好奇心害死猫？它还扼杀了我们的幸福

导读:你是否有过分手后偷偷看前任微博？这样的好奇心不仅仅能害死猫，还会扼杀你的幸福。

It was not my finest moment. Perhaps it was my worst. In the aftermath of the end of my first serious relationship, over a decade ago, I read my ex-boyfriend’s email. We’d exchanged passwords when we were very much in youthful love – pre-smartphone, sometimes it was useful to get him to look something up in my account when I wasn’t near a computer, or vice versa – and after the breakup, he didn’t change his password.

那不是我最光彩的时刻，很可能是我最糟糕的时刻。十年前，在我第一段认真的恋爱关系结束的那段时期里，我偷偷看了前男友的邮件。我们在年少恋爱时交换了邮箱密码-那时候还没有智能手机，有时候我不在电脑边上让他用我的账号查看信息比较方便，或者倒过来也一样-分手后，他没有更换密码。（我让他换，他说他应该可以相信我不会偷看他邮件，然而他错了。）

Heartbroken, I snooped daily, compulsively, ignoring the wise advice of a friend who pointed out that the most I would discover was things that would upset me. If my boyfriend wanted to get back together with me – which is what I desperately wanted – he’d tell me. I wouldn’t learn it from an email he’d written to someone else. I knew that. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.

伤心欲绝的我每天抑制不住地去偷看他的邮件，完全不顾好友的建议，他/她说我偷看的结果只能是发现那些让我难过的事。如果前男友想要复合-那是当年的我拼命追求的-他一定会告诉我的。我不可能从他写给别人的邮件里得知。我心里也清楚，但我好像无法控制自己。

Now I know that was because I was only human. A new study published this week by researchers from the University of Chicago and the Wisconsin School of Business demonstrates using science that curiosity doesn’t just murder cats: it murders our happiness. Scientific American sums it up: “The need to know is so strong that people will seek to slake their curiosity even when it is clear the answer will hurt.”

现在我明白了，因为我仅仅是个普通的人类。本周，在由芝加哥大学和威斯康辛商学院研究人员发表的最新研究中，他们通过科学方法证明，好奇心不仅害死猫：它还谋杀我们的幸福。《科学美国人》总结道：“好奇心是如此强烈，以至于人们总要想法设法满足它，即使答案很明显会造成伤害他们也在所不惜。”

In the study, subjects who were faced with the prospect of unpleasant stimuli – small electric shocks, the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard – linked to certain actions were unable to avoid the temptation to do the actions anyway. such is the intensity of our craving for knowledge, our vulnerability to feelings of wonder: we’re willing to injure ourselves in order to satisfy it.

研究中，实验者知道自己将要面对不愉快的刺激-小电击、指甲划过黑版的声音-这些刺激与某种行为相联系（例如敲击钢笔），然而实验者总是无法抵制住做这些行为的诱惑。这就是我们对知识强烈的渴望以及对好奇心的脆弱。为了满足它，我们宁愿伤害自己。

If you’ve never wasted any of your life staring at your ex’s Facebook photos, I suppose you can feel very smug right now. For the majority of us, however, it’s a bit comforting to know that your desire to know whether someone’s new partner is better-looking than you doesn’t just indicate that you’re pathetic and spineless. The urge runs deep, and universal.

如果你从没浪费点时间盯着前任Facebook的照片发呆，我想你此刻一定感到自鸣得意。然而对于大多数人来说，了解到你想知道前任的现任是否比你好看（比方说）并不说明你的可悲和没骨气，还是有点令人感到安慰的。这种欲望会非常深切而广泛。

The trouble, of course, is when that desire is felt and fed in a world where information is available to us in endless, infinite ways. The internet means that there is little impediment to finding the answer to any question that crosses our minds whenever we want it. Or at least, trying to find the answer – though as another recent study revealed, our haste to Google things rather than wait for insights from experts can have a very real and very negative impact on our health.

当然，难题在于当这种欲望在充斥着无穷信息的现实世界被感知和胀大后。网络意味着你几乎可以毫无障碍地找到任何掠过脑海的问题的答案-只要你想要。或者至少能够试着去寻找答案-尽管近期另外一项研究发现，我们动不动就求助谷歌而不是等待专家的深刻见解，这种行为对我们的健康产生了非常真实和负面的影响。

In the sad, secret affair between me and my ex-boyfriend’s email, the study was proven true. My snooping just made me sad, and in one case did some temporary damage to a relationship with a mutual friend who’d written a note to my ex about our split that wasn’t very complimentary to me .

在我偷看前男友邮件这起悲伤又秘密的事件中，研究得到了证实。我的偷窥只能让我更伤心，有次甚至破坏了一个我和前男友共同朋友的关系，因为他发了封邮件和前男友说关于分手的事，而邮件中对我的描述并不是那么友好（当然也不可能友好：他是试图让我前男友感到好过点，而不是我。）

In time, I learned to muster the strength to turn away from other partners’ unlocked phones or computers: sometimes, a true mind-over-matter challenge. The acquisition of painful, troubling knowledge cannot be undone; the things we’d least like to know are the hardest to forget. Out of kindness to ourselves, it’s worth considering whether we really want to read, or look, or ask – sometimes, it turns out, there’s real character and strength in maintaining ignorance. Maybe even bliss.

最终，我学会了控制自我，不再偷看其他伴侣未锁屏的手机或电脑：有时候，这真的是场心灵胜过物质的挑战。曾经受过的疼痛和纠结不会消失；我们最不想知道的也是最难忘记的。出于善待自己的目的，我们确实应该考虑我们是否真的想去阅读、浏览或者向对方询问-有时候，保持无知真的需要力量和勇气，有时，甚至是天赐之福。