15. How Much of Your Life Do You Actually Control?
发布时间 2025-03-30 00:00:00 来源
That wasn't so much a question as a kind of cranky old man observation, so decrancafine me. I want to be cranky with you if that's okay. I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Stephen Dubner. And you're listening to no stupid questions. Today on the show, how much of your life is in your control? My teacher's unfair, the role's picking on me and I get all these marks on my record and then I can't go in the field trip. So why do we procrastinate and how can we stop? I don't want to do that. I really don't want to do that. Angela, my question for you today is I think really hard, but perhaps important enough to wrestle with. Are you up for it? Of course.
这不是一个问题，更像是一个唠叨的老年人看法，所以请不要让我唠叨。我想和你一起抱怨，可以吗？我是安吉拉·达克沃思。我是斯蒂芬·杜布纳。您正在收听《没有愚蠢问题》。今天节目的主题是，你的生活有多少是在你的掌控之中？我的老师不公平，规则针对我，我的记录上有各种标记，然后我就不能参加实地考察了。那么，为什么我们会拖延，又该如何停止呢？我不想那样做，我真的不想那样做。安吉拉，今天我有一个问题要问你。我觉得这个问题很难，但也许足够重要而值得探讨。你准备好了吗？当然。
Okay. This question arose when I was reading Maria Conocova's new book The Biggest Bluff. So Maria, like you, has a PhD in psychology, but she's not an academic, she's a writer. And this book is about her quest to become a professional poker player, starting from scratch. So we made a Frekenomics Radio episode about her book that was called How to Make Your Own Luck. And really what Maria is wrestling with throughout that book is the relationship between luck and skill. She's doing it in the context of poker, but it's easy to extrapolate into our daily lives.
好的，这个问题是在我阅读玛利亚·科诺科娃的新书《最大的虚张声势》时产生的。玛利亚和你一样拥有心理学博士学位，但她不是学者，她是一名作家。这本书讲述了她从零开始成为职业扑克玩家的旅程。所以我们制作了一期名为“如何创造你自己的运气”的弗里科诺米克斯广播节目，探讨她的这本书。事实上，玛利亚在整本书中都在思考运气与技能之间的关系。她是在扑克的背景下进行这番探讨，但也很容易将其延伸到我们的日常生活中。
So here's the passage that made me think of you. There's an idea in psychology, she writes. She's introduced by Julian Broder in 1966 called The Locust of Control. When something happens in the external environment, is it due to our own actions, in other words, skill or some outside factor, chance. People who have an internal locust of control tend to think that they affect outcomes, often more than they actually do. Whereas people who have an external locust of control think that what they do doesn't matter too much. Events will be what they will be. Typically, an internal locust will lead to greater success.
这段话让我想到了你。她写道，在心理学中有一个概念。1966年，朱利安·布罗德引入了一个概念，叫做控制点。当外部环境发生变化时，这种变化是由于我们的自身行为，也就是技能所引起的，还是由于外部因素，比如运气。拥有内部控制点的人往往认为他们能影响结果，通常高估了自己的力量。相反，拥有外部控制点的人则认为自己的行为没有太大影响，事情会自然而然地发生。通常来说，拥有内部控制点的人更容易成功。
People who think they control events are mentally healthier and tend to take more control over their fate, so to speak. Meanwhile, people with an external locust are more prone to depression and when it comes to work, a more lackadaisical attitude. So Angela, my question has two parts. One is it indeed better to generally have an internal locust of control as Maria kind of cover writes. And if so, if I am more inclined toward the external, if I tend to feel life is more happening to me rather than me making it happen, how can I shift to have a more internal locust of control?
认为自己能够控制事件的人通常心理更健康，他们更倾向于主动掌握自己的命运。与此同时，具有外部控制感的人更容易患上抑郁症，在工作方面则表现得比较散漫。那么，安吉拉，我的问题有两个部分。第一，像玛丽亚所提到的那样，拥有内部控制感是否真的更好？如果是这样的话，如果我本身更倾向于外部控制感，即我感觉生活更多是发生在我身上，而不是由我来主导，我该如何转变为更有内部控制感呢？
It's a great passage from a great book, from a great author. So I'm glad to be asked this question. I am going to throw in a bonus answer here. You didn't ask me if I had an internal locust of control. I know where your locust of control is. Yeah, you probably do know where it is. I have an internal locust of control and yes, it is generally a good thing. It correlates positively with just about every life outcome you can think of, you know, income and well-being and not going to jail, etc.
这是一段来自一本优秀著作中伟大作者的话。我很高兴被问到这个问题。顺便说一下，我来给你一个额外的回答。你没有问我是否有内在的控制点。其实，我知道你的控制点在哪里。是的，你可能也知道你自己的控制点在哪里。我拥有内在的控制点，这通常是一件好事。它几乎与生活中的每一个积极结果都有正相关，比如收入、幸福感，以及不犯罪等。
I guess my suspicion, the counter, would be that it might also correlate with things like arrogance and narcissism. In other words, no characteristic that we think of is unabated good all the time, obviously. Well, you're right that it can't be a complete recipe for a good human. And there might be instances in which it could be bad. I am not aware of a lot of research on the downsides of an internal locust of control. In my data, when I measure things that are conceptually siblings to locust of control like growth mindset or self-efficacy or optimism, I don't find negative correlations with good things.
我猜我的怀疑是，另一方面，这些特性可能也与傲慢和自恋相关联。换句话说，我们认为的任何特性都不会永远是绝对的好。你说得对，它不可能是一个成就好人的完整配方，有时它可能会带来不良影响。我并不知道关于内在控制点缺点的很多研究。在我的数据中，当我测量一些与控制点概念上相近的特性，比如成长心态、自我效能或乐观时，我并没有发现它们与积极事物之间的负相关。
Now that might be because I'm studying teenagers and maybe I'm not measuring all the right outcomes. So I would have imagined that your answer would be something long lines of, well, of course you want to have an internal locust of control when you're talking about things that you actually can control. But it's really, really important to acknowledge that despite your best efforts or maybe despite your worst actions, that there's going to be a lot of counter-vailing activity from institutions or society, systemic things, other people and so on, that you can't control.
这可能是因为我正在研究青少年，也许我没有衡量所有正确的结果。我本以为你的回答会是这样的：当然，当你谈论那些你实际上可以控制的事情时，你会想拥有内在的控制感。但非常重要的一点是，要承认不管你多么努力，或者即使你做了一些不好的行动，还是会有很多来自机构、社会、系统性的问题或者其他人的反作用力存在，这是你无法控制的。
So that's, I guess, the answer I was expecting to hear. It sounds like you're saying that the more internal you have, at least for teenagers who you've studied, the better it is, yes? Yeah, I mean, you asked me a really straightforward question, which is, what's the correlation? Is it positive? Is it negative? And the answer is also simple, which is, it's positive. But I think we should move on to the more interesting question.
所以，我想这就是我期待听到的答案。听起来你是在说，对于你所研究的青少年而言，越多的内在因素越好，对吗？是的，你问了一个非常直接的问题，就是相关性是正向还是负向的？答案同样简单，是正向的。但我认为我们应该继续探讨更有趣的问题。
More than thinking about what's the downside, I do think we should think, like, is it a fully accurate view of the world to think that you can control what happens to you? Or are people who are very aware of all the things like luck and social inequality and racism and the list goes on? Is that a more accurate view of the world? The idea of locus of control goes all the way back, as you said, to Rotter in the 60s when he was developing this idea. It was really on the heels of behaviorism, where the idea that you would even have any thoughts in your head, expectations about the future, that didn't really matter, because we were basically all just animals responding in very mechanical ways to stimuli, punishments, rewards, etc. Is that really true?
与其考虑可能的坏处，我认为我们应该思考：认为你可以控制自己的命运，这种观点是否真的准确？还是说，那些对运气、社会不平等、种族歧视等各种因素非常了解的人，他们的世界观更为准确？就像你提到的，这种“控制源”的理念可以追溯到60年代罗特（Rotter）的研究。当时正值行为主义的兴盛期，人们普遍认为，我们的大脑中是否有任何对未来的期待并不重要，因为我们基本上只像动物一样机械地对刺激、惩罚、奖励等做出反应。这种观点真的正确吗？
Is recently the 1960s you're saying that was the standard school of thought? Well, certainly the early 20th century was definitely behaviorism. And it was pretty dominant, and that's why when you have a psychologist like Rotter and then also like Bandura, who is still with us, he's in his 90s and at Stanford, he has a very similar idea called self-efficacy. They wanted to make the point that people are not just lab rats responding to rewards and punishments, they are thinking. And they're projecting into the future and wondering if I do this, is it going to pay off? And so it really was a conception of human nature, which was much more agentic, having agency and having free will and having an influence on your future as opposed to just, oh, when the environment does this, I do that. That's not just like stimulus response.
最近你在说20世纪60年代是这种思想的标准时期吗？可以确定的是，20世纪初确实是行为主义的时代，并且它占据了主导地位。这就是为什么像罗特尔这样的心理学家，和仍在世的班杜拉（他已年届九旬并在斯坦福大学工作）提出类似的观点，叫做自我效能感。他们想要强调，人不仅仅是对奖惩作出反应的实验室老鼠，他们是会思考的。他们会设想未来，考虑如果我这样做，会有好处吗？因此，这实际上是一种对人性的理解，认为人更具有能动性，拥有自由意志，并能够影响自己的未来，而不仅仅是在说，‘哦，当环境这样做时，我就那样做。’这不仅仅是刺激和响应的关系。
May I once again express my surprise? And I would say borderline exasperation at the idea that it wasn't until the early or even mid 20th century that psychologists came to the conclusion that people, as you put it, make sense of their environment and forecasting to the future of thoughts. Because everything we know even about the ancients does not persuade us that people have been thinking about this for millennia? Well, I think what happened is that when behaviorism had its heyday with Skinner at Harvard and the major figures in experimental psychology, all testing lab rats and shocking them and feeding them and seeing how well they could move around, lab rat behavior, I think maybe we did go too far and say, oh, everything is about stimulus and response. Everything is about reward and punishment.
我再次表达我的惊讶，以及近乎无奈的感觉——居然直到 20 世纪初甚至中期，心理学家们才得出结论：人们会理解并预见他们所处环境中的思维发展。因为我们对古人的了解无不表明，人们数千年来就一直在思考这些问题。那么，我认为事情是这样的：在斯金纳和其他实验心理学的重要人物推动下，行为主义曾一度风靡，那时大家都在研究实验室里的老鼠，用刺激、奖赏和惩罚来观察它们的行为和学习能力。或许这导致我们走得太远，认为一切都与刺激和反应有关，一切都与奖赏和惩罚相关。
It was also a little bit of a desire to be like physics, where there were these laws and the laws were very elegant and simple. There were only three variables in the equation. So it's true that probably before this early 20th century movement, most human beings would say as a matter of common sense, of course we have thoughts, of course we have interpretations of reality and hopes and dreams and insecurities and all those things. People’s common sense in what we do. Okay, so Skinner and his cohort made us throw our common sense in the trash for a decade or a few decades maybe? Well, except that Skinner was wrong. It's true that in some ways we are very much reacting to where we've been rewarded, where we've been punished.
这也有一点像对物理学的渴望，因为物理学中有那些优雅而简单的定律，方程中只有三个变量。在20世纪早期的运动之前，大多数人都会从常识角度认为，当然我们有思想，有对现实的解释，有希望和梦想，还有不安全感等所有这些东西。这是人们在日常生活中的常识。那么，斯金纳和他的同事们让我们把这种常识抛弃了十年或者几十年？不过，斯金纳是错的。虽然确实在某些方面，我们的反应很大程度上是根据我们受到的奖励和惩罚。
I think where behaviorism went too far is to say that's all there is. If you paid me a million dollars to eat a bag of black jelly beans, I'll hate it but I'll do it anyway. So everybody responds to incentives and punishments, but to go so far as to think that we're just like lab rats and even lab rats are just like machines. You put an input and then the output comes out. That was not correct. Okay, so you say that generally now for teenagers especially, but for most of us an internal locus of control is desired. You wanted to give somewhere nuance about what that is or isn't. Well, I'll say this in the measures of locus of control. One of the very popular ways to measure it is you give people a forced choice.
我认为行为主义的问题在于它认为那就是全部。如果你给我一百万美元让我吃一包黑色果冻豆，我会讨厌，但我仍然会吃。因此，所有人都会对激励和惩罚作出反应，但如果认为我们只是像实验室里的老鼠，认为老鼠就像机器一样，那就走得太远了。你给一个输入，然后输出就出来了，这种观点是不正确的。
现代而言，对于青少年尤其如此，但对于我们大多数人来说，拥有内在的控制感是理想的。你想要对此有更细致的说法吗？在衡量控制感的过程中，一种很流行的方式是让人们做出强迫性的选择。
Like you get a bad grade on a test. A, you didn't study enough. B, the test was unfair. And this forced choice is supposed to get to your inclinations like in an ambiguous situation where are you biased? Are you biased to think that the outcome was mostly of your own doing or mostly outside of your control? And I just don't want people to come away from this conversation thinking that believing that everything is under your control is a good thing because it's just not. That can't be an accurate worldview and it's kind of obviously a dysfunctional view. Say for example, I have a miscarriage. You don't want to misunderstand that as something that I could have prevented when in almost all cases you can't.
就像你在考试中得了一个不好的成绩。A，你没有足够地学习。B，考试不公平。这种被迫的选择意在探讨你的倾向性，比如在一个模棱两可的情况下，你的偏见在哪？你倾向于认为结果主要是你自己的行为造成的，还是主要由于你无法控制的因素？我不希望大家在这次谈话后觉得相信一切都在自己掌控之中是件好事，因为这确实不是。这种世界观是不准确的，并且显然是一种有问题的看法。举个例子，如果我流产了，你不应该误解为这是我能避免的事情，因为在几乎所有情况下，你是无法避免的。
So I just want to give that nuance, but in the measurement of it you force people into this black or white view in order to reveal their underlying biases. So let's take that experimental situation. Let's say you're the kid and you just did really poorly on a test. You have a choice there. You can assume the test was unfair, the teacher didn't teach it well or that it was more you. So let's say you're taking the external route, right? Bad teacher, unfair, too hard the test it out. You're saying people would benefit from being more internal. How can you move across that border? If you are a 15 year old who gets a C minus on their algebra 2 exam, if your thinking is it's all the teacher's fault, I hate this class, I do think that is not going to be a productive line of thought.
所以我只想表达这种细微差别，但在衡量它时，你让人们只能用非黑即白的方式来看待问题，以揭示他们潜在的偏见。那么让我们考虑这种实验情境。假设你是个孩子，在一次考试中考得很差，你面临一个选择。你可以认为考试不公平，老师没教好，或者更多是因为你自己。假设你选择了外部归因，比如认为是因为老师不好、考试不公平或太难。有人会说，人们应更多地进行内部归因。那么，如何跨越这个边界呢？如果你是一个15岁的学生，在代数2考试中得了C-，如果你的想法是认为这是老师的错，并讨厌这门课，我认为这种思考方式不会带来积极的结果。
I think the most productive thing is to control the controllables. What you want to do is have two categories in your mind. Here are the things that I can control. Here are things that I can't control, but I know there's not an empty column. And therefore, I'm going to choose to allocate my finite amount of energy and attention to those things that are in the column of things I can control. Can you give me an example of a thing that many people might think they can't control, but that you, Angela Duckworth, think you can?
我认为最有成效的做法是控制那些你能够控制的事情。你需要在脑海中分出两个类别：一个是你可以控制的事情，另一个是你无法控制的事情。要记住第二个类别并不是空的。理智地选择将自己有限的精力和注意力用于那些可控的事情上。你能给我举个例子说明哪些事情是许多人认为他们无法控制，但你，安吉拉·达克沃思，认为自己能够控制的吗？
Well, just to extend the 15 year old example, I actually have surveyed lots of kids and I've asked them questions like, what wishes do you have? And kids can write down anything when they tell us like they want to go on the field trip. Well, that was a pre-pandemic wish, but you ask them, what's the obstacle that stands in the way? Why do you think you might not be able to go? And then kids will say, oh, well, my teacher's unfair, they're all picking on me and I get all these marks on my record and then I can't go on the field trip. And that's an example of a situation where like I don't even know this teacher or this situation, it could be true that the teacher does pick on this kid a lot, but I think it is nevertheless beneficial to say, assuming that's all true, is there anything that you have control over that you can then work on?
好的，为了延续这个十五岁的例子，我实际上调查了很多孩子，并问了他们一些问题，比如他们有什么愿望。孩子们可以写下任何东西，比如他们告诉我们想去郊游。不过，这是疫情前的愿望。当你问他们，什么障碍可能阻碍实现这个愿望时，他们会回答说，“哦，我的老师不公平，总是针对我，我的记录上有很多负面评价，所以我不能去郊游。”这种情况下，即使我不了解这位老师或具体情况，可能确实是老师总是针对这个孩子，但我仍然认为反思一下是有益的：假设这一切都是真的，有没有什么是你可以掌控的，然后去努力改进的呢？
And that is a longer conversation. There's usually a pause as the student thinks for the first time like, I don't know what can I do. And then eventually most 15 year olds in my experience are able to say things like, well, I guess I could also do my homework. And then we start to talk about when and where they're going to start doing their homework and why they don't do that as often as they need to. Okay, so do either of those things identifying and thinking through the obstacle and then really pondering what they could do to make the obstacle smaller? Do either of those contribute to a long term, or even a short term change from external to internal locus of control for these kids?
这是一段比较长的对话。通常会有一个停顿，学生第一次思考时可能会想，我不知道我能做些什么。然后，在我的经验中，大多数15岁的学生最终会说类似“嗯，我想我也可以做作业”这样的话。接着，我们会开始讨论他们什么时候、在哪里开始做作业，以及为什么他们没有像需要的那样频繁地去做。那么，这两种行为——识别和思考障碍，以及真正思考他们可以做些什么来缩小障碍——是否会促成孩子从外部控制转向内部控制的长期或短期改变呢？
Yes. I've done some of this with Gabrielle Etngin, the NYU psychologist in our joint work, but also in her more extensive research. What she finds is that when you ask somebody about a wish that they have, and then you first ask them, why do you have that wish? And they tell you all the wonderful things that will happen if they do end up doing better in this class, or if they are, you know, working out more often. And then after people identifying obstacles, should that obstacle be something which is outside of their control gently, but pretty persistently, Gabrielle will bring them back to objects that they can control that might be contributing to their lack of progress on this wish.
好的。我与纽约大学心理学家加布里埃尔·埃廷根（Gabrielle Etngin）在我们的联合研究中做过一些这样的工作，她在她的广泛研究中也有类似的发现。她发现，当你询问某人他们的愿望时，首先问他们为什么有这个愿望。他们会告诉你，如果他们在这个班上表现得更好，或者如果他们更经常锻炼的话，会发生什么美好的事情。之后，当人们识别出障碍时，如果这些障碍是他们无法控制的，加布里埃尔会温和但坚持不懈地引导他们回到那些他们可以控制的事情上，这些事情可能导致他们在实现愿望方面的进展缓慢。
And that has shown in her random assignment experiments to increase goal achievement, because people having identified an obstacle can now make a plan to get over it or around it. And in two-year studies, she's found that, for example, when you do this with people who are trying to eat more vegetables, even over the next two years, they will eat healthier. So it's not just a very quick fix. Let me ask you one last question on this topic. I'm curious about the modern conception of internal versus external locus of control versus the ancients. Obviously, there were a lot of things that were different. There was a lot of science that didn't exist. So you could see how you might be much more susceptible to thinking that things were happening to you two thousand, five thousand years ago than you making them happen.
这在她的随机分配实验中已经证明了可以提高目标的达成率，因为一旦人们识别出障碍，就可以制定计划来克服或绕过这些障碍。在为期两年的研究中，她发现，例如，当你让那些试图多吃蔬菜的人进行这种方法时，即使在接下来的两年里，他们也会吃得更健康。所以，这并不是一个快速见效的方法。让我就这个话题问你最后一个问题。我好奇的是现代对内控和外控的理解与古代有何不同。显然，有很多事情是不同的，当时有很多科学尚未存在。所以你可以看到，在两千年或五千年前，你可能更容易认为事情是发生在你身上，而不是你让它们发生的。
I get that. But do you feel we've perhaps tipped a bit too far in some ways in that many, many people seem to feel that they should be able to have a lot more control driven by themselves, even though there are a lot of other people out there who have their own wants and needs and institutions and society at large limit the ability of any one person to make happen, what they might want to make happen. That wasn't so much a question as a kind of cranky old man observation. So decranca find me. I want to be cranky with you if that's okay. So I do believe that focusing on things that you can control is helpful because what else you get to do. And frankly, the column of things that you can control is never completely empty or rarely so.
我明白你的意思。但你是否觉得，我们在某些方面可能有些过度了，因为现在许多人似乎都认为他们应该能够对自己的生活有更多的掌控。尽管其实还有很多其他人也有自己的需求，社会和各种制度都在限制着任何一个人完全实现自己的愿望。这不是一个真正的问题，而更像是一个老人的唠叨观察。所以请原谅我的唠叨。如果可以的话，我想和你一起唠叨一番。我确实相信，专注于你能控制的事情是有帮助的，因为除此之外你还能做什么呢。而且，说实话，你能控制的事情列表几乎从来都不是空的。
But I do think there's two cautionary notes that I'd like to be cranky about with you. One is, and it's kind of personal, but I'm going to share it. So I used the miscarriage example as a hypothetical, but I did actually have a miscarriage now of two healthy daughters. But I remember calling my mom and saying I had a miscarriage. I'm, I don't know what I said. I was devastated. I'm sure I was crying. And my mom started telling me about things that I should have could have would have done to prevent this miscarriage. And I was like, um, mom, actually just so you know, largely these are not within the mother's control.
我想提出两个需要注意的点，可能会显得有点挑剔。第一个是比较私人化的，但我还是想分享一下。我之前用流产作为一个假设的例子，但实际上我确实经历过一次流产，现在有了两个健康的女儿。我记得当时打电话给我妈妈，告诉她我流产了。我不知道我说了什么，我当时非常伤心，一定是在哭。结果我妈妈开始告诉我，有哪些事情我本可以做来避免流产。我只好跟她说：“妈妈，其实你知道吗，大多数情况下这些是不由母亲控制的。”
And I do think it didn't even occur to her that there could be circumstances beyond my control. So that's a personal note. But let me give you a sort of social science example, which I think is really sobering. So Shuley Allen is a great economist and she did this random assignment study in Turkey, which is her native country. And what she taught kids was basically to have a growth mindset to believe that their abilities could change and to have grit. So she does week long training for teachers and the teachers had a curriculum and then they taught it to these kids.
我确实觉得她甚至没有想到，可能会有一些超出我控制的情况存在。这是我的一个个人感受。不过让我给你一个社会科学的例子，我觉得这个例子发人深省。舒丽·艾伦是一位很出色的经济学家，她在她的祖国土耳其进行了一项随机分组研究。她教孩子们的基本理念是拥有成长型思维，相信他们的能力是可以改变的，并要有毅力。她对教师进行了为期一周的培训，教师们有一套课程计划，然后他们再将这些内容教给孩子们。
And the random assignment experiment was to ask, does that treatment actually change outcomes for the children? And in some ways, they're very similar to what we were just talking about. Yes. In fact, on standardized tests, even I think up to two years later, kids who are taught essentially to believe in their abilities, their destiny, like they actually did better. So so far, it sounds like a fairy tale. So far, it sounds like, yay, yay, internal locus control.
进行随机分配实验的目的是了解这种干预是否真的能改变孩子们的结果。在某些方面，它们与我们刚才讨论的非常相似。是的，实际上，在标准化测试中，甚至在两年之后，那些被教导相信自己的能力和命运的孩子表现得更好。所以，到目前为止，听起来有点像童话故事，到目前为止，听起来像是在说“万岁，万岁，内在掌控感”。
All right. Bring on the villain. Okay. So these same children who now are working harder and doing better academically, they're asked in the study whether they want to share a toy that they've been given as a prize. Do they want to share it with other children? Now if they are told that the other children were in schools where like they weren't part of the same contest, then the kids are just as generous as the kids in the control condition. So far, still fairy tale. But if there's some ambiguity about whether the kids that they would be gifting this to could have maybe earned it on their own, then the kids are more selfish.
好的，现在让反派登场。那么这些孩子，他们现在学习更努力，学业表现更好。在研究中，他们被问到是否愿意分享作为奖励的一件玩具，愿不愿意和其他小朋友分享。如果他们被告知其他小朋友在不同的学校，没有参加同一个比赛，那么这些孩子表现出和对照组一样的慷慨。到目前为止，一切看起来像童话故事一样美好。但是，如果存在一些模糊之处，比如这些他们要分享玩具的孩子是否也有可能通过自己的努力获得奖励，那么这些孩子则会显得更自私。
And one could imagine this at the policy level as a kind of insensitivity to circumstances that are beyond the individual's control. When for example, you're living in poverty and someone says like, you know, if only you'd work a little bit harder. Exactly. It just suggests to me that we have to be very careful in how we encourage kids to think about their agency and their ability to make their lives better because while I do want everyone in the world to believe that there's something that they can do, I definitely don't want anyone in the world to think that there aren't real structural problems that you just don't know about.
可以想象，在政策层面上，这就好比对个人无法控制的环境因素表现出一种不敏感。例如，当你生活在贫困中时，有人告诉你，你只需更加努力。正是这样，我觉得我们在引导孩子们思考他们的主动性和改善生活的能力时必须非常小心。虽然我希望世界上的每个人都相信他们可以有所作为，但我绝对不希望任何人认为不存在你可能不了解的真正结构性问题。
What you're saying really, especially when it comes to policymaking, is that what it really is is an argument for understanding cause and effect better. In all its complexity. Which is something that societally I feel is one of the things that we do quite poorly. Oh gosh. Like horrifically badly. And I blame our beloved media. I blame our beloved politicians. I even blame people like you and me whose jobs it is really to teach people about this because planes we're not doing a very good job.
你真正想表达的意思是，特别是在政策制定方面，我们需要更好地理解因果关系，包括它的复杂性。我觉得在社会层面上，这是我们做得很不够的地方。哦，天哪，简直是做得糟透了。我指责我们心爱的媒体，指责我们心爱的政治家。我甚至指责像你我这样的人，我们的工作本应是教大家这些，但显然我们没做好。
So here's to continuing our extremely uphill battle. Still to come on no stupid questions. Stephen and Angela discuss how to tackle that project that you've been putting off for weeks. So an example would be you're writing a book and it's just over the dread. My stomach hurts the minute you say those words. Stephen I have a question for you. I'll answer it. And I want you to answer it right away. And that is do you procrastinate and if you do why? As Mark Twain once said maybe I mean half the quote is attributed to Twain have nothing to do with Twain but anyway as he may have said why put off till tomorrow or what you can put off till the day after tomorrow.
那么，让我们继续面对这场极为艰难的战斗吧。即将在《没有愚蠢问题》中看到的是，Stephen 和 Angela 将讨论如何应对那些你拖延了数周的项目。比如说，你在写一本书，但一想到这个事情心里就开始发憷。Stephen，我有个问题要问你。我会回答它，我希望你也能马上回答，那就是，你拖延吗？如果拖延，原因是什么？正如马克·吐温曾经说过的，或者说，这句话一半归功于吐温，但其实和他无关，总之，他可能说过，"为什么要把明天的事延后到后天呢？"
So do I procrastinate how much and why? Yes of course I do but much less than I used to. In your calo use. So I think the why and maybe I'm wrong you'll tell me you're the psychologist but the why I think is usually tied to a fear of some kind. It's not a laziness it's not about time management it's more about emotional regulation. Can you give me an example? Yeah for instance let's say I have a week where I have a lot of work that I care about like writing, Frekenomics radio and maybe I'm writing some book chapters or something. So that's the kind of work that over the years I've gotten pretty good at not procrastinating at. But if there's also like a 10 page form that somebody sends me that has to be filled out for media insurance that's the kind of thing that I dread and procrastinate and I think about it's like why it's so stupid it's not that hard although to be fair a lot of paperwork of that sort is written in a way that makes me just want to jump off a bridge because it's painful to read it's so bad and confusing.
那么我是不是拖延很多事情，并且为什么会这样呢？当然，我确实会拖延，但比以前少了很多。这是你的领域，对吧？所以我在想这个“为什么”，也许我错了，你告诉我是你是心理学家，但我认为“为什么”通常与某种恐惧有关。这不是懒惰，也不是时间管理的问题，而更多是关于情绪调节。你能给我一个例子吗？可以，比如说，我有一个星期要处理很多我很在乎的工作，比如写作、做电台节目《Freakonomics Radio》，可能还在写一些书的章节。多年下来，我在这类工作上已经很擅长不拖延了。但是，如果还有那种需要填写的10页媒体保险表格，这是我害怕和拖延的事情，我会想为什么要这样，明明这很傻，这个事情并不难。虽然说实话，许多类似的文书工作写得让人想跳楼，因为它们实在是太难懂和让人困惑了。
But I think the reason that I procrastinate things generally is because they are intimidating or novel and they seem like they are going to be really difficult and painful and in fact once you actually do them they're often not as bad. So that's I think the why and so I'm constantly trying to train myself to rather than procrastinate by keeping something at arm's length at least take a look at it and try to get it in my brain and get it cogitating and get myself to believe that you know what when I do have the time to attack this it's probably not going to be as difficult as I think or as gruesome as I think. So you said that in your youth you procrastinated more was it different than were you actually in part procrastinating because you were just lazy or not good at managing time or has it always been that it's this emotional charge that you're trying to avoid a dread of some kind.
但我认为，我之所以会拖延，通常是因为事情看起来令人生畏或新鲜，看起来会非常困难和痛苦。然而，实际上当你真正去做时，往往没那么糟糕。所以我认为这就是原因。因此，我一直在努力训练自己，不要通过让事情保持距离来拖延，而是至少去看看它，把它放在脑子里思考，并让自己相信，等我有时间去处理它时，它可能不会像我想的那么困难或可怕。你说你年轻时拖延更多，那时候是因为懒惰或不善于管理时间吗？还是总是试图避免某种情绪上的压力或恐惧？
Right. So I think there are two reasons for why I procrastinate less now than I did then one is experience. I mean it's one of the better things about getting older maybe the best thing about getting older is that you actually can look back through your mental file and remember the times that you profited from not procrastinating or suffered from procrastinating and I can definitely think of those. But the other thing that's different now than when I was a kid let's say a student is I just didn't care that much like if you had a 10 page paper to write about something that you didn't care about of course it's more appealing to put it off whereas now the luxury of a being an adult and the super luxury of being an adult who gets to do work that I want to do and I realize that puts me in a really small fraction of humankind.
好的。我认为我现在比过去拖延更少有两个原因。一个是经验。随着年龄的增长，可能最好的事情就是你可以回顾自己的经历，记得那些因为不拖延而受益或因为拖延而吃亏的时刻。我自己就能想到这些。而另一个不同点是，当我还是学生的时候，我并不那么在意。比如说，如果你需要写一篇10页长的论文，而内容又是你不感兴趣的，那么当然更倾向于拖延。然而，现在作为一个成年人，我有特权去做我喜欢做的工作，这让我意识到自己属于人类中很小的一个群体，有这样的选择简直是一种奢侈。
It means that when I sit down to work on something I have a real interest in it and a real drive for it. That said I love deadlines and I need deadlines. Freakinomics radio is a weekly show the finish script which includes the interview sections, the narration sections, all those things. It's usually about eight or nine thousand words. It's the equivalent of writing a book chapter and we do it every week. It's a totally crazy amount of work to do from a reporting and research and production and writing and editing angle. It's too much. But we get it done and I think we get it done only because we have the deadline and that if we didn't have the deadline I personally would be about 90% less productive than I actually am.
这意味着，当我开始处理一件我真正感兴趣的事情时，我会非常投入并充满动力。不过，我喜欢截止日期，而且非常需要它。Freakonomics Radio 是一个每周播出的节目，完成的稿件包括采访部分、旁白部分等等，通常有八九千字，相当于每周写一本书的一章。这从报道、研究、制作、写作到编辑，工作量都非常巨大，几乎让人难以应付。但我们总是完成任务，我认为这完全是因为我们有截止日期。如果没有这个截止日期，我个人的效率可能会降低90%。
So to me I don't procrastinate because I've built systems that make it really painful to do so which is that there'd be a whole bunch of other people around saying what the hell are you doing? Where's that script, etc. Did you ever hear this possibly apocryphal story of Voltaire who apparently had such a problem for procrastination that he gave his clothes to his butler and so he was totally naked and then the butler was only allowed to give him his clothes back if he had written a certain amount of that's what economists and maybe you guys too call commitment devices right you back yourself into a corner.
对我来说，我不会拖延，因为我设计了让拖延变得非常痛苦的系统，比如周围会有很多人在问：“你到底在干什么？剧本在哪里？” 你有没有听过这个可能是杜撰的伏尔泰的故事？据说他有严重的拖延症，所以他把衣服交给他的管家保管，直到他写了一定数量的内容才允许管家把衣服还给他。这类似于经济学家和可能你们所谓的“承诺装置”，也就是让自己无路可退的做法。
So presumably your field of psychology has a great deal to say about procrastination right the harms thereof and maybe even the upsides thereof what can you tell us? Well mostly there are harms so some would argue that procrastination is a form of impulsivity it would have a lot to do with failures to delay gratification in the marshmallow task you're supposed to not do anything now so that you can have two marshmallows later. It's really the same challenge which is are you going to put your future self first or are you going to privilege your present self? So if you will ask me like well what is being a procrastinator correlate with its worse outcomes like lower achievement, lower emotional well-being etc.
所以，我猜你们心理学领域对拖延症有很多见解吧，比如它的危害，甚至可能还有好处，你能告诉我们些什么呢？嗯，大多数情况下存在的是危害。一些人认为，拖延是一种冲动行为，与不能延迟满足感有关。比如在棉花糖实验中，你需要现在不吃棉花糖，这样以后可以获得两个。挑战的是，你会选择优先考虑未来的自己，还是现在的自己？如果你问我拖延与什么相关，那就是更糟糕的结果，比如成就较低、情感幸福感较低等。
It's definitely helpful to get out of a procrastination loop when it is causing you even more harm like you didn't do something and now the fact that you haven't done it is even worse than just the task itself now you're feeling bad about yourself or not doing the task. A classic vicious circle? Yes absolutely all that angst that you're feeling about not getting something done is probably making you an even worse position to do it and I do think by the way that the escape patch from that spinning of your psyche is in some cases letting go of the thing altogether.
当拖延对你造成更大伤害时，摆脱拖延循环肯定是有帮助的。比如，你没有完成某件事情，而现在这种没完成的事实比任务本身更糟糕，让你对自己感到不满或者对没做这件事感到难过。这是一个典型的恶性循环吗？是的，绝对如此。你因为没完成事情而感到的所有焦虑可能让你更加难以完成它。顺便说一下，我认为，有时候要摆脱这种心理上的恶性循环，可能需要完全放弃这件事情。
So I was surprised that you kind of summarily dismissed the upsides of procrastination. Doesn't your friend and pen colleague Adam Grant preach some upside of procrastination vis-a-vis creativity? I recall correctly procrastination is like you're keeping the file open on your desk. So rather than rushing to complete this thing and close it. Yeah you're keeping it in your mind and it reminds me of that idea that our minds are sharper when we know we've got more tasks to do on the horizon. Like the zegarnic effect? The zegarnic effect yeah.
所以，我有点惊讶你轻率地否定了拖延的好处。你的朋友兼同事Adam Grant不是一直宣扬拖延对于创造力的好处吗？如果我没记错的话，拖延就像是你把文件打开放在桌面上。所以，与其匆匆忙忙地完成它并将其关闭，不如让它保留在你的思维中。这让我想起这样一个观点：当我们知道还有更多任务要完成时，我们的大脑会更敏锐。这就像齐加尼克效应，对吧？齐加尼克效应没错。
Yeah that's one of my favorite effects in psychology. Alright so tell us about the zegarnic effect. So the zegarnic effect is named after the I believe Russian psychologist and psychiatrist Bluma Wolfovna zegarnic. Zegarnic was sitting in a cafe or something. It was like really impressed by how many orders the waiter could remember and just seemed to kind of even defy conceptions of what human memory could do. If I recall correctly it was more than just the open orders. It was like who's paid and who hasn't paid who's in a hurry who's not like all these things.
好的，这是我在心理学中最喜欢的效应之一。那么，请告诉我们关于齐加尼克效应。齐加尼克效应是以我记得没错的话，一位名叫布鲁玛·沃尔福夫娜·齐加尼克的俄罗斯心理学家和精神科医生命名的。齐加尼克当时坐在一家咖啡馆里，对服务员能记住这么多订单感到非常惊讶，甚至超出了人们对人类记忆力的理解。如果我没记错的话，她观察到的不仅仅是那些未完成的订单，还包括谁已经付过钱，谁还没付，谁赶时间，谁不着急等等这些事情。
And then after all the meals are served and you asked the waiter okay can you remember what I ordered and she ordered they can't anymore. So it's while the task is unfinished that your memory just like keeps it all and then of course you close the file and then you don't need it anymore. Like I don't remember anything about how to raise a four year old but I apparently did it twice but I don't need to know because guess what they're 17 and 18.
在所有的饭菜都上齐后，如果你再问服务员：“你还记得我和她分别点了什么吗？”他们可能已经记不起来了。这就像任务未完成时，你的记忆还在维持那些信息，但一旦任务结束，你就不再需要这些信息了。比如说，我早已不记得怎么抚养一个四岁的孩子，但显然我已经做了两次，因为现在他们已经17岁和18岁了，我根本不需要再知道怎么养育四岁小孩。
So I for one find that state of unfinished tasks incredibly exciting. One of my favorite parts of every day is fairly early in the morning have some coffee. I try to do some like good reading to start to get some good words in my head and some good ideas and whatever. But then I sit down and start to do some tasks and the tasks are email and scheduling and blah blah blah blah.
我个人认为那些未完成的任务令人感到非常兴奋。每天我最喜欢的部分之一是在早上喝杯咖啡。我会尝试进行一些好的阅读，以便让脑海中充满美好的词汇和想法。但随后我就开始坐下来处理一些任务，比如回复电子邮件、安排日程等等。
What I used to do is try to be very methodical about it make lists with all kinds of reminders and I realized I would take like 15 minutes to write a little to do list and then it kind of wouldn't help that much because I'd have to keep looking at the list and going back and then check it off the list and it made it longer slower less creative and less pleasant.
我过去常常非常有条理地处理事情，给自己做各种提醒的清单。但是我发现写一个小小的待办清单大概要花15分钟，实际上帮助不大，因为我总得反复查看清单，完成后还要返回去划掉，这个过程让事情变得更漫长、更慢缺乏创造性，也不那么愉快。
And then I just started not making a list at all but just keeping it all my head as if you were the waiter. And there's an excitement of having that file open or having those uncompleted tasks. So I do think there's something about the way the mind engages with uncompleted tasks that is appealing and for me borderline intoxicating.
然后我就不再列清单了，而是像服务员一样把所有事情都记在脑子里。心里有个待办事项表或者知道任务未完成，这本身就有一种刺激感。我认为大脑处理未完成任务的方式有某种吸引力，对我来说几乎是一种令人着迷的感觉。
So I can sort of buy this argument from some people maybe that procrastination is a useful creative tool. And that's Adam's argument among others right that when you are not closing the file, you actually have an opportunity to have new ideas, to connect some ideas that have been rolling around in your mind and you realize that they go well together but you needed that extra time.
所以，我可以理解一些人认为拖延症是有用的创造工具这一观点。亚当和其他一些人认为，当你没有立刻结束一个项目时，其实是在给自己一个机会去产生新的想法。你可以把那些一直在脑海里徘徊的点子联系起来，意识到它们其实可以很好地结合在一起，而这通常是需要额外的时间才能实现的。
You sound not enthusiastic about that notion. Well, one of my favorite pastimes is just arguing with Adam. So I usually just start with the contrary position, see where it takes me. But no, I agree. I just wonder about the term. So I would not call that procrastination. Say for example, I'm working on a problem like how do you teach ninth graders how to be nice to each other? I think if I decided, okay, I have time on Tuesday at nine o'clock to think about that problem. I have it all the way to ten o'clock and then that was it.
你听起来对这个想法并不是很热衷。嗯，我最喜欢的消遣之一就是和亚当争论。所以我通常会先持相反的立场，然后看看讨论会把我带到哪里。不过，我同意你的说法。我只是对这个术语有所疑虑，所以我不会称之为拖延。例如，假设我正思考一个问题，比如如何教九年级的学生互相友善。如果我决定在星期二上午九点专心思考这个问题，然后一直到十点，这样做不会算作拖延。
That would result in a dramatically worse solution than if I started thinking about it on Tuesday but then like simmering in the back, almost all good ideas are like this. And therefore we don't want to close the loop or check off the box too early. But I don't call that procrastination. I think when people say, oh gosh, I procrastinate. There's automatically this negative association.
如果我周二就开始思考这个问题，而不只是简单地把它放在脑后，最终的解决方案会好得多。几乎所有好的想法都是这样逐渐形成的。因此，我们不应该过早地就把事情敲定或者草率地完成。我并不认为这叫拖延症。当人们说“哦天哪，我拖延了”时，通常会带有负面的联想。
That's because we are using that word procrastination to refer specifically to times where we regret having delayed and we wish we had done it earlier. Yes. But I think that's the point fully that it's different. The simmering is not procrastination. Well, I think this is all especially relevant to this coming fall. Many students, whatever grade level they're in, are going to be in some kind of asynchronous learning through digital technology environment for the first time in history really. And I think that procrastination, like at some point, please watch this 30 minute video is going to be a real problem. So if psychology has accomplished anything, I would like to think it has accomplished some guidelines for getting things done for setting goals and so on.
这因为我们用拖延这个词特指那些我们后悔曾经推迟，并希望自己能早一点完成的情况。是的，但我认为关键在于它是不一样的，慢慢酝酿不是拖延。我觉得这一点在即将到来的秋天尤其相关。许多学生，无论他们处于哪个年级，都会在历史上第一次通过数字技术环境进行某种异步学习。我认为，拖延问题，比如在某个时间点去观看这段30分钟的视频，将会成为一个现实问题。因此，如果心理学有所成就的话，我希望它已经为完成任务、设定目标等提供了一些指导方针。
So what do you have? Okay. The first tip is to break down a big task into small tasks. Chunk it. Exactly. Chunk. I think of the chunky chocolate bar. Oh, yeah. I don't know if they still make that. You know, I'm afraid to bring up any food I like because we had the rum raisin fiasco a couple weeks ago. That's right. Yeah, I'm coming around on the rum raisin. Okay. So chunking. Let's just use that word. But basically you take a big task and you break it out into a series of smaller tasks.
那么你有什么建议呢？好的。第一条建议是把一个大任务分解成多个小任务。切分任务。对，就是切分。我想到了那种大块的巧克力棒。哦，对了。我不太确定他们现在是否还在生产那种巧克力。你知道的，我都有点害怕提到我喜欢的食物了，因为几周前我们有过一次关于朗姆酒葡萄干的讨论的意外。没错。是的，我开始逐渐接受朗姆酒葡萄干了。好的，我们就用“切分”这个词吧。基本上，就是你把一个大任务分解成一系列小任务。
So an example would be you're writing a book and it's just oh, the dread. And my stomach hurts in the minute you say those words. Right. I mean, it's terrifying, horrifying, so hard. But if you think like today, my job is to make progress on the book. Who wants to do that? But if you say, okay, let me just take this one subtask. Like what I really need to do is review my editor's notes that they emailed me. That's a tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what you really have to do. But I think that works in part because the dread is often because when thinking of an enormous task, you are kind of anticipating the enormity.
可以这样翻译成中文：比如说，你正在写一本书，你感到极度的恐惧。你一想到这件事情，肚子就开始不舒服。这种感觉很可怕、让人害怕，非常困难。如果你想的是“今天我的任务就是在写书方面有所进展”，谁会愿意做呢？但是如果你换种想法，比如说“好吧，我就做一个小任务，我需要做的就是看看编辑通过邮件给我的建议”。虽然这只是你所有任务里的一小部分，但我觉得这个方法有效，因为恐惧往往是因为我们在思考一项巨大任务时，心中预想到了它的庞大。
The enormity. Yeah, the normity, the lack of progress. So Albandura, one of my favorite psychologists. Who by the way, you were just talking about Lucas of control, was very much a pioneer in this idea of human nature as being like a gentick. Albandura did a study of kids. These kids, I think they were like elementary school kids. They were learning math and so their condition was here is all this math and here are all the pages you have to learn, et cetera.
问题的严重性。是的，事情的严峻性和进展的缺乏。阿尔班杜拉是我最喜欢的心理学家之一。顺便提一下，你刚才讨论的控制点这概念，他在这方面是开创者之一。他把人类本性描绘成一种类似于拼图的想法。阿尔班杜拉进行了一项关于孩子的研究。这些孩子，我认为是小学的孩子，他们在学习数学。他们的任务是要掌握所有这些数学知识，并完成所有需要学习的页面，等等。
And the other condition was a sub goal condition where they were given the same exact assignment just framed a little differently. Like this week, do these pages the next week you would do these pages and it was literally the same amount of work and the kids who had this divided up did better. And when I think of my own life, when I end up procrastinating or even when I'm just not making progress on something, I always think, got to do with those kids and the bandura study did. I have to actually start breaking these downs into smaller bites and if I can, I'll do better and if I can't, then it means I probably have to go even smaller.
另一种情况是设置了一个次要目标的条件，他们收到的任务其实是一样的，只是表达方式稍有不同。比如，这周做这些页，下周做那些页。实际上工作量是相同的，但是那些被分成小部分的孩子表现得更好。当我反思自己的生活时，当我拖延或在某件事上没有取得进展时，我总是想到那些孩子和班杜拉的研究。我意识到，我需要把任务分解成更小的部分，这样我能做得更好；如果我还是不能做到，那可能意味着我需要将任务再分得更细。
So especially when I was writing books and even before I wrote books and I was just a student writing and so on. And I was intimidated by the assignment. I would think, you know, I know I need to work on this, but I don't feel like I'm ready or I don't want to. But you know what, I'm just going to pull it up. I'm going to get out the paper, pull up the file on the computer and I'm just going to look at the notes that I made or I'm going to just look at what I wrote yesterday. And then the mind engages and the next thing I know, I've been writing for two hours.
所以，尤其是在我写书的时候，甚至在我开始写书之前，当时我还是个学生，需要完成一些写作任务。我常常会感到有些畏惧，想着我知道需要完成这个任务，但我觉得自己还没准备好，或者说我不想做。但你知道吗，我决定开始行动。我会拿出纸张，打开电脑上的文件，然后看看我记下的笔记，或者看看我昨天写的内容。这样一来，我的大脑就开始投入其中，结果往往是不知不觉中我已经写了两个小时。
And to me, that's just self deception. I'm curious whether you think that's maybe sustainable and a good idea or ridiculous and to be avoided. I do it myself. So therefore, of course, I think it's a wonderful idea. Let's take exercise, not a lot of people are writing books, but almost everyone's trying to exercise. And sometimes when I think, oh, I should do an hour of online Pilates class. It's like, I don't want to do that. Really, really don't want to do that.
对我来说，这就是自我欺骗。我想知道你是否认为这可能是一种可持续并且不错的想法，还是荒谬且应该避免的。我自己也是这样做的，所以我当然觉得这是个好主意。就拿锻炼来说，不是很多人会写书，但几乎每个人都在尝试锻炼。有时候当我想，哦，我应该上一小时的网络普拉提课，但我真的，真的不想去做。
Well, maybe I'll do it four o'clock. Well, maybe I'll do it six o'clock. Well, I guess it's not going to happen today. So I'll do it tomorrow. But here's a tricking of myself that I do that sounds a lot like what you do, which is like, well, I'll just get into this tank top. And like whatever, I could still not do. Once I get into the tank top, I'm like, well, fine. I mean, I could just find the right video. Don't have to do the video. And then you're right. As soon as you do like one minute of an exercise video, it's in a way easier to keep doing the video than to stop doing the video.
好吧，也许我会在四点钟做。再想想，也许我会在六点钟做。算了，看来今天不会做了，那就明天再做吧。不过我有个小窍门，有点像你做的那样，就是先换上背心，然后随便看看吧，尽管我可能还是不去做。但一旦换上背心，我会想，好吧，至少可以看看合适的视频，并不一定要马上做。不过你说得对，一旦开始做一两分钟的锻炼视频，接着做下去实际上要比停止更容易。
So I think this idea of tricking yourself is maybe more about where you're putting your attention. And if you're just putting your attention at the very front end of something, then you're not seeing the enormity, right? So there's all kinds of ways to avoid dread. One is to literally make the task smaller. But another one is to just put your eyeballs at the little front end, which isn't so bad. And then by the time you get into it, you'll be in a different place so that we can be the opposite of Mark Twain. Having said that, Mark Twain wrote a boatload during his life. Gosh, can you imagine what he would have done if he weren't such a procrastinator?
所以，我认为自我欺骗这个想法可能更多在于你把注意力放在哪里。如果你只是把注意力放在事情的开头部分，那你就不会觉得事情很庞大，对吧？有很多方法可以避免焦虑。其中一个方法是实际上让任务变得更小。另一个方法就是只关注事情的开头部分，这样就不会感到那么糟糕。当你真正开始做的时候，你就会进入另一个状态，这样我们就可以与马克·吐温完全相反。话虽如此，马克·吐温在他的一生中写了大量的作品。天哪，想象一下如果他不是那么爱拖延的话，他会做到什么程度呢？
Coming up after the break. A fact check of today's conversation. And now here's a fact check of today's conversations. Steven begins the procrastination conversation by quoting Mark Twain. He never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow just as well. Steven was skeptical about the origins of this quote since so many pithy aphorisms are often falsely attributed to Twain. In this case, the adage was published in the Galaxy magazine in 1870. Twain apparently did author the quote, but in the magazine he comically attributes it to Ben Franklin.
广告之后，敬请期待对今天谈话内容的事实核查。现在，让我们对今天的谈话进行核查。在谈论拖延症的话题时，史蒂文引用了马克·吐温的一句话：“永远不要把今天能做的事推到明天，能推到后天去。”史蒂文对这句话的来源表示怀疑，因为许多精炼的格言常常被错误地归于吐温名下。而这句格言确实是发表于1870年的《银河》杂志中，由吐温创作，但他在杂志中将其滑稽地归为了本·富兰克林的名言。
Angelus says that Voltaire's solution to his issues with procrastination was to have his butler take his clothes and only return them once Voltaire had written a certain amount of text. This is actually a famous story about French poet and novelist Victor Hugo, who authored Les Miserables and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Hugo would strip naked and ask his valet to hide his clothing to prevent Hugo from leaving the house when he needed to write.
Angelus提到，伏尔泰为解决拖延问题的方法是让他的男仆把他的衣服拿走，只有在他写完一定量的文字后才归还。这实际上是一个关于法国诗人和小说家维克多·雨果的著名故事。雨果曾创作《悲惨世界》和《巴黎圣母院》。雨果会脱光衣服，让仆人藏起他的衣物，以防止自己在需要写作的时候离开家。
Finally, Angela was unsure about whether chunky candy bars are still in production. Nestle Chunky is a milk chocolate bar filled with raisins and roasted peanuts. The candy was originally created in New York City in the 1930s, but instead of peanuts, it contained Brazil nuts and cashews. In 1964, Chunky had its own pavilion at the World's Fair, where viewers could observe the candy being made at the aptly named Chunky Square. Angela and Stephen will be happy to know that you can still purchase chunky bars today. That's it for the fact check.
最后，安吉拉不确定厚块巧克力棒是否还在生产。雀巢厚块是一种牛奶巧克力棒，里面有葡萄干和烤花生。这种糖果最初于20世纪30年代在纽约市创制，但当时的配料是巴西坚果和腰果。1964年，Chunky在世界博览会中有自己的展馆，观众可以在一个贴切命名为“Chunky广场”的地方观看糖果的制作过程。安吉拉和斯蒂芬可以高兴地得知，今天仍然可以购买到这种厚块巧克力棒。以上就是事实核查的全部内容。
No stupid questions is produced by Frekenomics Radio and Stitcher. This episode was produced by me, Rebecca Lee Douglas. No stupid questions is part of the Frekenomics Radio network. Our staff includes Alison Craiglo, Greg Riffin, James Foster and Corinne Wallace. Thanks also to our intern Emma Torell for her help with this episode. Our theme song is An She Was by Talking Heads, special thanks to David Byrne and Warner Chapel Music.
《没有愚蠢的问题》是由弗里肯诺米克斯广播电台和Stitcher制作的。这一集由我，丽贝卡·李·道格拉斯制作。《没有愚蠢的问题》是弗里肯诺米克斯广播网络的一部分。我们的团队成员包括艾莉森·克雷格洛、格雷格·里芬、詹姆斯·福斯特和科琳·华莱士。也感谢我们的实习生艾玛·托雷尔对这一集的帮助。我们的主题曲是Talking Heads的《And She Was》，特别感谢大卫·伯恩和华纳查普尔音乐。
Also, if you heard Stephen or Angela drop a reference to a person or a study that you'd like to learn more about, you can check out Frekenomics.com slash NSQ, where we provide links to all of the major references that you heard here today. Thanks for listening. We raise little kids to think like, well why not you pull yourself up by your bootstraps? Why don't you bake your own freaking cake, kid? The Frekenomics Radio Network, the hidden side of everything. Stitcher.
如果你听到Stephen或Angela提到了某个你想了解更多的个人或研究，可以访问Frekenomics.com的NSQ页面，我们会提供今天提到的所有主要参考资料的链接。感谢你的收听。我们从小就教孩子们思考: 为什么你不能靠自己努力成功呢？为什么不自己动手做蛋糕呢？这就是《Frekenomics》电台网络，揭示一切事物的隐藏面。Stitcher。