债务陷阱

所以大部分时间都岌岌可危。

So it was touch and go for most of the time.

然后我们终于回来了。

And then we made it back.

这是一次不错的旅行，虽然有点惊险。

It was a good trip if a little harrowing.

我们不得不为这辆SUV买了大量冷却液。

We had to buy a lot of, coolant for the SUV.

我们回来几周后，正在吃午饭，往外一看，突然听到‘砰’的一声。

And a few weeks after we got back, we were having lunch, and we looked out, and we just heard a pop.

一瞬间，停车场地上全是汽车液体。

And all of a sudden, there was just auto fluid all over the parking lot.

我们的车抛锚了。

Our car had died.

接下来发生了什么，约翰？

What happened next, John?

你们得买一辆新车吗？

Did you have to get a new car?

首先，我们把车拖到经销商那里让他们评估，他们告诉我们，修车要花14000美元。

Well, first, we had it towed to the dealership to have them evaluate it, and they told us, well, it's gonna be $14,000 to fix your car.

所以，很明显，我们不会这么做。

So, clearly, we weren't gonna do that.

于是，该买一辆新车了。

So it was time to get a new car.

于是我们去挑车。

So we went shopping.

但我们不知道的是，当时汽车市场非常紧缺。

But unbeknownst to us, the car market during that time was cars were very scarce.

找一辆车非常困难。

It was very hard to find a car.

所以，仅仅找到一辆车就已经是成就了，更别说还能谈个好价格之类的事情了。

So even just to find a car was, was an achievement, let alone to, you know, be able to negotiate a decent price and that sort of thing.

我明白你们找到了一辆据说极其可靠的车。

I understand that you found a car that was supposed to be extremely reliable.

对。

Right.

在我们的SUV报废后，我们真的很想再买一辆，因为我们很喜欢那辆SUV，但它可靠性不高。

After our SUV had died, we really wanted to and we had loved the SUV, but it was not the most reliable.

所以这次，我们打算选一个以可靠性著称的品牌。

So this time, we were gonna go for a brand known for reliability.

由于汽车极其稀缺，我们看到一辆车刚从卡车上卸下来，就直接说：我们要了。

And because cars were so scarce, we saw them roll one off of the truck, and we literally just said, we'll buy it.

因为那是经销商手里唯一的一辆车。

Because it was the only car that the dealership had.

我明白他们告诉你们，这是一辆人们会传给子孙后代的可靠车型。

I understand that they told you that this was the kind of reliable car that people give to their grandchildren.

所以他们的宣传是，这辆车非常安全，而且能用很久。

So this was a pitch that the car was going to be super safe and last for a very long time.

但在文件处理过程中，他们建议为这辆车增加一些额外的保护措施。

But as the paperwork was coming together, they decided to suggest adding a little protection to the car.

是的。

Right.

当他们试图说服我们买车时，强调的全是安全性和可靠性。

When they were trying to convince us to buy the car, it was all about safety and reliability.

意思是，这种车基本上是毁不掉的。

That this you know, you can't kill these cars, essentially.

所以我们决定购买。

And so we committed to buying.

我们办完了购车的所有手续，接着就开始推销各种附加服务。

We get through the paperwork for buying the car and then came the pitches for all the add ons.

原本说这辆车坚不可摧，现在却变成：如果出了问题，可能会让你经济上崩溃。

And so what was this car is indestructible turned into, but if something goes wrong, it could really ruin you financially.

所以你最好买下这些延长保修、防护涂层和其他所有服务。

So you're gonna wanna buy all these extended warranties and protective coatings and all these things.

你有没有想过，这辆车真的这么可靠吗？

Did you wonder if this car is so reliable?

他们为什么让我买这么多保修服务？

Why are they asking me to buy all these warranties?

是的。

Right.

对。

Yeah.

我当时想，我是不是疯了？

I was I thought, am I crazy?

五分钟前，你还说这车是地球上最好的车。

Like, five minutes ago, you were talking about how this thing was the best car on earth.

现在却说，你得小心点。

And now it was, boy, you gotta watch out.

如果这车坏了，真的会让你大出血。

This thing really could set you back if it breaks down.

所以谈谈这个想法，因为人们购买产品时经常遇到这种情况。

So talk about this idea because this happens all the time when people buy products.

它们被评价为极其安全、极其可靠。

They are rated extremely safe, extremely reliable.

但当人们拿出信用卡付款时，我们常常被建议购买延保服务。

But at the point at which people are pulling out their credit cards, we're often told that we should buy an extended warranty.

我们实际上应该购买保险，以保护汽车免受它自身可能出现的损坏。

We should buy insurance effectively to protect the car from from its own destruction.

约翰，谈谈这种营销所利用的心理因素吧。

Talk about the psychological factors that this kind of marketing is playing on, John.

对。

Right.

有一种现象叫做损失厌恶，对吧？我们对失去的厌恶远大于对获得的喜悦。

So there's a phenomenon known as loss aversion, right, that we hate losing much more than we love winning.

因此，当我们持有的股票或投资在增值时，我们通常会过早地卖出。

And so this is why we typically if we have stocks that or investments that are gaining, we tend to sell them too early.

如果我们有亏损的投资，我们往往会持有不动，因为我们就是不想承认亏损。

And if we have investments that are losing, we tend to hold on to them because we just don't want to lose.

只要我们多等一会儿，它总会反弹回来，那就不是亏损了。

If we just hang around long enough, it'll come back, and it won't be a loss.

这种心理也体现在购买不必要的保修服务之类的事情上。

Well, this also manifests itself in things like buying unnecessary warranties and that sort of a thing.

突然之间，你可能会觉得花几千美元为汽车购买延保似乎也没那么荒谬了，因为对大多数人来说，汽车是他们一生中仅次于房子的第二大开支。

And all of a sudden, you know, buying an extended warranty for however many thousands of dollars of for your car, which might have seemed absurd thirty minutes ago, starts to have some appeal to it because, well, for most people, you know, the car is the second biggest purchase they ever make in their lives behind a house.

所以你不想让它变成一笔亏本的买卖。

So you don't want that to turn into a loser.

因此，你常常愿意承担这些延保带来的额外费用。

So you're willing a lot of times to take on the extra expense of these extended warranties.

我们之前谈过现在自我和未来自我之间的脱节。

We talked earlier about the disconnect between our present selves and our future selves.

你说这涉及到一种叫做支出预测偏差的概念。

You say this plays into a concept called expense prediction bias.

什么是支出预测偏差，约翰？

What is expense prediction bias, John?

支出预测偏差指的是我们生活中支出太多这个事实。

Expense prediction bias goes to the fact that we all have too many expenses in life.

因此，想要在脑海中清晰地把握自己的支出几乎是不可能的。

And so to actually try and keep some sense in your head of what your expenses are is is nearly impossible.

现在，我们能够在脑海中量化所谓的常规支出。

Now we are able to quantify in our heads what they call regular expenses.

常规支出每个月都在固定时间以固定金额发生。

Regular expenses happen at the same time every month for the same amounts.

你的房贷，你会记得的。

So your mortgage, you're going to remember that.

你的电费，你也会记得，因为它们总是在固定时间以固定金额发生。

Your electric bill, you're going to remember that because they happen at the same time for the same amounts.

但我们的大多数支出实际上是不规律的。

But most of our expenses are actually irregular.

对吧？

Right?

汽车维修、旅行、娱乐、医疗保健，这些开销每月都会发生，但时间和金额都不固定。

Car repairs, travel, entertainment, health care, they happen every month, but they don't happen at the same times and for the same amounts.

因此，当我们试图在脑海中量化这些开销时，往往会严重低估实际的支出。

And so when we try and quantify these things in our heads, we massively underestimate what our actual expenses are.

所以，当我们考虑负债或进行需要融资的大额消费时，往往会严重低估自己支付能力。

And so when we're looking at taking on debt or making a big purchase that requires financing, we tend to dramatically underestimate our ability to pay for things.

所以，这与其说是营销人员在对我们施加影响，

So this is not so much something that marketers are doing to us.

不如说是我们自己在对自己造成影响。

It's just something that we are doing to ourselves.

某种程度上，我们高估了自己未来偿还债务的能力。

In some ways, are overestimating our capacity to pay for our debts in the future.

对。

Right.

当我们试图弄清楚这些问题时，所有人都处于劣势。

We are all at a disadvantage when trying to figure these things out.

这并不是因为我们缺乏智慧或背景知识。

And it's not because we lack intelligence or background.

只是要记住的事情太多了，大脑根本无法全部理清。

It's just there's just too many things to be able to keep straight in your head.

所以，如果你试图列出所有开支的明细，你是做不到的。

So if you're trying to make an itemized list of all your expenses, you're not gonna be able to do it.

约翰，在这次对话中，我们反复讨论的一个想法是自我控制。

One idea that we have circled around over and over in this conversation, John, is the idea of self control.

当然，我们以前在《隐藏的大脑》中也谈过自我控制，但请谈谈自我控制如何影响我们应对债务和管理开支的能力。

And, of course, we've talked about self control previously on Hidden Brain, but talk about how self control affects our ability to deal with debt and to handle our expenses.

自我控制使我们能够推迟做出承诺。

So self control is something that enables us to be able to hold off committing to something.

但我们往往把自我控制看作一种稳定的性格特质，而实际上它只是我们当下状态的反映。

But we tend to think of self control as being a stable personality trait when actually it's a reflection of where we are in the moment.

在一天当中，如果我们面临很多复杂的问题或困难，我们的自控力往往会随着时间推移而下降。

Over the course of a day, a lot of times, if we're dealing with a lot of complicated, issues or, you know, facing some difficulties, our self control can actually degrade, over the course of the day.

所以，即使你是一个非常有纪律的人，你仍然会在某些时刻表现出比平时更冲动的行为。

So even if you are a very disciplined person, you still are gonna find yourself in moments where maybe you are more impulsive than maybe you you normally would be.

我了解到有一项研究提到，赌徒在赌场被提供饮品后，他们的行为发生了变化？

I understand there was one study where gamblers were offered a drink at a casino, and it changed how they behaved subsequently?

是的。

Right.

如果你去过拉斯维加斯或任何赌场，人们常说，一旦你开始赢钱，免费饮品就会源源不断地送来。

So if you've ever been to Vegas or to any casino, the adage is that once you start winning, then free drinks start coming to you.

而人们都明白这背后的用意。

And people see that for what it is.

对吧？

Right?

这是一种可能削弱人们判断力、促使他们下更大注的手段。

A chance to maybe degrade people's judgment and have them make bigger bets than they normally would.

但一项研究发现，即使只是提供一杯饮料给饮酒者而他们拒绝了，这种抵抗行为也会损害他们之后的决策能力。

But a study found that even offering a drinker a drink and them saying no, the act of resisting that degraded their decision making, going forward.

我想和你谈谈复利的作用，约翰。

I want to talk about the role of compound interest, John.

我们很多人都在学校或大学里学过复利，但复利总有一种难以理解的感觉，让人很难在脑海中形成清晰的概念。

Many of us have learned about compound interest in school or college, of course, but there's something about compound interest that always feels unintuitive, that it feels difficult to wrap our minds around.

是的。

Right.

常有人把这句话归于爱因斯坦：复利是世界第八奇迹。

There's a there's a quote that's often attributed to Albert Einstein, is compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.

之所以让这么多人感到困惑，是因为利息是对金钱收取的费用，而我们遇到的大多数价格都是一次性支付的。

And the reason why, it's a mystery to so many people is interest is a price on money, and it's most prices we encounter is something that, we incur once.

但复利是对借贷金额持续不断重新计费的。

But compounding interest is a price that is applied to the amount of money that you borrow, and it's reapplied constantly.

随着时间推移，利息一再叠加，其成本会远超我们的预期，呈指数级增长。

And over time, as interest rates are applied again and again, it becomes exponentially more expensive than we would anticipate.

所以大多数人并不理解复利的真正影响。

So it most people do not understand the true effects of compounding interest.

这如何影响我们处理债务的能力？

How does this affect our ability to deal with debt?

因为债务的很大一部分当然都与复利有关，有时你支付的不仅仅是借款本金的利息。

Because so much of debt, of course, is about compound interest, and sometimes you're not just paying interest on the principal that you borrowed.

有时你支付的是利息的利息。

Sometimes you're paying interest on the interest.

没错。

Correct.

所以如果你问，比如说，一个打算买第一套房子的人，假设房子是20万美元，利率是6%。

So if you would ask, let's say, you know, someone who's looking to buy their first house, and let's say it was a $200,000 house, let's say 6%.

如果你问这个人，他们会在贷款上支付多少利息，他们可能会说，嗯，6%，20万美元。

If you ask the person how much interest they would pay on their loan, they might say, well, 6%, $200,000.

好的。

Okay.

那将是12,000美元的利息。

That's gonna be $12,000 of interest.

不对。

No.

实际上，除了20万美元的本金外，你还要支付约23.2万美元的利息。

It's actually about $232,000 of interest on top of the $200,000.

对吧？

Right?

但就像试图预测自己的开支一样，这其中涉及的变量太多，费用被反复叠加，让人很难真正看清自己到底花了多少钱。

But like with trying to predict our own expenses, there's just too many components to it, and the price is applied too many times for someone to have a real grip on how much it's costing them.

你提到过奖励计划的作用，以及它们如何利用我们追求财务目标的本能。

One of the things that you talk about is the role of rewards programs and how they hijack our brain's desire to pursue financial goals.

谈谈这个。

Talk about this.

从航空里程到在本地咖啡店买九杯咖啡送一杯，方方面面都是如此。

Everything from airline miles to, you know, getting the tenth coffee free once you buy nine coffees at the local cafe.

如果我们以买九杯咖啡送第十杯免费为例，研究表明，这种奖励计划不仅会让你对这家咖啡店保持忠诚，而且在你接近获得奖励时，还会让你更频繁地光顾这家店。

So if we're gonna go with the example of, say, a free tenth coffee after you buy nine, research shows on rewards programs that not only will that reward program keep you loyal to that cafe, but you will actually increase the frequency of your visits to that cafe as you approach receiving the reward.

这就是咖啡的情况。

So that's coffee.

但如果我们看信用卡和旅行里程这类奖励，也会发现人们在接近某些里程碑奖励时，比如免费机票，会增加购买次数和消费金额。

But if we're looking at credit cards and say miles for travel and that sort of thing, you also find that people increase their purchases and the the size and frequency of their purchases as they get closer to some milestone rewards, say, like a free plane ticket or something like that.

约翰，你有没有自己这样做的亲身经历？

Do you have a personal example of doing this yourself, John?

在俄亥俄州的零售业，有一家叫Graters的冰淇淋店，我认为现在他们已经在全国扩展了，但最初是从辛辛那提起家的。

I will say on the, retail side in Ohio, there's Graters ice cream, which I think they're nationwide now, but they're from Cincinnati.

他们会在你生日时赠送一份免费冰淇淋。

And they give you a free ice cream on your birthday.

即使我已经吃过冰淇淋蛋糕，完全不饿，我也会特意去Graters吃那份免费的生日冰淇淋，哪怕吃多了会不舒服。

And even if I've already had ice cream cake and I'm not hungry at all, I make such a point of getting to Graters to have my free birthday ice cream even if it makes me ill.

所以，我和任何人一样容易被影响。

So I I am as susceptible as anyone.

所以当我们兑现这些福利时，比如在生日时得到并不想要的免费冰淇淋，或者得到第十杯咖啡，我们会把这些视为意外之财。

So it's interesting when we cash in on these benefits, when you get the free ice cream that you don't want on your birthday or you get the tenth cup of coffee, we view these as financial windfalls.

但事实上，付钱的恰恰是我们自己。

But in fact, we're the ones doing the paying.

确实如此。

Absolutely.

没错。

Right.

但你得到了这份奖励。

But you get this reward.

对吧？

Right?

赢得奖品很有趣。

Winning prizes is fun.

如果从信用卡的角度来看，只要你每月全额还款，这些奖励就没什么害处，但我认为大约三分之二的信用卡持有者都会滚动余额。

Now if you put it in the credit context, these rewards are harmless if you pay your balance off every month, but I think it's like two thirds of credit card holders carry balances forward.

所以，对于一张原本只需200或300美元的往返机票，人们最终却为此支付了数千美元的利息。

So for what would be a 2 or $300 round trip ticket, people end up paying thousands of dollars in interest for it.

我们已经讨论了很多关于我们的大脑在财务决策中如何与我们作对的问题。

We've talked a lot about how our brains work against us when it comes to financial decisions.

但不仅仅是这些偏见在影响我们。

But it's not just that we have these biases.

更重要的是，金钱本身也会对我们产生影响。

It's also that money itself does something to us.

它会改变我们的行为方式。

It changes how we behave.

你曾经做过一项关于荷尔蒙水平与财务状况的研究。

You ran a study once about hormone levels and financial status.

给我讲讲这项研究，以及你的发现。

Describe the study to me and what you found.

好的。

Okay.

我们选取了一组对照组和一组实验组，让所有人提供唾液样本以测量他们的睾酮水平。

So we took, a control group and a treatment group and had everyone give saliva tests to measure their testosterone.

然后，我们让其中一组人只处理与美元钞票尺寸相同的纸堆。

And then one group, we had them handle just stacks of paper in the dimensions of dollar bills.

另一组人则处理成叠的20美元钞票。

The other group, we had them hand handle stacks of 20 bills.

那些接触20美元钞票的人在接触金钱后，睾酮水平上升了。

And the people who handled $20 bills experienced a rise in testosterone when they handled money.

这种睾酮水平的上升使他们更具攻击性、更以自我为中心，也更不愿意向慈善机构捐款。

And that rise in testosterone made them more aggressive and more self focused and less likely to donate to charity.

你认为为什么会这样，约翰？

Why why do you think this happens, John?

为什么接触金钱和接触同样尺寸、同样大小的纸张会产生不同的影响？

Why is handling money versus handling paper that's the same dimensions, same size as money, why does it have this effect on us?

这项研究属于进化心理学领域。

So this study is done in a in a field known as evolutionary psychology.

进化心理学研究那些可能是我们穴居时代就存在的、人类共有的行为。

Evolutionary psychology looks at what are behaviors endemic to humans that maybe go back to when we were living in caves.

当我们生活在洞穴里时，你在群体中的地位越高，获得的资源就越多，你越不需要合作，也越不需要考虑他人。

So when we were living in caves, the more status you had amongst the other cavemen, and women, The more resources flow to you, the less you cooperative you had to be, and the less you had to consider others.

那时候，地位可能主要取决于身体上的优势。

Well, back then, status was probably about, you know, physical dominance.

而现在，地位更多是由经济资源决定的。

Now status is more determined by economic resources.

因此，接触大量金钱的人会经历睾酮水平的上升，变得更加以自我为中心，对他人更不关心。

So people handling large sums of money experience a rise in testosterone, and they become more focused on themselves and less concerned with others.

约翰，你认为大多数人对自己的大脑在处理债务和金钱时是如何运作的，有清晰的认识吗？

Do you think most people have a good sense of how their own minds are working when it comes to debt and money, John?

大概没有，对吧？

Probably not, right?

有很多因素在不知不觉中影响着我们。

There's lots of things that we that influence us without our knowing it.

我的意思是，作为一名研究市场营销并大量阅读相关研究的人，你会看到一些微小的影响，它们会改变人们的偏好和选择，而人们却不愿承认这些影响确实作用于他们。

I mean, as someone who does research on marketing and reads lots of research on marketing, you see things that you know, tiny influences that change people's preferences and choices without them being willing to acknowledge that it does affect them.

所以，当我们谈到跨期贴现时，你知道，你对时间的安排会导致所谓的偏好逆转。

So, you know, if you look at well, when we talked about intertemporal discounting, you know, how you time things can lead to what you call a preference reversal.

在情境A中，人们倾向于第一个选择，但如果你把同一个人放在不同的情境下，他们就会想要不同的东西。

In scenario a, people want the first choice, but you take that same person and you put them in a different context, and they they want different things.

如果你让人们从选项中选出最好的，或者剔除最差的，他们最终做出的选择会不同。

If you ask people to choose the best option versus eliminate the worst options, they end up making different choices.

你知道，在一系列选项中，默认选项通常具有很大的影响力。

You know, what is the default choice within an array of options usually carries a lot of power.

我最喜欢的一个例子是，星巴克推出了特伦塔（Trenta），也就是超大杯咖啡。

One of my favorites was Starbucks introduced the Trenta, I guess, which is the extra large coffee.

但特伦塔的销量并不高。

And it didn't sell a lot of Trentas.

实际上，它反而让原本的中杯咖啡销量大增，因为突然间它看起来像是一个更适度的选择，尽管它的容量仍然是20盎司左右，但因为它不再是极端或最终选项了。

What it actually did was it sold a lot of what used to be the large coffee, because all of a sudden it seemed like a more moderate option, even though it was still 20 ounces or whatever it was because it was no longer the extreme or endpoint option.

他们觉得它很适中，所以更多人开始购买它。

They viewed it as moderate, so more people started buying it.

我的意思是，从某种角度来说，你所说的正是营销人员在利用我们头脑中这些天然的‘小鬼’。

I mean, in some ways, what you're saying is that marketers are taking advantage of these natural gremlins that are in our heads.

是的。

Yes.

我的意思是，我们被迫对许多自己不可能成为专家的事物做出决策并加以评判。

I mean and we are required to make decisions about and pass judgment on things that we can't be experts on.

需要做选择的事情太多了。

There's too many things to make choices about.

因此，我们倾向于寻找一些微小的线索来引导自己的选择，只为了感觉这些选择是有依据的。

And because of that, we tend to look for little signals to guide our choices just so that we feel like it's based on something.

而很多时候，我们抓住的这些微小线索其实是无关紧要的。

And a lot of times, those little signals that we seize on are irrelevant.

能很好地管理金钱，似乎只要具备基本的理财素养就够了，这感觉挺好的。

It's nice to believe that being good with money comes down to basic literacy.

学会计算数字、制定预算，并保持一点自律，你就没问题了。

Learn how to crunch some numbers, make a budget, and exercise a little discipline, and you'll be good.

很多时候，金融素养不足以对抗塑造我们决策的偏见，以及那些懂得利用我们错误的营销人员。

Often enough, financial literacy is not enough to combat the biases that shape our decisions and the marketers who know how to take advantage of our mistakes.

我们回来后，聊聊反击的策略。

When we come back, strategies for fighting back.

你正在收听《隐藏的思维》。

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

我是 Shankar Vedanta。

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

这是《隐藏的思维》。

This is Hidden Brain.

我是 Shankar Vedanta。

I am Shankar Vedanta.

你有没有过这样的经历：以为自己捡到了大便宜，结果却深陷债务？

Have you had an experience in your life where you thought you were getting a great deal only to find yourself mired in debt?

你有没有找到一些方法来保护自己，避免陷入财务困境？

Have you found ways to protect yourself from getting in over your head financially?

如果你有愿意与《隐藏思维》听众分享的个人故事，请找一个非常安静的房间，用手机录一段语音备忘录。

If you have a personal story you'd be willing to share with the Hidden Brain audience, please find a very quiet room and record a voice memo on your phone.

两到三分钟就足够了。

Two or three minutes is plenty.

请通过邮箱 feedbackhiddenbrain dot org 将音频文件发送给我们。

Email the audio file to us using the email address feedbackhiddenbrain dot org.

邮件主题请写：money。

Use the subject line money.

再次提醒，这个邮箱地址是 feedbackhiddenbrain dot org。

Again, that email address is feedbackhiddenbrain dot org.

我们从小被教导，善于理财就是做出明智的选择。

We are taught that being good with money is about making smart choices.

少花多存，避免负债。

Spend less, save more, avoid debt.

在纸面上，这是对的，但现实生活可不是一张电子表格。

On paper, that's true, but real life isn't a spreadsheet.

在他的著作《债务的营销：他们如何让你上钩》中，邓斯莫尔指出，善于理财不仅仅是知道纸上谈兵该怎么做。

In his book, The Marketing of Debt, How They Get You, Dinsmore says that being good with money isn't just about knowing what to do on paper.

它还关乎抵抗那些引诱我们自我破坏的力量。

It's also about resisting the forces that lure us into self sabotage.

约翰，当你买房时，你考虑的不只是它的价格。

John, when you buy a house, you are not only thinking about how much it costs.

你还会考虑房屋检查、维修、当地学校的质量，以及你是否会与新邻居相处融洽。

You are also thinking about home inspections and repairs and the quality of local schools and whether you are going to get along with your new neighbors.

你能谈谈疲惫在我们做出财务错误时所起的作用吗？

Can you talk about the role of exhaustion when it comes to the financial mistakes we make?

是的。

Yeah.

买房大概是这方面最好的例子。

And and housing or buying a house is probably the best example of it.

要做的事情太多了，而且买房是一个人一生中最重要的购买决策之一。

There are so many things to do, and it's such an important purchase in someone's life.

所有这些因素使得这个过程在心理学上被称为一种耗竭性的过程。

All of these things make it what psychologists would call like a depleting process.

对吧？

Right?

事情越复杂，我们需要投入的能量就越多，自我控制出现崩溃的可能性也就越大。

And the more complex something becomes, the more energy we have to dedicate to it, the greater a likelihood that we're going to have a breakdown in our self control.

心理学家唐娜·韦伯斯特和阿里·克鲁格兰斯基将这种现象称为“抓住并冻结”，即我们因为太过疲惫和筋疲力尽，而迫切希望结束整个过程。

The psychologists Donna Webster and Ari Kruglansky refer to this as seizing and freezing, where we basically have a desire to bring the process to a conclusion because we're so tired, we're so exhausted.

是的。

Yes.

所谓‘抓住并冻结’，指的是当你不确定什么才是重要的时，你会抓住某一条信息，然后忽略其他所有信息。

So and what the seizing and freezing refers to is when you're not sure what's important, you will seize upon one piece of information, and then you will freeze out everything else.

因为你太急于解决问题了，所以很多时候你都不愿意考虑那些能帮助你做出更好决策的新信息。

So because you're so glad to bring things to resolution that a lot of times, you're unwilling to consider new information that would help you make a better decision.

我在想，人们买车的时候会不会也发生同样的情况。

I'm wondering if the same thing happens when people buy cars.

你知道，一开始这个过程非常有趣。

You know, the process starts out being very fun.

你开着车兜风。

You're taking the car for a spin.

别人向你介绍车的所有优点。

You're being told about all the nice things about the car.

你感受着新车的质感，闻着新车的味道。

You get the feel of a new car, the smell of a new car.

一切都非常令人兴奋。

It's all very exciting.

但当你花了一个小时体验车有多好玩之后，真正谈判购车的过程就开始了，包括融资条款和其他一大堆事情。

But then after you've spent an hour exploring how fun the car is, the process of actually negotiating the purchase of the car begins, financing terms and a whole bunch of other things.

当然。

Absolutely.

而且很可能，今天你去的这家经销商并不是第一家。

And chances are this was not the first dealership you were at that day.

对吧？

Right?

你已经找了很久，一遍又一遍地重复这个过程。

You've been looking for a while and doing this again and again.

在某个时刻，我意思是，你最终选择的车甚至可能是由于疲惫和自控力崩溃的结果。

And at some point, I mean, it could even be that the car you choose is the result of exhaustion and a breakdown in self control.

但即使不是这样，你也会被推销各种附加产品和选项，你知道，这会让之后做出明智的决定变得越来越难。

But even if it's not, then you get into being offered all of the extras and all of these options, and, you know, it it makes it harder and harder to make good decisions going forward.

当然，绝大多数新车都是贷款购买的，所以你现在还得谈判汽车贷款的条款。

And, of course, the vast majority of new cars are financed, so now you actually have to negotiate the terms of an auto loan.

是四年吗？

Is it four years?

是五年吗？

Is it five years?

是六年吗？

Is it six years?

利率不同。

They're different interest rates.

月供也不同。

They're different monthly payments.

当然。

Absolutely.

如果你没有做足功课——很多人确实没有——那就意味着你可能会接受比实际需要更昂贵的贷款。

And if you, haven't done your homework, and a lot of times people haven't, it means you could take on more expensive loans than you would have to otherwise.

约翰，当我们精疲力尽时，怎样才能抵制住那些我们其实并不想要或不需要的东西呢？

What can we do to resist getting sold something we don't really want or need when we are exhausted, John?

我觉得你可以做几件事。

Well, I I think there's a few things that you can do.

首先，你可以休息一下。

So well, one thing is you can take a break.

你可以推迟。

You can defer.

所以，如果我们以买车为例，当他们开始向你推销各种附加产品时，你可以说：你知道吗？

So if we're going with the car scenario when they start trying to sell you all these add on things, you can say, you know what?

我可以回头再找你吗？

Can I come back to you later?

我们现在先继续，但我可以稍后再回来吗？

Let's move forward right now, but can I come back later?

这会给你一个休息的机会。

This will give you a chance to take a break.

它也会让销售员推迟行动。

It will also put off the the the salesperson.

销售员总会告诉你，你以后还可以改变主意，关于保修或其他任何东西。

The salesperson will always tell you that you can change your mind later about the warranties or whatever.

但与此同时，这能帮你度过这段艰难的销售推销。

But in the meantime, it'll help you just get past that hard sales pitch.

还有另一个方法，就是当你开始感到疲惫，意识到自己一直在关注疲惫感，也许你可以对自己说：天啊，我太累了。

And another thing that you can do is if you're starting to feel, you know, too exhausted and you find yourself focusing on being exhausted and maybe you could go, god, I'm so tired.

对吧？

Right?

很多时候，走出去走走，给自己打打气会很有帮助。

A lot of times, it's helpful just to walk outside and give yourself a little pep talk.

研究表明，你越反复纠结于自己处于虚弱状态，实际上就会变得越虚弱。

Studies have shown that the more you perseverate on being in a weakened condition, the the more weakened you actually become.

但如果你能给自己打打气，告诉自己你能做到，并花点时间调整状态，你就更容易做出更好的决定。

But if you can actually, you know, give yourself a pep talk and tell yourself that you can do this and take a little time to compose yourself, you're gonna make better decisions.

许多复杂的金融交易涉及计算，而很多人讨厌做数学。

Many complex financial deals involve doing math, and many people hate doing math.

有一项研究通过脑扫描观察人们在解决困难数学问题时的大脑活动。

One study looked at brain scans of people as they were doing difficult math problems.

告诉我这项研究发现了什么，约翰。

Tell me what it found, John.

有一项研究对自述有数学焦虑的人进行了功能性磁共振成像，让他们做数学题，结果发现他们大脑中负责威胁检测的区域被激活了。

So one one study did an FMRI of people who claim who said they had math anxiety and asked them to, do math problems, and it lit up the threat, detection centers of their brain.

这就像是他们被老虎追着跑一样，因为一想到要做数学题就感到如此恐惧和不知所措，而如果你在处理财务问题，这确实会是个大麻烦。

So it was like they were being chased by a tiger because they were so intimidated and overwhelmed at the notion of doing math, which if you're dealing with, financial questions, can be a real problem.

我的确经常收到各种文件，而这些文件动辄长达五页。

I mean, I've often received, documentation for various things, and the documentation runs for five pages.

里面满是小号字体和各种数字。

And there's fine print and all kinds of numbers.

某种程度上，你的大脑当机并说‘天哪’，这并不奇怪。

And it's not surprising in some ways that your brain seizes up and says, oh my god.

这正是我最不想读、最不想思考的东西。

This is the last thing I want to be reading and thinking about.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

而且我们都听过那句话：压力让人变傻。

And and we all know the phrase stress makes you stupid.

它并不会真的让你变笨，但确实会限制你的能力。

It doesn't actually make you stupid, but it does limit, your abilities.

你在处理像房屋贷款这样的问题时，能力不如平时。

You're not as capable as you normally would be to deal with, issues like home loans.

约翰，谈谈营销人员如何利用我们对简单性的渴望吧。

Talk a little bit about how marketers take advantage of our desire for simplicity, John.

作为营销人员，如果你想真正突出某样东西，让人们对它理解和记住，通常会把事情尽可能简化。

As a marketer, typically, if you want to really highlight something and get people to understand and remember something, you make things as simple as possible.

对吧？

Right?

而金融产品的定价并不简单。

And pricing for financial products is not simple.

事实上，价格通常包含多个组成部分，比如各种费用之类的。

In fact, there's usually multiple components of price, different fees, and that sort of thing.

因此，债务产品的营销人员有时会先给出一个非常吸引人的价格。

So what marketers of debt will sometimes do is put a very attractive price up front.

因为我们只会接受这个简单的信息，而忽略其他所有内容，所以你可以在详细条款、网站的其他部分，或任何地方看到那些实际上让费用大幅增加的附加条件。

And because we will take that simple piece of information and block out everything else, then, you know, deep in the fine print or other parts of the website or wherever, you'll see all the kickers that actually escalate the the expensive things.

但他们让我们感觉自己理解了某些东西，而实际上我们并没有。

But they will make us feel like we understand something when we actually don't.

换句话说，有人告诉我某产品有0%的优惠利率，于是我只关注0%，而忽略了‘优惠’这个词。

So in other words, I'm told that something has a 0% introductory rate, and I focus on the 0% and not on the word introductory.

对。

Right.

我们会带着0%的印象离开，尽管这仅仅适用于三个月左右，之后利率就会涨到27%或类似的水平。

We will walk away thinking of 0% despite the fact that that's only good for, say, three months, and then it goes up to 27% or something like that.

这和一种叫做‘分项定价’的概念有关吗，约翰？

Is this related to the idea called partition pricing, John?

是的。

Yes.

分项定价是指一个产品包含多个价格组成部分。

So partition pricing is where people where a product has multiple components of price.

对吧？

Right?

所以你可以这样想，如果有人在商场买鞋，看到鞋子标价55美元就可以带回家；但如果你在网上购物，鞋子标价50美元加10美元运费，人们往往会选择那双标价50美元的鞋，尽管实际上要花60美元，因为他们只看到了第一个价格，并以此来记忆。

So if you think of it, if someone is shopping for shoes in the mall and they see that the shoes are $55 to take home, but you're shopping on a website and the shoes are listed as $50 plus $10 shipping, people will often go for the $50 shoes that actually cost them $60 because they see that first price, and that's how they encode it.

他们觉得这比商场里55美元的鞋更便宜。

And they think of that as being cheaper than the $55 shoes in the mall.

所以某种程度上，这有点像魔术。

So in some ways, it's a little bit like a magic trick.

如果你是营销人员，分项定价能让你隐藏商品的真实成本。

If you're a marketer, partition pricing allows you to hide the real cost of the item.

是的。

Yes.

我们通常只能在记忆中编码一个产品的一个价格。

We typically can only encode, one price for a product in our memories.

所以我们只看到那个价格，然后就不再留意其他信息，或者忽略其他因素。

So we see the one price, and then we stop looking for other things or don't take other things into account.

我们如何解决这个问题？

How do we get around this problem?

既然我们有这些局限性——我们只关注眼前的事物，渴望简单，不喜欢做数学计算，我们该如何应对？

How do we, given the fact that we have these limitations, that we focus on things that are right in front of us, we have this desire for simplicity, we don't like to do math, How do we solve this?

我希望能给你一个更吸引人的答案，但答案就是：做计算，付出努力。

I wish I had a more attractive answer for you, but the answer is to to do the math and to do the work.

如果你意识到这些偏见或不足，就更有可能去处理它们，并更好地应对。

If you're aware of these biases or shortcomings, you're more likely to be able to process them and and deal well.

我想到的一项研究是由两位名叫斯滕戈和津曼的经济学家做的。

I mean, one of my one of the studies that I came across was from a couple of economists named Stengo and Zinman.

他们发现，人们支付债务的利率，最大的影响因素是人们在寻找债务产品时投入了多少精力。

And what they found was the price that people pay for debt, the biggest factor is how much effort people put into shopping for debt.

这并不是你的信用评分。

It's not your credit score.

我们通常认为信用评分像是从天而降的定数，就是它了，我们只能接受这个价格，但实际上，这更多取决于你的努力、货比三家以及找到有竞争力的定价。

We tend to think of credit scores as something, you know, that comes down from heaven, and it is what it's gonna be, and that's the price we pay for things, it's it's more about effort and shopping around and finding competitive pricing.

换句话说，如果有人向你提供贷款或按揭，一定要进行价格比较，确保隔壁没有更优惠的贷款选择。

In other words, if someone offers you a loan or a mortgage, make sure that you are doing some price comparisons to make sure that there isn't another loan next door that's that's a better rate for you.

当然。

Absolutely.

我的买房经历其实是，我们当时可能确实有其他选择。

I mean, my story about buying the house, the truth is we probably we did have options.

我们可以货比三家，但我们当时觉得不能这么做。

We could have shopped around, but we felt like we couldn't.

几年后，我们住在俄亥俄州，去重新贷款抵押我们的房子。

Some years later, we're living in Ohio, we go to refinance, our house here.

我们找了一位贷款经纪人，但他最后一刻却想加收1500美元的费用。

And we dealt with a mortgage broker who at the last second wanted to introduce an extra $1,500 fee.

我们直接离开了，因为我们知道得更清楚。

And we just walked because we knew better.

我们是通过惨痛教训才明白的，结果因为离开，找到了利率更低的贷款。

I mean, we had learned the hard way, and we found a mortgage with a lower interest rate as a result from walking away.

你研究过的一种现象叫做禀赋效应。

One of the phenomena that you have studied is something called the endowment effect.

我们之前在《隐藏的思维》节目中讨论过这个话题。

We've talked about this previously on Hidden Brain.

谈谈禀赋效应在债务中的作用，以及消费者该如何应对它。

Talk about the role of the endowment effect in debt and how we can deal with it as consumers.

好的。

Okay.

禀赋效应指的是，我们对失去的厌恶远大于对获得的喜悦。

So the endowment effect, again, we hate losing much more than we love winning.

以《凡尔赛女王》的例子来看，当拉斯维加斯那座大楼的状况开始恶化时，大卫·西格尔的所有合作伙伴都在说：为什么不把这座大楼卖了呢？

So if you look at the Queen of Versailles example, at some point where things start to go south with the tower in Vegas, all of the associates of David Siegel are saying, why don't you just sell this tower?

这能解决我们所有的问题。

This would solve all of our problems.

但他拒绝这么做。

And he refuses to.

这是他的东西。

It's, it's his.

他总觉得它比实际价值更高。

He tends to think it's more valuable than it is.

市场才会告诉你它真正值多少钱。

And, you know, the market will tell you what it's worth.

所以他一直紧抓不放，给所有人带来了巨大的财务压力。

And so he holds onto it and holds onto it, creating lots of financial stress for everyone.

几年后，这座大楼最终被没收了。

And the tower ultimately gets foreclosed upon a couple of years later.

因为这是他的，而且对他来说价值非凡，他就是不肯做出一个对别人来说显而易见、合乎常理的决定——卖掉这个负担不起的东西。

Because it was his and it was so valuable to him, he he wouldn't make what was to everyone else a very obvious and common sense decision of getting rid of this thing that you couldn't afford.

事实上，已经有多项研究证明，即使你给某人一件微不足道的东西，比如一个小饰品、一支笔、一块橡皮，几秒钟内，他们就会开始赋予这支笔或这块橡皮价值，如果要让他们放弃，他们就会要求补偿。

I mean, have been multiple studies that have been conducted that show that if you give somebody even, you know, a trivial thing, a trinket, a pen, an eraser, within seconds, they start to assign value to that pen or that eraser so that if they were to part with it, they would want to be compensated for parting with this thing.

某种程度上，这又是禀赋效应——一旦某物成为你的资产，成为你的财产，你就会竭尽全力地守护它。

And in some ways, it's the endowment effect again, that once you have something that's part of your endowment, part of your property, if you will, you tend to want to guard it zealously.

是的。

Yes.

即使那东西正在耗尽你所有的资源。

And even if that thing is draining you of all of your resources.

对。

Mhmm.

但因为它属于你，你就觉得它比别人认为的更有价值，因此你往往会固守它，尽管你不该这么做。

But because it's yours, you think it's more valuable than anyone else does, and so you tend to hold on to it when you shouldn't.

现在，约翰，你探讨的一个有趣观点是，我们有时可以利用禀赋效应和损失厌恶来为自己谋利，尤其是在退休储蓄方面。

Now one of the interesting ideas you explore, John, is that we can sometimes use the endowment effect and loss aversion to our advantage, especially when it comes to retirement savings.

怎么说？

How so?

因此，我们可以利用许多这些心理现象，反过来运用它们来帮助自己。

So there's an ability to take a lot of these phenomena and kind of turn them around and use them to help you.

对吧？

Right?

有了禀赋效应，当你拿到钱时，就更难放弃这笔钱。

So with the endowment effect, when you get money, it's harder to let go of that money.

所以，如果你在考虑为退休储蓄，一旦钱进入你的账户，如果你必须亲自开支票才能把钱存入储蓄账户或退休账户，你就更不太可能这么做。

So if you're looking at something like saving for retirement, once the money hits your account, if you have to actually then write a check to put money into a savings account or a retirement account, you become less likely to do so.

社会保障计划之所以如此成功，是因为它在人们拿到工资前就直接扣除了用于退休的资金。

The reason why Social Security has been such a successful program is because it is money for retirement taken out of people's checks before they get them.

对吧？

Right?

你可以为自己这么做：通过自动储蓄，无论是孩子的教育基金、你的退休金，还是一般的储蓄，让钱在进入你的账户之前就被扣除。

So you can do this for yourself by having automated savings, whether it's, you know, college fund for the kids, your retirement, or just savings in general, and have the money taken out of your check before it gets to your account.

一旦这样操作，人们就不会像钱进入账户后再花掉那样感到缺失，久而久之，他们会因此存下多得多的钱。

And when that happens, people don't miss the money as much as they would if it had hit their account, and they find that over time, they're able to save a lot of, a lot more as a result.

换句话说，如果我的工资是1000美元，与其让这1000美元先到账，然后再想办法拿出200美元存入储蓄或退休账户，你是在说，最好提前设置好，直接扣掉那200美元。

In other words, if my salary is, let's say, a thousand dollars, instead of having the thousand dollars come to my account and then have to, you know, write a check for 200 to my savings or to my retirement account, What you're saying is it's helpful to set things up so that that $200 gets deducted upfront.

而我只拿到800美元的工资，就不会再把那1000美元当作我应得的财产了。

And I only receive a salary of $800, and I don't think of that thousand dollars as my endowment now.

我觉得它就是800美元。

I think of it as just 800.

大多数人可能都有过这样的经历：你加薪了，心想，好吧。

Probably most people have had the experience of you get a raise and you think, alright.

但我还是在花我所有的钱。

But I'm still going through all my money.

这是因为当钱进入你的账户时，总有一些看似正当的理由让你把钱花掉。

And you it's because when the money comes into your account, there's always something that's, you know, legitimate that's there to have money to be spent on.

是的。

Mhmm.

但事实上，如果钱被存到一个远离你的储蓄账户里，你会想办法用现有的钱过日子。

But the truth is if it's put away in an account, a savings account away from you, you're gonna figure out how to make do on the money that you have.

谈谈身份象征信用卡的作用吧，约翰。

Talk about the role of status branded credit cards, John.

它们是怎么运作的？我们该如何应对？

How do they work, what should we do about them?

如果你回想起美国运通金卡，那是第一张真正意义上的身份象征信用卡，它取得了巨大的成功。

So if you think back to the American Express gold card, which was the real first status branded card, it was a massive success.

它立刻成为了一种文化中的身份象征。

It immediately became this status symbol in the culture.

对吧？

Right?

因此，信用卡营销人员发现，哇。

And so what credit card marketers figured out was, wow.

人们真的很喜欢这些东西。

People really like these things.

随着时间推移，你的大多数信用卡都变成了所谓的钻石卡、蓝宝石卡、白金卡等等。

So over time, most of your credit cards became, you know, diamond or sapphire or platinum or whatever.

我们发现，研究表明，这甚至包括那些信用状况差、资源有限的人。

And what we found what studies have shown is that, and this includes credit cards to people with bad credit with few resources.

研究表明，如果你觉得自己地位低下、经济拮据，但拥有一张身份象征信用卡，你就更倾向于频繁使用这张卡，尤其是在你在意其看法的人面前使用时。

And what studies have shown is that if you are someone who feels like you're lacking status, like having less money, but you have a status branded card, you have a tendency to use this card a lot more, particularly if you're using it in front of people whose opinion of you, you value.

换句话说，我可能实际上付不起这顿昂贵餐厅餐费，但我掏出这张炫目的信用卡，把它放在桌上结账时，感觉非常好。

In other words, I might not actually have the ability to pay for this super expensive restaurant meal, but but I feel good to pull out this flashy credit card and drop it on the table and pick up the check.

当然。

Absolutely.

对吧？

Right?

你正在向周围的人、向那些你在意他们看法的人，传递一个强烈的信号。

It's it's you're sending a strong signal to the people around you, to the people whose opinion you care about.

否则，这不就像拥有一辆法拉利却从不把它开出车库吗？

It would be otherwise you know, would it be like having a Ferrari and never taking it out of the garage?

这是一辆漂亮又迅捷的跑车。

It's a beautiful fast car.

是的。

Yes.

但很多人买法拉利的原因，就是为了让别人看到你开着法拉利。

But a reason for having a Ferrari a lot of times is so that other people can see you in a Ferrari.

而带有身份象征的信用卡与此非常相似。

And status branded credit cards can be a lot like that.

我的意思是，从某种角度看，这真是个精明的营销手段，对吧？

I mean, some ways, it's a genius marketing move, isn't it?

因为它利用了我们内心的一种渴望——希望在他人眼中看起来比实际更富有、更成功。

Because it's taking advantage of this desire we have to look perhaps wealthier and more successful than we actually are in the eyes of other people.

确实如此。

Absolutely.

我的意思是，这是一种典型的愿景营销，针对那些可能没有足够资源，却希望拥有能让人误以为他们有实力的东西的人。

I mean, there's a lot of aspirational marketing, you would call it, right, for people who may not have the resources but who can have this thing that makes it look like they do.

但我不确定信用卡品牌方是否真的深入思考过这个问题，除了觉得人们喜欢这个品牌，就会把这品牌印在每张卡上。

And I I I don't know if branders of credit cards thought more about it other than people like this brand will put this brand on every card.

但随着时间推移，数据应该会向他们表明，那些收入较低的人群，反而更频繁地使用这类信用卡，甚至超出了他们的承受能力。

But over time, the data should show them that, you know, people with lesser means are using these these types of cards more often and and more than they can afford.

你认为人们该如何对待这些带有身份象征的信用卡？

What do you think people should do with their status branded credit cards?

但另一方面，研究也表明，如果你拥有一张带有某种价值型品牌标识的信用卡，比如好市多或沃尔玛之类的，这种效果就会逆转。

Well, the flip side of it is studies have also shown that if you have a credit card that's branded with some sort of value brand, like, say, you know, goodwill or Walmart or something like that, that it reverses the effect.

因此，我可能对白金卡没那么感兴趣，反而更倾向于一张能传达财务明智形象的卡片。

So I'd be be less enticed by a platinum card and more enticed by a card that maybe communicates financial good sense.

你知道吗，约翰，这里有个讽刺之处：我认为最被地位型信用卡吸引的人，往往是那些想要展示自己有地位的人。

You know, there's an irony here, John, which is I think the people who might be most drawn to status branded credit cards are often people who want to show that they have status.

而这可能是因为，在某种程度上，他们觉得自己缺乏地位；而那些真正富裕或生活优渥的人，反而不太需要向自己或他人证明自己的地位。

And it's probably because in some ways, don't feel like they have status, whereas people who actually might be wealthy or or well off might have less need to demonstrate their status either to themselves or to others.

所以，恰恰是那些最需要使用节俭型信用卡的人，却并没有使用它们。

And so precisely the people who need to get the Thrift branded credit cards are not the people who are actually getting them.

没错。

Correct.

是的。

Yeah.

所以，如果你觉得自己缺乏地位，这张信用卡以及它的品牌设计，可能就是你向外界传递地位信号的唯一方式，因此经济条件较差的人会更倾向于选择它们。

So if you feel like you're lacking in status, it may be that this credit card and just the way it's branded may be one of the may be the only, signal of status that you can send out to people so people of lesser means will gravitate towards them.

我们之前谈过乐观偏差。

We talked earlier about the optimism bias.

我们假设未来会比现在更好，因此未来会有更多的钱。

We assume the future will be better than the present, and therefore, we'll have more money in the future.

你说，对抗这种偏差的一种方法是寻找与之相反的例子。

You say that one way to combat this kind of bias is to seek examples that run counter to it.

我们该如何做到这一点呢？

How would we do this?

没错。

Right.

心理学家称之为反事实思维。

So psychologists refer to it as counterfactual thinking.

任何一种偏见，无论是乐观还是其他类型，都有助于挑战自己，去思考与你当前想法相反的情况或例子。

So any kind of bias, whether it's optimism or anything else, what's helpful is to challenge yourself to think of something that is the opposite or like an example that is the opposite of what you're currently thinking.

所以，如果你在想：‘我将来会有大量的可支配收入’，那你不妨问问自己：‘你以前有过可支配收入吗？’

So if you're thinking to yourself, well, I'm gonna have lots of disposable income in the future, you know, ask yourself, well, have you ever had disposable income?

对吧？

Right?

所以这些方法可以帮助你挑战你对未来的看法。如果过去或现在无法为你提供任何与你对未来设想相符的例子，那么这将有助于你以更克制或理性的态度看待事物。

So these are ways to challenge your your notion of the future If the past or the present can't provide you with an with any examples of what you're imagining for the future, well, then that will help you have a more restrained or rational approach to things.

基本的财务知识能帮助我们在这里吗，约翰？

Is basic financial literacy something that could help us here, John?

当然可以。

Absolutely.

我认为大约有25个州已经将财务知识纳入高中课程，这非常好。

I think about 25 states have made financial literacy part of high school curricula, which is great.

财务知识很有帮助。

Financial literacy helps.

知道总比不知道好。

It's certainly better to know than to not know.

另一方面，财务知识的效果会随着时间推移而减弱。

The other part of it is the effects of financial literacy can fade over time.

因此，当你面临重大财务决策时，重新熟悉相关知识或寻求经常处理这类决策的人的帮助，总是值得的。

So it's always worthwhile if you're approaching a significant financial decision to either reacquaint yourself before you do that or to get help from someone who is dealing with those types of decisions all the time.

换句话说，比如你要买房，可以花15美元买一本介绍如何买房的财务建议书。

In other words, if you're buying a house, for example, you know, maybe spend $15 and buy a book that basically says, here are financial tips on how you can buy a house.

对。

Right.

当然。

Absolutely.

另一方面，贷款方每天都处理财务决策。

And on the other side, the lenders, they live in financial decisions.

所以他们天然具有优势。

So they're gonna have an inherent advantage.

因此你需要好好补补课。

So you need to kind of bone up.

即使你已经读过那本书，在做这类决策前重新温习一下也是很有好处的。

Even if you've already read that book, it's good to refresh yourself before decisions like this.

我很好奇，约翰，基于你对财务决策的全部了解，你是否因此在自己的生活中做出了更好的财务选择？

I'm wondering, with all that you have learned about financial decision making, John, have you made better financial choices in your own life as a result?

我所犯过的最糟糕的决定，往往是因为感到无助，或者害怕寻求帮助，我想这也是原因之一。

Well, the worst decisions that I've made often have been because helpless or that maybe I being afraid to ask for help, I think, is part of it too.

我常常说服自己以为自己懂了，但实际上并没有，这种情况经常发生，而且我觉得我不只是个例。

Convincing myself that I understood something when I really didn't, often and I don't think I'm alone.

有时候，寻求帮助确实让人感到尴尬。

It's embarrassing to ask for help sometimes.

但相比之下，是损失三万美元的房贷更尴尬，还是请朋友帮你看看问题更尴尬？

But what's more embarrassing, losing $30,000 on a mortgage or asking a friend to look at something for you?

我们思考金钱时的一个潜在主题，是对怀疑的抗拒。

One of the themes underlying how we think about money is our aversion to doubt.

我们不喜欢质疑自己‘当然十年后收入会更高’这种假设。

We don't like to question our assumption that of course we'll be making more money a decade from now.

我们不愿面对关于自己为梦想家园支付了多少利息的疑问。

We don't want to sit with questions about how much we're actually paying in interest on our dream home.

想到未来汽车维修的费用让人不舒服，于是我们同意了销售员推销的昂贵保修服务。

It's uncomfortable to ponder the prospect of future car repairs, so we agree to the expensive warranty that the salesman is pushing.

我们渴望在金钱、爱情以及生活的许多其他方面获得确定性。

What we crave is certainty in money, in love, and in many other dimensions of our lives.

但有没有一些时候，我们反而应该拥抱自己的疑虑呢？

But are there times we should be embracing our doubts?

我们最近听到了一位名叫苏珊娜的听众讲述的一个感人故事。

We recently heard a powerful story from a listener named Suzanne.

她打电话来告诉我们，有一次她去药房打常规流感疫苗。

She called in to tell us about a time when she went to get a routine flu shot at her pharmacy.

疫情期间，我去药房打流感疫苗。

During the pandemic, I went to my pharmacist for my flu shot.

我看着她，她看起来非常疲惫。

And I looked at her, she looked so tired.

于是我跟她说：你知道吗？

And I said, you know what?

虽然我们有预约，但现在已经很晚了。

Even though we have an appointment, it's late at night.

我肯定是你最后一个病人了。

I'm sure I'm your last patient.

我明天再来吧。

Let me come back tomorrow.

但她却说，不行。

However, she said, no.

不行。

No.

我还有时间。

I've got time.

苏珊娜必须做出一个决定。

Suzanne had to make a decision.

她担心药剂师已经精疲力尽。

She was worried the pharmacist was fatigued.

继续下去明智吗？

Was it wise to proceed?

会不会出问题？

Could something go wrong?

我的直觉是离开。

My intuition was step away.

她当时状态不好，不适合给我打针。

She wasn't in a good place to give me the shot.

但我只想讨好她，不想在那时质疑她帮助我的能力，毕竟我们约好了。

But I wanted to be a pleaser and not contradict her ability to help me out at that time with our appointment.

你可能也经历过这样的时刻。

You've probably had moments like this.

怀疑的声音悄悄渗入你的脑海，让你陷入两难。

A voice of doubt creeps into your mind and you have a quandary.

你应该听从疑虑，还是将其抛在一边，选择确定性？

Should you listen to your doubts or push them aside in favor of certainty?

苏珊决定忽略她的疑虑。

Suzanne decided to ignore her doubts.

她同意留下来打流感疫苗。

She agreed to stay to get the flu shot.

我说，你让我坐下？

And I said, you want me to sit?

她说，不用。

And she said, no.

我可以站在你上面吗？

I can I can just stand above you?

我本来要面对某个方向。

I was gonna face a certain direction.

她把针头扎进了我的肩袖，让我大叫起来。

And she placed the needle into my rotator cuff, which left me screaming.

她说，放松。

And she said, relax.

放松。

Relax.

我感觉我要把针头折断了。

I'm I feel like I'm gonna break the needle off.

她彻底撕裂了我的肩袖，这自疫情以来一直困扰着我。

Well, she completely tore my rotator cuff, which has been a problem that's plagued me since the pandemic.

我尝试了各种医疗干预手段，但情况非常糟糕，导致我行动困难。

And I've done all sorts of medical interventions, but it was a very bad situation that has led me to difficulty.

我们常常被告诉，不要当多疑的多马。

We're often told, don't be a doubting Thomas.

全速前进。

Plunge in full speed ahead.

但有时，暂停一下并倾听我们的疑虑，能帮助我们做出更好的决定。

But there are times when taking a pause and listening to our doubts can help us make better decisions.

我们该如何识别那些疑虑是朋友的时刻？

How can we identify the moments when doubt is our friend?

那就是我们回归的时候。

That's when we come back.

你正在收听《隐藏的思维》。

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

我是 Shankar Vedanta。

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

这是《隐藏的思维》。

This is Hidden Brain.

我是 Shankar Vedanta。

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

无论是在工作还是政治中，我们都倾向于喜欢那些果断、从不质疑自己想法或行为的人。

Whether at work or in politics, we tend to prefer people who are decisive, who never appear to question their own thoughts or actions.

但这总是好事吗？

But is that always a good thing?

在弗吉尼亚大学，Bobby Parmar 研究未知的科学。

At the University of Virginia, Bobby Parmar studies the science of the unknown.

他最近参加了我们一期名为《信任你的疑虑》的节目。

He joined us for a recent episode titled Trusting Your Doubt.

今天，他重返节目，回应听众关于疑虑科学的问题。

Today, he returns to the show to respond to listener questions about the science of doubt.

鲍比·帕马，欢迎再次做客《隐藏的大脑》。

Bobby Parmar, welcome back to Hidden Brain.

非常感谢你邀请我，尚卡尔。

Thanks so much for having me, Shankar.

鲍比，我们在上一次对话中谈到，人类的大脑天生倾向于偏好确定性。

Bobby, we talked in our last conversation about how the human mind is hardwired to prefer certainty.

我们不喜欢疑虑的感觉。

We don't like the feeling of doubt.

为什么我们的大脑会这样构造呢？

Why is it that our brains are built like this?

你知道，对很多人来说，确定性感觉非常好。

You know, for so many of us, certainty feels so good.

当我们能够预测即将发生的事情，当我们掌握了环境，或者我们的思维方式与所处的世界相匹配时，就会产生一种非常美好的感觉。

There's just this great feeling that we get when we can predict what's going to happen, when we've mastered our environment or the way that we think about things matches the world in which we find ourselves.

而确定性需要极少的认知努力。

And certainty requires very little cognitive effort.

大量研究表明，我们认为认知努力是耗费成本且令人反感的。

There's a lot of research that shows that we find cognitive effort costly and aversive.

明白吗？

Know?

付出认知努力几乎会让人感到痛苦。

It almost feels painful to exert cognitive effort.

心理学是一门科学。

Psychology is a science.

与物理学不同，我们没有很多定律。

Unlike physics, we don't have lots of laws.

但我们确实有一条定律，那就是最小努力定律，意思是如果两个选项带来的回报相同，大多数生物都会选择所需努力更少的那个选项——无论是体力还是认知上的努力。

But one law we do have is the law of least work, which is the idea that if there two options and they both have the same amount of reward, most organisms are going to choose the option that requires lower effort, lower physical effort, lower cognitive effort.

你给学生们提供了不同的情境，让他们直面自己的疑虑。

You've given your students different scenarios where they have to grapple with their own doubts.

其中一个是一个思想实验，涉及一名飞行员是否应该被允许驾驶飞机。

One was a thought experiment involving an airline pilot and whether he should be allowed to fly a plane.

谈谈这个情境，以及它对我们理解疑虑和决策的启示。

Talk about the scenario and what it tells us about doubt and decision making.

我们训练学生在不确定性条件下做出更好决策的一种方式，是让他们在大量不同类型的案例中进行练习。

One of the ways in which we train our students to make better decisions under conditions of uncertainty is to give them practice in lots of different types of examples.

因此，这是我们过去用作考试案例或课堂讨论的一个例子：一名航空公司飞行员。

And so this is an example that we've used in the past as an exam case or as a classroom discussion where there's a pilot for an airline.

通过他自身的常规检测，他在个人生活中发现自己携带了亨廷顿病的基因。

And through his own routine testing, in his personal life, discovers that he has the gene for Huntington's disease.

这是一种基本上会导致大脑与肌肉之间神经元萎缩的疾病。

And this is a disease that, basically causes the neurons between the brain and the muscles to atrophy.

因此，有时患者会失去对身体运动的控制。

And so sometimes patients can lose control over their bodily movements.

有时这种情况会逐渐发生。

Sometimes it can happen very gradually.

其他时候，它可能会突然发生。

Other times, it can happen very suddenly.

这位飞行员在社交媒体上公开了这一信息，但随后又删除了。

And the pilot discloses this information on social media and then takes it down.

但作为这家航空公司的领导者，你得知了这件事，现在必须决定该如何处理。

But you, as, let's say, a leader in this airline, learn about this, and now you have to figure out what to do.

你会允许这个人继续飞行吗？

Do you allow this person to continue to fly?

你会让他离开驾驶舱吗？

Do you take them out of the cockpit?

你会制定一些安全措施吗？

Do you put in, you know, safety protocols?

你会如何应对这种情况？

How do you handle a situation like this?

我猜这有点棘手，因为健康信息属于保密信息，对吧？

And I'm assuming it's a little tricky because health information is confidential information, is it not?

当然。

Absolutely.

尤其是关于某人基因的信息。

And particularly information around someone's genetics.

我们有法律禁止在工作场所使用这类信息。

We have laws that prevent the use of that in a work setting.

但法律中有一个漏洞：如果某人在社交媒体上公开了这些信息。

But one loophole in the law is if someone discloses that information on social media.

因此，如果你自愿披露了这些信息，公司是可以使用它的。

So companies are allowed to use that information if you voluntarily disclose that information.

所以现在，从法律上讲，你可以使用这些信息，因为这个人已经在社交媒体上公开了。

And so now you're in a position where legally you can use this information because this person has disclosed on social media.

但从道德上讲，你不确定对飞行员、对公司、对乘客来说，这样做是否正确。

But morally, you're not sure if this is the right thing to do for the pilot, for your company, for passengers.