会说我们不喜欢暴力或对暴力感到震惊，但更暴力的游戏版本——同一款游戏中更暴力的版本——销量却超过了温和版本。

So in other words, even though it was much more violent and even though many people might say, you know, we we are not a fan of violence or we are appalled by violence, the video game that was the more violent version, the very same video game in its more violent version, outsold the the tamer version.

没错。

Correct.

这作为一个科学家的角度来看，哇。

And that's, you know, as a as a scientist, wow.

这正是你能设计的完美研究案例。

That's the perfect study you could set up.

对吧？

Right?

而电子游戏行业在无意中为我们提供了这个研究案例。

And the video game industry kind of accidentally set that study up for us.

让我们快进到2020年新冠疫情爆发时。

Let's skip forward in time to 2020 when the COVID pandemic hit.

那些被困在家中无事可做只能看电影的人，偏偏选择了一部虽已上映九年的影片。

People who were stuck at home without much to do but stream movies chose one movie in particular to watch even though it was nine years old at that point.

这是电影中的一个片段，一位研究科学家正在与公共卫生官员交谈。

Here's a clip from the movie in which a research scientist is talking to a public health administrator.

我记得你说过只要我们能培养它，就能研制出疫苗。

I thought you said that once we could grow it, we could vaccinate against it.

我们尝试过用灭活病毒配合多种佐剂来增强免疫反应。

We tried using dead virus combined with several adjuvants to boost immune response.

然后呢？

And?

没有产生保护性抗体。

No protective antibodies.

死了很多猴子。

A lot of dead monkeys.

你能说说有好消息的部分吗？

Can you get to the part where there's good news?

现在我们必须尝试使用减毒活病毒。

Now we have to try a live attenuated virus.

就像对付小儿麻痹症那样？

Like with polio?

没错。

Exactly.

活病毒唯一的危险在于它可能变异回野生型并杀死宿主。

The only danger with a live virus is the possibility that it will revert to wild type and kill the host.

所以这是2011年的电影《传染病》。

So this was the 2011 movie Contagion.

科尔顿，这部电影讲的是什么？

What was it about, Colton?

《传染病》本质上是一部关于全球大流行的电影，它展示了我们想象中的全球大流行会是什么样子，不仅包括病毒本身及其传播方式，还包括人们对此的反应。

So Contagion, was essentially a film about a global pandemic and what we thought a global pandemic would look like, not just in the form of the virus itself and how it would spread, but also how people would respond to this.

全球大流行会引发怎样的社会反应？

What would be the the social response to this global pandemic?

我了解到谷歌趋势数据记录了这部电影的热度变化。

So I understand that Google Trends data kept track of the popularity of this movie.

在2019年，也就是大流行前一年，这部电影在人气指数（1到100分制）上平均得分约为6分。

And in 2019, this is the year before the pandemic, the movie was averaging around six on a scale of one to a 100 in the popularity index.

到2020年1月，随着首批疫情报告席卷全球时，其人气飙升至84分。

By January 2020, as the first reports of the pandemic was sweeping across the world, the popularity surged to 84.

而到2020年3月，当美国和其他国家开始大规模封锁时，搜索热度达到了100分的峰值。

And by March 2020, when mass closures hit The United States and other countries, it hit 100, the very peak of search interest.

没错。

Correct.

谷歌趋势数据很好地展示了人们对特定话题或电影的兴趣程度。

So those Google Trends data do a great job of showing you what are people interested in in relation to a particular topic or movie.

以《传染病》为例，尽管它早在九年前就已上映，但人气最高点却出现在2020年3月。

So with Contagion, the most popular that it had been was in March 2020, despite having come out nine years earlier.

而且我记得当时它仅在一个流媒体平台上可供观看。

And despite, at the time, I believe it was only available on one streaming platform.

从某个角度来看，这确实很令人费解。

Now on one level, this is very puzzling.

对吧？

Right?

人们对疫情感到恐慌。

People are terrified about the pandemic.

当时存在很多不确定性。

There's a lot of uncertainty.

有很多担忧。

There's a lot of worry.

他们在空闲时间选择做什么呢？

And what do they choose to do in their spare time?

去看另一场关于疫情的电影？

They go and watch a movie about another pandemic?

看起来他们确实这么做了。

That seems to be what they did.

是的。

Yeah.

至少很多人是这样。

At least many people did.

你知道，它在华纳兄弟的片库中排名飙升。

You know, it shot up from on the Warner Brothers catalog.

我记得它原本排名大概270或271位左右，结果一夜之间就跃升为片库中第二受欢迎的影片。

I think it was ranked, like, 270 or 271 or something like that, and it had shot up to being the second most popular movie on the catalog overnight.

科尔顿，你提到疫情期间还有一类电影也大受欢迎。

During the pandemic, Colton, you say that another type of movie also surged in popularity.

是哪类电影呢？

What was this type of movie?

嗯，这可能让一些人感到意外，但恐怖电影在2020和2021年确实迎来了高光时刻。

Well, this, you know, may come as a surprise to some, but, horror movies kind of had their time to shine in 2020 and 2021.

所以在疫情初期的约一年时间里，面对这种全球遭遇的新型威胁，人们观看恐怖电影的比例相较其他类型电影达到了前所未有的程度。

And so what you saw was that kind of in the early year or so of this pandemic, this new novel threat that was the world was facing, people were seeking out scary movies more in relation to other kinds of movies than they ever had before.

科尔顿，表面看来这确实令人费解。

So on the surface, Colton, this is puzzling.

我们很多人都说自己想成为善良、体贴的人。

Many of us say we want to be good, kind, and thoughtful people.

但与此同时，许多人又似乎对血腥暴力的故事着迷。

And yet many of us seem to be drawn to stories of gore and violence.

我做播客这些年注意到，真实犯罪类播客产业的庞大规模和持久影响力就是个例证。

One of the things that I've noticed in my years as a podcaster is the sheer size and enduring power of the true crime podcast industry.

数百万人似乎对绑架、谋杀和暴力犯罪的故事永远听不够。

Millions of people just can't seem to get enough of stories of kidnappings and murders and and violent crime.

是啊。

Yeah.

我是说，自从播客兴起以来，真实犯罪题材就一直位列最受欢迎播客类型的前五或前十名。

I mean, you know, ever since podcasting has kind of taken off, true crime has always been in the top five or top 10 of most popular podcast genres.

父母、牧师和评论家们都在谴责暴力及其他反社会行为。

Parents, pastors, and pundits denounce violence and other forms of antisocial conduct.

但作为娱乐消费者，我们却似乎对此趋之若鹜。

But as consumers of entertainment, we seem to eagerly soak them up.

稍后回来，我们将探讨为何经过车祸现场时会忍不住张望，以及我们对谋杀与暴力故事的痴迷揭示了怎样的心理。

When we come back, why we find ourselves rubbernecking on the highway as we pass a car crash, and what our fascination with tales of murder and mayhem reveal about our minds.

您正在收听《隐藏的大脑》。

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

这里是《隐藏的大脑》。

This is Hidden Brain.

我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。

I am Shankar Vedanta.

在世界各国，人们互相讲述着关于人性最阴暗面的故事。

In countries around the world, people tell each other stories about the worst of human nature.

孩子们互相低声传说着鬼怪精灵的恐怖故事。

Children whisper tales to each other about ghosts and goblins.

成年人则热衷于阅读犯罪与暴力的新闻报道。

Adults eagerly read news accounts of crime and violence.

越是血腥，越受欢迎。

The gorier, the better.

研究发现，在灾难发生后，更多人会被虚构的暴力复仇故事强烈吸引。

And in the aftermath of disasters, researchers find many people are more strongly drawn to fictional tales of violence and vengeance.

科尔顿·斯克里夫纳是亚利桑那州立大学和丹麦奥胡斯大学的研究员。

Colton Scrivner is a researcher at Arizona State University and Aarhus University in Denmark.

科尔顿，在1871年出版的《人类的由来》一书中，查尔斯·达尔文讲述了一个关于动物园里一群猴子的故事。

Colton, in his 1871 book, The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin tells a story about a group of monkeys at the zoo.

他读到的那个故事讲了什么？

What was the story he read about?

达尔文听说了一个故事，说有一群

So Darwin had heard this story that a group

猴子似乎对它们最该害怕的东西着迷，对一群猴子来说那就是装着蛇的袋子。

of monkeys would seem to be fascinated by the thing that they should fear the most, which for a group of monkeys is a bag with a snake.

达尔文对此非常着迷，甚至亲自做了一个实验试图复现这个现象。

And and Darwin was so fascinated by this that he actually ran an experiment himself trying to replicate this.

他做了什么？

What did he do?

他拿了个袋子，把一条蛇放进去。

He took a bag, and he put a snake in it.

然后他去了伦敦动物园，把袋子放在那里——我不确定他是否具体说明了那些猴子的种类，可能是恒河猴之类的。

And he went to the London Zoological Gardens, and he put it I don't know if he specifies what kinds of monkeys they were, presumably rhesus macaques or something like that.

他把这个袋子放进猴子的展区，注意到猴子们会慢慢靠近它。

He put this bag in the in their exhibit, and he noticed that the monkeys would slowly walk up to it.

就像，一只猴子，最勇敢的那只，会慢慢走向袋子，偷看里面，然后尖叫。

Like, one monkey, the bravest monkey, would slowly walk up to the bag, peek inside, and shriek.

它们会大叫，然后逃跑。

They would yell, and they would run away.

然后你会觉得，好吧。

And and you would think, like, okay.

这应该能向其他猴子发出信号，告诉它们不该看这个袋子，因为里面有不好的东西。

That should signal to the other monkeys that they shouldn't look inside this bag because there's something bad in there.

这确实发出了里面有危险物的信号，但达尔文发现其他猴子反而决定要一探究竟。

And it did signal that there was something bad in there, but what Darwin found was that the other monkeys then decided they needed to take a peek.

于是它们一个接一个，慢慢爬向袋子，偷看里面，看到蛇，尖叫，然后逃跑。

So they would, one by one, slowly creep up to the bag, peek inside, see the snake, shriek, and run away.

你知道，这让达尔文非常着迷，他认为这几乎是一种类似人类好奇心的表现。

And, you know, this absolutely fascinated Darwin, and he he saw this as a as a form of almost human like curiosity.

他写道，一只又一只猴子，高高昂起头并转向一侧，都忍不住要朝直立的袋子里瞥上一眼，看看安静躺在底部的可怕物体。

He writes monkey after monkey, with head raised high and turned on one side, could not resist taking a momentary peep into the upright bag and the dreadful object lying quietly at the bottom.

所以这些猴子代表了所谓的'捕食者探查'的一个例子。

So the monkeys represent an example of what is sometimes known as predator inspection.

这是什么意思，科尔顿？

What is this, Colton?

捕食者探查现象非常有趣，就像猴子和蛇的例子一样，你可能会认为，如果斑马在草原上看到狮子，或者瞪羚看到猎豹，它们应该立即逃跑。

Predator inspection is really interesting because, you know, in the same token as with the the monkeys and the snake, you might expect that, you know, if a zebra sees a lion on the savannah or a gazelle sees a cheetah, that they should just run away.

对吧？

Right?

我是说，当斑马的天敌近在咫尺时，除了逃跑它们还能做什么呢？

I mean, why would the zebra do anything else other than run away when their natural predator is with an eye shot?

但事实上，它们经常会站着不动，盯着捕食者看。

But oftentimes, what they will actually do is stand very still and and look at the predator.

最有趣的是，不同动物观察捕食者的方式和时机存在一些差异。

And what's really interesting about this is that, you know, there's some differences in which animals are looking at the predator and when they choose to do so.

瞪羚在群体规模较大、与猎豹距离稍远时，会更频繁地选择观察猎豹。

The gazelles will choose to look at the cheetah more often when they're in a larger group, when they're a bit further away from the cheetah.

这种行为在群体中并非均匀分布。

And it's not evenly spread among the group.

因此，处于青少年或亚成年阶段的瞪羚更可能参与捕食者审视行为。

So the gazelles that are adolescents or subadults are much more likely to engage in predator inspection.

那么这些行为背后的进化逻辑是什么？

And what is the logic, the evolutionary logic, to these actions?

是的。

Yeah.

当然要问：为什么被捕食动物会停下来观察天敌，而不是直接逃跑？

So of course, you have to ask why why would a a prey animal stop and and take a look at its natural predator instead of running away?

这里的逻辑在于，自然界中许多情况下被捕食者与捕食者都生活在很近的范围内。

And the logic here is that in many cases in nature, prey animals live in very close proximity with their predators.

所以如果你是斑马，每次看到狮子都逃跑，那你一生大部分时间都会在奔逃中度过。

And so every time you see a lion, if you're a zebra and you run away, you're gonna be running for most of your life.

对吧？

Right?

实际上这对你更不利。

And that's actually worse for you.

你会消耗掉本可以节省的卡路里。

You're gonna be expending calories that you would otherwise be saving.

你会把时间花在逃跑而非吃草上。

You are going to be spending time running instead of grazing.

这实际上会增加你稍后被捕获的风险。

It's actually gonna put you at higher risk of being caught later on.

所以这是逻辑的一个方面。

So that's that's one sort of side of the coin of the logic.

另一方面是，如果你对自己的天敌了解不多，处境就会很不利。

The other side is that if you don't know much about your natural predators, you're kind of in a bad spot.

对吧？

Right?

对它们保持好奇对你是有好处的。

It's it's good for you to be curious about them.

因为如果你能了解它们的一些习性，比如它们的情绪状态、饥饿或捕猎时的样子，你就能更高效地逃脱。

Because if you can learn a bit about them, sort of their moods, what they look like when they're hungry or they're hunting, you can be much more efficient in your ability to get away.

我们讨论了人类被暴力和危险故事吸引的多种方式，这些本该令人厌恶和不快的事物。

So we've talked about the many ways that humans are drawn to stories of violence and danger, things that ought to be aversive and unpleasant.

你认为我们主动寻求危险和令人不安信息的行为，类似于猴子对活蛇表现出的兴趣，你称之为病态好奇心。

You believe that our proclivity to seek out information about dangerous and disturbing things is similar to the interest that the monkey showed in the live snake, and you call this morbid curiosity.

你所说的这个术语是什么意思？

What do you mean by the term?

嗯，我觉得这是个常被误解的术语。

Well, it's a commonly misunderstood term, I think.

你知道，当你听到'病态'这个词与其他词搭配时，通常会认为那是不好的事物。

You know, if you hear the term morbid with with another word, you often think of that thing as being bad.

就病态好奇心而言，我并不是说这种好奇心本身是坏的。

And in the case of morbid curiosity, I don't mean that the curiosity is bad.

我是说人们对那些不好的事物感到好奇。

I mean that people are curious about things that are bad.

所以好奇心本身并非病态。

So the curiosity itself is not pathological.

它并不坏。

It's not bad.

但由于好奇的对象是潜在威胁，我称之为病态好奇心。

But because the object of the curiosity is about a potential threat, I've called it morbid curiosity.

因此，我对病态好奇心的定义很简单：就是对威胁产生的兴趣或好奇心。

And so, you know, the definition that I've used for morbid curiosity is simply an interest in or a curiosity about threats.

这可能是视觉信息。

And this could be visual information.

也可能是听觉信息，任何关于危险或潜在危险事物的信息。

It could be auditory information, any kind of information about something that is dangerous or could be dangerous.

你说病态好奇心这个概念在某种程度上解答了我们一直在讨论的谜题。

You say that the concept of morbid curiosity in some ways speaks to the puzzle that we have been discussing.

一方面，我们谴责暴力和反社会行为，但另一方面，我们又忍不住想看想听这些内容？

On the one hand, we denounce violence and antisocial behavior, but on the other hand, we are drawn to seeing it and hearing about it?

没错。

Correct.

纵观历史和跨文化背景，暴力通常被视为恶行。

Throughout time and across cultures, violence usually is seen as bad.

它通常会受到惩罚。

It's usually punished.

但有趣的是，即使在大多数情况下最反对暴力的文化中，也常存在某些仪式或特定场合，暴力不仅被允许，甚至可能被颂扬。

But the interesting thing is that even in cultures that are the most anti violence in in most circumstances, they often have certain rituals or certain events where violence is not only seen as okay, but it's maybe celebrated.

最令我着迷的是，人们对某行为道德与否的看法会因情境不同而彻底对立。

And it was really intriguing to me that people could have these completely opposing views on on how moral something is depending on what kind of situation it occurs.

什么

What

科顿，你认为在人们应对新冠疫情的不确定性时，观看《传染病》这类电影对他们产生了什么影响？

do you think watching a film like Contagion did to people as they struggled with the uncertainty of the COVID pandemic, Colton?

你知道，当你初次接触一个全新的事物时，你会想做什么？

You know, if you're if you're introduced to something that's that's new, what what do you wanna do?

嗯，你会想去了解它。

Well, you wanna you wanna learn about it.

对吧？

Right?

嗯。

Mhmm.

而当你接触到的是科学家们才刚刚开始研究的事物时——比如2020年2月和3月期间，就犯了很多错误。

And if you're introduced to something that scientists in particular are just now kind of trying to figure out, you know, in February and March 2020, a lot of, mistakes were made.

人们当时算是亲眼目睹了科学方法的实践过程。

People were kind of seeing the scientific method in action.

他们见证了科学运作的实际方式：先提出可能的假设，然后验证它，可能成立也可能不成立。

They were seeing how science works in action, which is, you know, you think something might be true, and you test it, and maybe it is, and maybe it isn't.

我觉得人们对此并不习惯。

And I think people aren't used to that.

因此，他们手头次优的选择，或者说人们能获得的最连贯的故事，在这种情况下就是《传染病》这部电影。

And so the next best thing that they had, the the best cohesive story that people had was, in this case, Contagion.

这是一部关于大流行病的电影，讲述了社会对这场流行病的反应，病毒如何传播及其对人体的影响。

It was a film about a pandemic and about the social response to that pandemic, about how the virus spread and what it did to you.

它是一个精心包装、讲述得当的故事，大约九十分钟的时长便于人们消化。

And it was a neatly packaged, well told story in about ninety minutes that people could consume.

所以从某种程度上说，科尔顿，这为那些在大学校园发生不幸事件后去看暴力电影的学生提供了一个不同的视角。

So in some ways, Colton, this puts a different spin on students who go to see a violent movie after something bad has happened on their college campus.

没错。

Correct.

是的。

Yeah.

你知道，那项研究是在20世纪70年代发表的。

I you know, that study came out in the 1970s.

这些科学家当时并未将他们观察到的现象称为病态好奇心，但他们测量的恰恰就是这种现象。

And these scientists didn't call what they were observing morbid curiosity, but that's exactly what they were measuring.

他们的发现正是这些大学生表现出的病态好奇行为，他们可能感到一种了解人际暴力的冲动。

That's what they were finding, was morbidly curious behavior in these college students who presumably felt an urge to learn about interpersonal violence.

而且，再次强调，对他们来说，一个简单的方法就是去看一部电影。

And, again, you know, an easy easy way for them to do that is to go see a movie.

我能想到新闻中各种其他例子。

I can think of all kinds of other examples from the news.

你知道，当不好的事情发生时。

You know, something bad happens.

有个连环杀手在逃，突然间我们都对精神病态非常着迷。

There's a serial killer on the loose, and suddenly we're all very fascinated with with psychopathy.

这并不一定是因为我们对精神病患者感兴趣，而是我们意识到有危险存在。

And and it's not necessarily because we are interested in psychopaths, but we're saying something dangerous is out there.

让我来了解一下它。

Let me learn about it.

在某种程度上，这是一种捕食者审视的形式。

In some ways, it's a form of predator inspection.

完全正确。

Exactly right.

是的。

Yeah.

我认为，许多关于捕食者规避、捕食者侦查以及面对捕食者时的一般威胁管理的神经机制，在哺乳动物中可能是共通的。

I think, you know, a lot of the neural mechanisms are probably conserved across mammals for predator evasion, predator inspection, just general threat management when it comes to predators.

如果斑马有能力写书、制作纪录片或虚构电影，它们几乎肯定会创作许多关于狮子的作品。

If a zebra had the ability to write a book or create a documentary or fiction film, it would almost certainly create many of those about lions.

我认为羚羊也是如此。

And I think the same is true of gazelles.

它们会制作关于猎豹的媒体娱乐内容。

They would be creating media entertainment about cheetahs.

对吧？

Right?

我认为人类也在做同样的事情。

And I think humans do the same thing.

其他动物与人类在病态好奇心方面的唯一区别在于，人类能够创造不直接面对危险的故事。

The the only difference between other animals and their form of morbid curiosity and humans and their form of morbid curiosity is that humans can actually create stories where they're not exposed to the danger.

对吧？

Right?

所以如果

So if

一只羚羊想了解猎豹，它必须亲临现场，而这伴随着更高的风险。

a gazelle wants to learn something about a cheetah, it has to be there in person, and there's a much higher risk associated with that.

而人类则可以消费他人创作的故事——无论是基于亲身经历的危险，还是理解危险运作机制后，将其置于无人实际经历过但可能遭遇的全新情境中。

Humans, on the other hand, can consume a story that someone else has created either because they've had a personal experience with this danger or because they understand how this danger works, and they can put it actually in a new context in which nobody has ever experienced this danger, but they might.

因此人类拥有这种非凡能力：预测可能的未来，想象哪些行为具有适应性，哪些是适应不良的，预判事态发展，思考如何准备应对，如何在危险真正来临前察觉征兆。

So humans have this incredible ability to forecast into possible futures and imagine what kinds of behaviors are adaptive, what kinds of behaviors are maladaptive, and what these things might look like, how we can prepare for them, how we might see them coming before they actually arrive.

换句话说，比起真正身处海洋可能遭遇鲨鱼，手握爆米花坐在电影院里听恐怖食人鲨的故事要安全得多。

So it's much safer, in other words, to sit in a movie theater with a bag of popcorn in your hand and, hear a story about a terrifying killer shark that's on the loose than to actually be in the waters of the ocean and potentially have to encounter the shark.

正确。

Correct.

是的。

Yeah.

而且我经常被问到的一个问题是，如果真是这样，那我们为什么不直接去读关于鲨鱼的科普教材呢？

And and one of the questions I get a lot is, well, if that's true, why don't we just read science textbooks about sharks in that case?

或者我们为什么不读关于疫情的科普教材，而是去看《传染病》这样的电影？

Or why don't we read science textbooks about about pandemics instead of watching Contagion?

我认为答案是，人类天生就是讲故事的生物。

And I think the answer is that, you know, humans are storytelling creatures.

尽管我们能在认知上体验某种情境而无需亲身经历，但我们学习效果依然很好。

We we learn really well despite the fact that we can experience a situation cognitively without actually being in the presence of it.

要知道，我们来自一个有着五亿年历史的生物谱系，这些生物发展出的大脑只能以第一人称视角理解经验。

You know, we come from a 500,000,000 line of organisms that have developed brains that can only understand experience in a first person perspective.

而故事的作用正是如此，它们让你获得身处某地、经历某事的第一人称视角体验。

And that's exactly what stories do, is they give you a first person perspective of what it's like to be somewhere and experience a thing.

所以故事的创作方式，某种程度上是触动了我们大脑中那些进化古老的区域，这些区域本就习惯于处理日常经验。

And so stories kind of, you know, are are crafted in a way that tap into these, evolutionarily old parts of our mind that are just used to dealing with everyday experience.

因此我们更容易接受它们。

And so we consume them more easily.

我们更容易记住其中的内容。

We remember things from them more easily.

而且，在小规模社会中，大多数事情都是以故事形式讲述的。

And, you know, in small scale societies, most things are told as stories.

它们不是以事实列表的形式呈现的。

They're not told a list of facts.

你的研究发现，观看恐怖片等内容可以帮助人们在心理上更具韧性。

Your research has found that watching content like horror movies can help make people more psychologically resilient.

这是怎么实现的，科尔顿？

How so, Colton?

这是我职业生涯中比较有趣的发现之一，我发现作为恐怖片爱好者，观看恐怖电影或阅读恐怖书籍，似乎真的能影响你对现实世界中危险的承受能力。

This this was one of the more interesting things out of my career so far, I think, was finding that being a horror fan, you know, watching scary movies or reading scary books, seems to actually have an effect on how resilient you are to real dangers in the world.

我最初是在新冠疫情爆发的前几个月发现这一点的。

And so I first found this in the early months of the COVID nineteen pandemic.

你知道吗？

You know?

我们通过在线平台招募了几百人，因为当时无法把人们请进实验室。

We recruited a couple 100 people using online platforms because, of course, we couldn't bring people into the lab.

我们发现恐怖片爱好者对疫情带来的压力表现出独特的更强韧性。

And what we found was that people who were horror fans uniquely were more resilient to the stresses of the pandemic.

即便在我们控制了五大性格特质、年龄、收入、性别等所有可能影响抗压能力的变量后，

So even when we controlled for big five personality, we controlled for age, we controlled for income, we controlled for sex, we controlled for all these things we could think of that might influence resilience.

仍然发现观看恐怖电影的人在疫情初期表现出更强的适应力。

And we still found that if you watched horror movies, you were more resilient during those early months of the pandemic.

恐怖片爱好者群体表现出的心理困扰更少。

People who were horror fans were experiencing less psychological distress.

他们的焦虑、失眠、睡眠障碍和抑郁程度都相对较轻。

So they were experiencing, to a lesser degree, anxiety, insomnia, slee you know, sleeplessness, depression.

与非恐怖片爱好者相比，他们表现出的压力生理症状要少得多。

They were experiencing those physiological symptoms of stress much less than people who were not horror fans.

当我们研究病态好奇心人群并单独分析这一变量时，发现病态好奇心指数高的人表现出更积极的心理韧性。

And when we looked at morbidly curious people and we isolated that variable by itself, we found that people who scored high in morbid curiosity were experiencing much more positive resilience.

因此他们对自身度过困难时期的能力更加乐观。

So they were much more optimistic about their ability to kind of get through these difficult times.

尽管世界很艰难，但他们仍保持着对人类和自身毅力的乐观态度。

They were feeling, you know, despite how difficult the world was, they kind of maintained their optimism about about humanity and about their ability to persevere.

我在想，当我们观看关于可怕鲨鱼或连环杀手的电影时，是否在某种程度上转移了我们对现实生活烦恼的注意力。

I'm wondering if it's also possible that as we watch the movie about the scary shark or the movie about the serial killer, in some ways, it takes our minds off of the things that are worrying us in our real lives.

换句话说，对虚构威胁的恐惧在某种程度上替代了对真实威胁的恐惧，从而缓解了我们在现实中的恐惧感？

In other words, the the fear of the artificial threat in some ways replaces the fear of the real threat and in some ways mitigates how frightened we are in real life?

是的。

Yeah.

完全正确。

That's exactly right.

你可能会认为当感到压力时，应该去看些让人愉悦的电影，比如喜剧或浪漫喜剧这类能让人开心的片子。

You know, you would think that if you're feeling stressed, you might go watch a a feel good movie, watch a comedy or a or a rom com or or something that's you know, make would make you feel good.

对吧？

Right?

但真正有趣的是，人们在这种情况下似乎不会经常选择看轻松的内容，反而更倾向于寻找恐怖或令人不适的事物。

But what's really interesting is people don't seem to do that as often as they seem to seek out scary things or things that are difficult to engage with when when they're feeling bad.

这确实让我很感兴趣。

And this really intrigued me.

你知道吗，当我最初思考这个矛盾现象时，还没有相关研究。

And I kind of you know, there was no research on this when I first started thinking about this conundrum, this paradox.

而我发现很多恐怖片爱好者会描述这种体验。

And what I what I was finding were a lot of horror fans who would write about this experience.

他们会写下自己通过恐怖片克服焦虑的个人经历。

They would write about their personal experience overcoming their anxiety with horror.

他们在Reddit这样的网络论坛上发表这些内容，或者给杂志撰写专栏文章。

And they'll write about this on online, you know, message boards like Reddit, for example, or they would write op eds in in magazines.

很多时候，他们是偶然发现这个方法的，并不完全明白为什么这能奏效。

And many times, you know, they would they would accidentally discover this, and they don't understand quite why it works.

但他们注意到，当他们观看恐怖电影时，似乎能让他们平静下来。

But they were noticing that when they would watch the scary movie, it seemed to kind of calm them down.

于是我开始思考这个问题。

And so I started, you know, I started thinking about this.

比如，这怎么可能有效呢？

Like, how could this possibly work?

这里的机制是什么？

What are the what are the mechanisms here?

你知道吗？

You know?

如果这对某些人真的有效，那可能是什么原因？

If this really does work in some people, what could be going on?

所以我认为，当你对某事感到焦虑时，特别是那种泛化的焦虑感时，情况是这样的。

So I think what's happening here is when you are feeling anxious about something, in particular, if you're feeling kind of a generalized anxiety.

你知道吗？

You know?

你并不清楚自己究竟在焦虑什么，但就是手心冒汗、心跳加速，处于高度警觉状态。

You're not really sure what you're anxious about, but you you're getting the sweaty palms, the racing heart, you're feeling vigilant.

这种状态陷入了一个循环，一个警觉性循环——你的警觉系统不断搜寻潜在威胁，却找不到目标。

That just kind of sits in this cycle, this this vigilance cycle where your vigilance is looking for a potential threat, and it can't find it.

于是它进一步提高警觉程度试图发现威胁，却依然一无所获。

So it turns up the vigilance even more to try to find it, and it still can't find it.

这种反复思虑的循环，对焦虑症患者来说再熟悉不过了。

And those are the cycles of rumination that that are, pretty familiar to people with anxiety.

有趣的是，我们的大脑对威胁信号异常敏感。

And what's interesting is, you know, our minds are exceptionally attuned to to threats.

威胁信号几乎能压倒我们视野和意识中的所有其他刺激。

So threats pretty much overpower any other stimulus in our field of view, in our mind.

这很合理，因为如果环境中存在威胁，你自然应该优先关注它。

And and that makes sense because if there's something threatening in your environment, you should kind of pay attention to that over other things.

问题在于，人类所处的环境通常没有实质威胁，但这些威胁却存在于我们的脑海中。

The problem, of course, is in humans, we don't often have threatening things in our environment, but we we have them in our heads.

所以我想，也许恐怖片就像以毒攻毒，因为你给了大脑一个可以抓住的威胁对象。

And so I thought, well, maybe horror kind of is like fighting fire with fire because you're giving your mind something threatening to latch onto.

你知道吗？

You know?

你在屏幕上呈现一个杀手，或者像真实犯罪案件中的连环杀手故事，恐怖片里的可怕怪物故事。

You're giving it a a killer on the screen or a, you know, a serial in the case of true crime, like a serial story about a serial killer or in horror or the the story of this terrible monster.

这样做能更有效地打破这种反复思考的循环。

And what that does is it does a much better job of kind of dislodging this this cycle of rumination.

你可以把它想象成高速公路的出口匝道，让你的思维能够从中脱离出来。

You can imagine it kind of like a like a highway off ramp, you know, for your mind so that you can get out of that.

然后你现在被电影吸引住了——对很多人来说书籍同样有效。

And then now you're sucked into the movie or or a book works just as well for many people.

假设你被这个恐怖故事吸引住了，你仍然感到焦虑。

You're sucked into this story, let's say, the scary story, and you're still feeling anxious.

你还没有解决那个问题。

You haven't solved that problem yet.