重构你的现实：第二部分

这里是《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。在1997年的剧情片《美丽人生》中，罗伯托·贝尼尼饰演一位意大利书店老板。他是犹太人，在大屠杀期间，纳粹将他和他年幼的儿子驱逐到集中营。面对污秽与恐惧，这位父亲面临一个选择。

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. In the 1997 drama Life is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni plays an Italian bookshop owner. He is Jewish, and during the Holocaust, the Nazis deport him and his small son to a concentration camp. Surrounded by squalor and fear, the father has a choice.

他可以告诉年幼的儿子真相——他们被邪恶之人抓获，很可能面临死亡；也可以编造一个奇幻故事来掩盖集中营的恐怖。当守卫用德语厉声宣读指令并讲解囚犯将遭受的惩罚时，这位前书店老板向儿子解释说他们只是在玩一个精心设计的游戏。游戏旨在让玩家经历一系列艰难挑战：少得可怜的食物、拥挤的住处，甚至暴力。目标是在这些挑战中生存下来，最好不哭闹也不抱怨。

He can tell his young son the truth that they have been captured by evil people and are likely facing death. Or he can make up a fantastic story to cover up the horrors of the concentration camp. As the guards bark instructions in German and go over the punishments that await the prisoners, the former bookshop owner explains to his son that they are only playing an elaborate game. It's designed to put players through a series of difficult challenges painfully little food, cramped quarters, even violence. The goal is to survive these challenges ideally without crying or making a fuss.

获胜者将得到让小男孩心驰神往的奖品——可以驾驶坦克。一枚奖章！《美丽人生》后来赢得了包括罗伯托·贝尼尼奥斯卡最佳男主角在内的大量奖项。数百万观众聆听着这位勇敢父亲重构现实以帮助儿子在大屠杀中幸存的故事，时而欢笑，时而落泪。

The winner gets a prize that sounds amazing to the little boy. He gets to ride a tank. A medal! Life is Beautiful went on to win a raft of awards including a Best Actor Oscar for Roberto Benigni. Millions laughed and wept as they heard the story of the brave father who reinvented reality to help his son survive the holocaust.

今天的《隐藏的大脑》节目中，我们将继续探讨我们对现实的感知在何时以及多大程度上塑造我们的思维和感受。这是故事的第二部分。如果您还没收听第一集，我强烈建议您先回听。在那期节目中，我们看到了心态如何影响我们的心智。今天要讲的是心态对我们身体的影响。

Today on Hidden Brain, we continue our exploration of when and how much our perceptions of reality shape how we think and what we feel. This is part two of our story. If you haven't heard the first episode, I strongly recommend you go back and start there. In that episode, we saw how mindsets affect our minds. Today, the effect that mindsets have on our bodies.

阿莉娅·克鲁姆最早接触心态概念并非通过心理学，而是医学。几个世纪以来，医学专业人士观察到，当患者得到一位尽职且可信赖的医生帮助时，让病情好转的不仅是医生的治疗手段。患者的预期、对医生的信任，以及医疗艺术中蕴含的仪式感，都会影响治疗效果。如今在斯坦福大学，阿莉娅研究着心态对我们的影响。但她表示，许多研究发现都可追溯至医学领域的这一洞见。

One of Aliyah Krum's earliest introductions to mindsets came not from psychology but from medicine. For centuries now, medical professionals have observed that when patients get help from a dedicated and trusted doctor, it isn't just the doctor's cures that make patients better. The expectations that patients have, their trust in their physicians, and the rituals embedded in the art of medicine all play a role in outcomes. At Stanford University, Aaliyah today studies the effects that our mindsets have on us. But she says many of her findings can be traced back to that insight from medicine.

我们的工作很大程度上受到医学领域关于安慰剂效应研究的启发。如今在医学界，人们认为安慰剂效应只是对假药或虚假治疗程序产生的某种神奇或神秘反应。但仔细想想，这实际上是纯粹相信自已会痊愈、疼痛减轻、焦虑缓解或睡眠改善所带来的生理变化。我们拥有大量关于安慰剂效应的数据，因为它们被认为至关重要——我们需要在每项药物试验中对其进行控制。

Our work, you know, was very much inspired by research in medicine on the placebo effect. And now in medicine, you think about the placebo effect as just sort of this magical or mysterious response to a sham pill or fake procedure. But if you think about it, what's actually going on there is a physical change in response to the pure belief that you are going to heal or feel less pain or feel less anxiety or, have better sleep. And we have lots of data on placebo effects because they're, you know, viewed as being so relevant that we need to control for them in every single pharmaceutical trial.

安慰剂效应在医学界如此广为人知，以至于当有人发明新药时，美国食品药品监督管理局表示，仅给患者用药并显示病情好转是不够的——他们可能因为相信自己会好转而康复（即安慰剂效应）。因此药物测试公司必须将药物分发给两组人，他们都以为自己服用的是真药。但只有一组获得真实药物，另一组得到的是对身体无化学作用的安慰剂药丸。

The placebo effect is so well recognized in medicine that when someone invents a new drug, the Food and Drug Administration says it isn't enough to give the drug to patients and show they got better. They may have gotten better because they thought they would get better. The placebo effect. So companies testing drugs have to give it to two groups of people, both of whom think they are getting the drug. Only one gets the real medication, the other gets a placebo a pill that has no chemical effects on the body.

理论上两组都受到安慰剂效应影响。因此如果研究中药剂组的患者比安慰剂组表现更好，我们就说药物有效。当然，更准确的说法应该是：药物的效果超出了安慰剂效应。在医学的许多不同领域，科学家经常发现前景看好的药物效果并不优于安慰剂效应——服用假药的患者康复数量与服用真药的患者相当。

Presumably, both groups are influenced by the placebo effect. So if patients in the drug arm of the study do better than patients in the placebo arm, we say the drug works. Of course, the more accurate way to describe this would be to say the drug has effects that go above and beyond placebo effect. Across many different fields of medicine, scientists often find that promising drugs fail to do better than the placebo effect. The same number of patients recover when they are given sham medications compared to when they are given actual medications.

因此我们的工作试图超越安慰剂效应，思考这个问题：如果关于治疗的信念确实重要——如果相信这种治疗会有效或有害能影响我们的现实，那么医学中可能还存在哪些其他心态？

So our work has tried to move beyond the placebo effect to try to think about, okay, if our beliefs about treatment matter, right, if the belief that this treatment is going to work, or this treatment is going to be harmful, have an effect on our reality, what other mindsets might be at play in medicine?

其中一种心态与我们如何看待副作用有关。

One of those mindsets has to do with how we think about side effects.

我们还发现，人们对治疗过程中副作用的意义可以持有不同的心态。这一点非常重要，对吧？因为每当使用新药物或疗法时，你都会被告知可能伴随的所有副作用。而人们常常在经历这些副作用时感到担忧，他们会想：这可能有危害，或者治疗不起作用，又或者我的病情特别严重、对治疗有抗性。

What we've also learned is that you can have mindsets about the meaning of side effects the context of a treatment. And this becomes really important, right? Because whenever you get a new drug or therapy, you're told, well, here are all the side effects that's going to go along with that. And what often happens is that when people experience those side effects, they feel like concerned, right? They feel like, oh, maybe this is harmful, or maybe the treatment is not working, or maybe my condition is particularly severe resistant to treatment.

我们意识到在某些情况下，关于副作用的意义可以存在完全不同的心态。例如接种疫苗时，发烧、疲劳或注射部位疼痛等副作用实际上是疫苗正在起效的标志——它正在增强你的免疫系统，让其学习如何应对病毒。因此这些症状并非有害的负面信号，反而是治疗有效、身体变得更强的迹象。

And what we realize is that in some cases, there's a totally different mindset about the meaning of side effects that you could have. For example, when you take a vaccination, the experience of side effects like fever or fatigue or pain at the injection site are actually signs that the vaccine is working, that it is boosting your immune system to learn what it would be like if it were to encounter this virus, and therefore those symptoms are not negative signs of harm. They're in fact signs that the treatment is working and your body is getting stronger.

你们有项研究关注花生过敏，发现治疗心态能改变患者对过敏的认知。Aliyah，请谈谈这项工作。

One of your studies looked at peanut allergies and found that the treatment mindset could change the way patients were thinking about their allergies. Tell me about that work, Aliyah.

是的，食物过敏在美国是个日益严重的大问题。我想很多听众的孩子——或他们自己——可能对花生、坚果、牛奶、鸡蛋等食物过敏。这些过敏症非常折磨人，你需要时刻警惕孩子接触过敏原，甚至可能引发严重反应、过敏性休克，极端情况下会导致死亡。

Yeah, so food allergies are a major problem in The US and it's growing, right? So I imagine a lot of your listeners have children or no children with food allergies, allergies to peanuts or other nuts, milk, egg, so forth. And they're very debilitating, right? You are constantly worried that you're going to have an exposure to the thing that your child's allergic to and therefore you need to go to great lengths to avoid those things. And the presence of that allergen can cause major reactions and anaphylaxis and in some cases even death.

这些过敏症带来巨大焦虑。幸运的是，斯坦福大学的Karinato团队通过临床试验证明，口服免疫疗法能有效帮助儿童对既往过敏原产生耐受性。该疗法本质上是逐步增加过敏原摄入量——比如从微量花生蛋白开始，经过六七个月增至可耐受花生的剂量。

So these allergies cause a lot of anxiety. Fortunately, there are great treatments for them that are being developed. Karinato here at Stanford has done a number of clinical trials showing that oral immunotherapy can be highly effective for getting children to become tolerant to their former allergen. And oral immunotherapy is essentially the process of taking small but gradually increasing doses of the thing you're allergic to. Teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny doses of peanut protein, for example, that gradually increase over six or seven months to the point where then these kids are able to tolerate peanuts.

在与Kari交流时，她透露试验面临参与者招募困难和退组问题，部分原因是孩子出现副作用反应。这很合理——他们毕竟在摄入过敏原。但关键在于，这些反应其实无需恐惧。通过这种可控方式，他们的身体正在学习耐受过敏原，就像健身时的肌肉酸痛。

So I was having a conversation with Kari, and, she confided in us that they were having a lot of issues, either getting people into the trials or, you know, having them drop out, in part because the kids were experiencing side effects. And it made sense, they were taking the things that they were allergic to, and they were having these reactions. But what she shared with us was that they were afraid of these reactions, but they need not be. Because of this controlled method, they were being exposed to them in a way that their bodies were actually learning how to tolerate peanut or the allergen. It was like, you know, if you go to the gym to work out, you might feel some pain or discomfort.

锻炼后一两天感到酸痛是正常过程，正是肌肉变强的必经之路。没有酸痛反而可能意味着没有进步。这让我们意识到：这正是心理学可以介入的领域。

You might feel soreness a day or two after. But that was part of the process. That's how you grow your muscles stronger. If you don't get sore, you're probably not getting stronger. And so that was a real And we thought, this is our realm, right?

于是我们思考：如何借助这种治疗设计干预方案，改善儿童的治疗体验甚至疗效？我们招募了50名正在接受相同7个月口服免疫疗法的儿童青少年及其父母，将他们随机分成两组。

This is psychology. So we thought, what could we do to kind of piggyback onto this treatment, to design an intervention that would help improve the experience and potentially even outcomes of these children going through this treatment? So what we did was we took 50 children, adolescents, and their parents going through the treatment. So they were all getting the same exact treatment. It was this seven month oral immunotherapy, gradually increases of peanuts.

对照组接受常规治疗说明：告知可能出现的副作用，哪些需要警惕就医，哪些无需担心。而干预组则获得我们设计的特殊指导。

And what we did was we randomized half of them into a treatment as usual condition. They were told, you might have side effects. These are the things you need to worry about and seek out extra care. These are the things that are fine. But then we randomized half into our intervention condition.

我们向干预组强调：这些副作用是治疗起效的标志，意味着身体正在变强并建立花生耐受性。我们通过医疗团队的口头指导、修改给孩子的宣传册内容，并让孩子进行心理练习——比如给三个月后的自己写信，告诉他们出现症状时应告诉自己'这是积极的信号'等等。

And that was a condition in which we informed them that these side effects were signs that the treatment was doing its job, that their bodies were getting stronger, and that they were becoming tolerant to peanuts. So we created that mindset through verbal information that the providers and the healthcare teams shared with their patients. We also changed what we put on the pamphlets that were given to the kids. We had the kids, you know, do some exercises where they thought, you know, they wrote a letter to themself three months from now saying, you know, what should you tell yourself when you experience a symptom? And they were to write things like, it's a positive sign and so forth.

因此我们做了许多工作来建立这种心态模式。我们发现，持有症状积极信号心态的孩子在整个治疗过程中焦虑感显著降低。他们的父母焦虑程度也大幅减轻——如果你是有过敏孩子的家长，就会明白这有多重要。这很有趣，但我们还发现他们症状更少，并非在剂量较小的治疗初期，而是在临近治疗尾声时，当他们本应完成治疗并对花生产生耐受性时，那个时间点他们的症状反而更少。

So we did a lot of things to create this mindset. What we found was that the kids with the symptoms are positive signals mindset is that those kids had far less anxiety throughout the treatment. Their parents had far less anxiety throughout the treatment, which if you're a parent with a kid with allergies, you know that this matters. So that was interesting. But we also found that they had fewer symptoms, not early on when the doses were small, but as they were leaving towards the end of treatment, when they were supposed to be done with treatment and tolerant to peanuts, they had fewer symptoms at that point in time.

最引人注目的是，我们发现治疗对他们确实更有效，至少以IgG4水平衡量是如此——这是过敏耐受性的生物免疫标志物。请注意，这里治疗方式完全相同，客观操作完全一致。唯一改变的是他们对症状意义的认知。正是这种心态改变了一切：它让治疗过程更愉快、更易忍受，最终也更有效。

And most interesting of all, we found that the treatment was in fact more effective for them, at least as measured by IgG4 levels, which is a biological an immune marker of allergic tolerance. So this change in mindset, again here, it's same exact treatment, objectively doing the same exact thing. The only thing that changed were their mindsets about the meaning of symptoms. And that mindset made all the difference. It made the treatment more enjoyable, more tolerable, and ultimately more effective.

你认为这种机制有多少实际上与焦虑的本质有关？承受压力是一回事，而为压力感到焦虑又是另一回事。某种程度上，我认为这种心态干预是在缓解部分焦虑。花生过敏治疗的根本挑战并未改变，但你对这些挑战的焦虑感改变了。阿莉娅，你认为这在观察结果中起了多大作用？

How much of the mechanism do you think is actually about the nature of anxiety, which is that it's one thing to be stressed, and it's another thing to be anxious about being stressed. And in some ways, I think what the mindset is doing here is it's relieving some of the anxiety. So you still have the difficulty of the treatment for peanut allergies, fundamental challenges are not changing, but your own anxieties about those challenges are changing. How much of a role do you think that's playing in the outcomes we're seeing, Aliyah?

我认为它确实起着重要作用，但并非决定性因素。我们通过中介模型验证过：焦虑变化能否解释IgG4水平的变化？可能解释部分，但绝非全部。我认为心态的影响是多维度的——正如我们讨论的，它改变注意力分配；如你所说，它改变情感体验（这里表现为焦虑减轻）；同时也改变动机水平。

You know, I think it is playing a substantial role, but I don't think it's making all the difference, right? So it's not just, and we tested this, you look at mediation models or models in which you ask, does the change in anxiety explain the changes in the, IgG4 levels? And it might explain some of it, but it's never all of it. And so what I think is going on here is again, the effects of mindset are manifold, they're multiple. As we talked about, it's changes in attention, and as you've mentioned here, it's changes in affect or emotion, in this case, reductions in anxiety, but it's also changes in your motivation, right?

你会更有动力采取健康行为。他们可能在生活中确实更健康，只是我们未测量这点。最后，它还会引发生理变化。根据预测处理模型，如果你认为身体强健、接触花生会安然无恙，这向身体传递了完全不同的信号——关于需要警惕或优先处理的事项。

So you're more motivated or activated to do healthier things. So they might have actually been more healthy in their life, engaged in healthier behaviors. We didn't measure that, but I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case. And then lastly, it confers changes in your physiology. So based on these prediction processing models, if you think your body is strong, that you're going to be healthy, that you're going to be okay when you're exposed to peanuts, that sends a whole different message to your body about what it needs to freak out about, you know, or prioritize.

坦白说，我们正在深入研究心态如何具体影响生理。焦虑情绪是机制之一，但我们认为还存在更复杂的认知预测机制，将这些预期与身体生理变化联系起来。

And so to be honest with you, we're really just diving down into that question now of like, how exactly does that mindset lead to changes in physiology? And yes, one mechanism is anxiety and emotion, but we also think there's more cognitive prediction relevant mechanisms that connect those predictions to the physiology in the body as well.

我们每天都见证着心理如何影响身体：紧张时双手颤抖，愤怒时四肢面部血流改变，兴奋时心跳加速呼吸急促。这些现象再次证明：心理活动的影响绝不会止步于大脑。

All of us see everyday how the mind affects the body. When we are nervous we might feel our hands trembling. Angry thoughts can change blood flow to our arms and legs and face. Excitement can make our hearts bound and our breath quicken. When we come back more evidence that what happens in the mind doesn't stay in the mind.

您正在收听《隐藏的大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。斯坦福心理学家阿莉娅·克拉姆在大学运动员时期，常年纠结于运动量不足和饮食不当的问题。

You are listening to Hidden Brain. I am Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain. I am Shankar Vedanta. In her days as a college athlete, Aaliyah Crum spent years feeling like she never got enough exercise and also worrying that she was overeating or not eating the right foods.

无论她如何刻苦备战，总觉得自己做得不够。这成为她生活中巨大的痛苦源泉。后来她和数百万美国人一样做了基因检测，想了解两种与运动不足和暴食倾向相关的基因。

No matter how hard she worked to get ready for athletic competition, Aaliyah felt like she was not doing enough. It was an enormous source of unhappiness and dissatisfaction in her life. More recently, like millions of other Americans, the Stanford psychologist sent out for some genetic tests. She wanted to know more about two genes that predispose people to not exercising enough and overeating.

一个是CREB1基因，另一个是FTO基因。FTO基因被认为会通过降低饱腹感增加肥胖风险——携带风险等位基因者进食后更难感到饱足，自然容易过量进食导致体重增加。CREB1基因则通过改变运动生理反应增加风险：携带风险等位基因者在运动时体温更高，心血管效率更低。

One is the CREB1 gene and one is the FTO gene. And the FTO gene was thought to increase your risk for obesity because if you have the risk allele of this gene, you would generally feel less full after you eat. And if you feel less full after you eat, you can imagine you eat more, so forth, gain weight over time, therefore increases your risk for obesity. The CREB1 gene was thought to increase risk for obesity through changing our physiological response to exercise. So people who have the risk allele of the CREB1 gene basically feel hotter, are less efficient cardiovascularly when they exercise.

基本上，运动变得更困难，因此你更不愿意去做。随着时间的推移，你可能会增重，增加肥胖的风险。

Basically exercise is harder and therefore you're less likely to do it. Over time you might gain weight and become more at risk for obesity.

当阿丽雅拿到她的检测结果时，她发现自己拥有一个基因的保护性版本和另一个基因的风险性版本。

When Aaliyah got back her test results she found she had the protective version of one gene and the riskier version of the other.

实际上，我拥有运动基因的保护性等位基因，这对我来说非常合理。我还发现我有食物相关基因的风险等位基因，这也立刻让我觉得很有道理。我开始回想那些我吃了又吃却感觉不到饱的时刻。

I actually had the protective allele for the exercise gene, which made a lot of sense to me. And I also found that I had the risk allele for the food related gene, which immediately made a lot of sense to me. I started thinking back to all those times that I would eat and eat and eat and not feel full.

阿丽雅回想起了她的大学时光。她记得自己是如何不停地运动、运动、再运动。现在这一切都说得通了。她有一个基因变异，使她相对容易并享受运动。而那个让她容易暴饮暴食的基因呢？

Aaliyah thought back to her college days. She remembered how she would exercise and exercise and then exercise some more. Well, that now made total sense. She had a genetic variant that predisposed her to find exercise relatively easy and enjoyable. The gene that predisposed her to overeating?

这也完全说得通。阿丽雅觉得她现在对自己的行为有了解释。然后她停了下来。她是一位心态研究员。这些基因检测真的在告诉她重要的信息吗？

Well that made perfect sense too. Aaliyah felt she now had an explanation for her own behavior. Then she stopped herself. She was a mindsets researcher. Were the genetic tests actually telling her important information?

还是它们只是让她编造故事的方式，让她的心态为她已有的信念找到确认？

Or were they simply a way for her to engage in storytelling to allow her mindsets to find confirmation for her pre existing beliefs?

当你得到这些信息时，你会立刻编一个故事来解释它，对吧？就像我做的那样。就像是，好吧，这说得通。但后来，正如我们讨论的那样，它也改变了我的注意力。我回想起那些证实这个基因档案的经历。

When you get this information, you immediately make up a story that helps explain it, right? You know, like I did. It was like, okay, that makes sense. But then I also, you know, as we've talked about it, it changed my attention. I retrieved experiences that confirmed this genetic profile.

当我得到这些信息时，我开始注意到自己在吃东西的时候，哦，因为我有这个FTO基因的风险，我可能不会感到那么饱。然后我会注意到自己确实感觉不那么饱，对吧？所以你可以开始看到，我也注意到了这些信息是如何影响我的生活，塑造我的注意力，塑造我吃东西时的感觉。我开始变得更加焦虑。哦天哪，我吃东西时会感觉不那么饱吗，等等。

I also, as I got this information, then I started noticing when I was eating, Oh, because I'm at risk for this FTO gene, I'm probably not going to feel so full. And then I would notice myself not feeling so full, right? So you can start to see, and I noticed myself, how this information was influencing my life, shaping my attention, shaping how I felt when I ate. I started getting more anxious. Oh god, am I going to feel less full when I eat, and so forth.

在保护性方面，这也得到了证实。我会出去运动，然后说，哦是的，这说得通。我感觉很好。

On the protective side, it was also confirming. I would go out and exercise and say, oh yeah, this makes sense. I'm feeling good.

她如何分辨自己的感受是因为基因还是因为心态？回答这个问题的唯一方法就是进行一个实验。

How could she tell if the way she was feeling was because of her genes or because of her mindsets? The only way to answer that question was to run an experiment.

为了验证这一点，我们在斯坦福大学招募了参与者进行一项研究，他们被告知将了解自己的基因图谱，特别是能揭示何种运动和饮食方案对他们最有效的信息。在湾区这里，我们毫不费力就招满了人。大家争先恐后想获得这种个性化信息，以帮助判断自己该选择低碳水还是高碳水饮食，有氧还是无氧运动。这首先就很有趣——人们对获取这类信息表现出极大热情。

So to test this in this study, we recruited participants to a study at Stanford, which they were told they were gonna learn their genetic profiles and specifically learn information that would tell them what kind of exercise and diet routines would be most useful. And we had no problem recruiting for this study, at least in the Bay Area here. People were just jumping at the chance to get this personalised information to help them know whether they should have low carb or high carb or, you know, aerobic or anaerobic exercise. So that was interesting first. People were really excited to get this information.

随后我们将参与者带入实验室，让他们进行跑步机测试。这是个高度标准化的测试：他们在跑步机上以舒适配速开始，随后每分钟递增难度，直至无法继续。在此过程中，我们持续测量其心血管能力的生理指标，特别是新陈代谢交换率。

And then what we did was we brought them into our lab, and we had them run a treadmill task. So this was a very controlled treadmill task where they're on a treadmill, they run at a comfortable pace. And then we gradually increase the treadmill each minute up to a point where they cannot run anymore because it's too hard. And during that, we're measuring their physiological measures of their cardiovascular capacity. So we're looking at their metabolic exchange rate.

这实质上是测量他们将氧气转化为二氧化碳的效率。同时我们也监测其通气能力——每分钟肺部能吞吐的空气量。一周后他们重返实验室，被要求重复完全相同的测试。这样我们就能对比其速率、坡度等数据的变化。

So that's essentially how quickly they're able to convert oxygen to carbon dioxide. And we're also looking at their ventilation capacity. So how much air can they pump through their lungs per minute? And then they came back one week later, and they were asked to run the same exact task. So we knew what their rate was, we knew what their incline was, and we had them run it again.

但这次在测试前，我们告知：'根据您的基因图谱，我们有些有趣发现。'此前采集的样本已实际测出其基因构成。虽然我们掌握真实的基因风险档案，但关键点在于——我们并未对所有人如实相告。

Only this time, before they got on the treadmill, we said, We have some interesting information from your genetic profile. We had taken samples earlier and had actually figured out what their genes were. And so we had their actual genetic risk profile and then we told them what it was. But the catch was we didn't exactly do this honestly for everyone.

直白地说，阿莉娅和同事们对部分志愿者撒了谎。某些拥有运动保护性基因变体的人被告知具有风险版本，而有些人则获知了真相。

To put it more bluntly Aliyah and her colleagues lied to some of the volunteers. Some of the people who had the protective version of the exercise related gene were told they had the risky version of that gene. Some were told the truth.

因此保护组中，半数被告知受保护，半数被告知有风险；风险组中，半数被告知有风险，半数被告知受保护。如果...

So you have of the people who are protected, half are told they're protected and half they're told that they're at risk. And of the people who are at risk, half they're told they're at risk and half they're told they're protected. If

若基因真是决定运动耐受力的主因，谎言理应无效。携带运动风险基因的人本应表现出更低运动耐受力。反之若是心态主导结果，谎言就会造成显著差异——那些基因倾向于怠惰却自认拥有强运动基因的人，理应在跑步机测试中表现优异。至此，阿莉娅的发现想必不会令你惊讶。

genes were primarily responsible for how much people were able to tolerate exercise, the lie should have had no effect. People with the risky version of the exercise related gene should have been able to tolerate less strenuous workouts. On the other hand, if mindsets were responsible for outcomes, you would expect that the lie would make a big difference. People with the form of the gene that predisposed them to inactivity but who thought they had the gene that allowed them to work out hard would score well on the treadmill task. By this point, you're not going to be surprised at what Aliyah found.

我们发现这些信息改变了受试者在相同测试中的生理反应，且变化方向与被告知的风险信息一致。那些被告知有风险的人——无论实际是否高危——其氧碳转化效率和每分钟通气量确实下降了。具体而言，通气量较自身基线水平减少了每分钟两升，幅度显著。相同的人在相同任务中，仅因被告知的内容不同，就产生了生理反应的改变。

What we found was that that information changed their physiology on the same exact treadmill task in ways that conferred the risk information that was given to them. So people who were told they were at risk, regardless of whether or not they were at risk, actually reduced the rate at which they were able to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide and reduced the amount of air they were able to produce through their lungs. In fact, well, that was a reduction of two liters per minute, which is a significant amount, compared to their own baseline levels. So, the same people doing the same task, simply based on what they were told, changed how they responded, physiologically in this case.

我必须在此强调：并非只是自认基因不良者减少了运动强度，而是他们实际表现比一周前自身水平更差。基因信息非但没带来解放性的认知，反而成了束缚他们的牢笼。

I need to stop here to underline this. It wasn't just that people who thought they had bad genes started exercising less hard. They were able to exercise less hard than they themselves had done one week earlier. The genetic information had not provided them with insight that liberated them. It had put them in a box.

由于心态恶化，他们的肺部功能确实衰退了。当阿莉娅向志愿者透露所谓'暴食倾向基因'时，完全相同的现象再次上演。

Their lungs performed less well because their mindsets had changed for the worse. The exact same thing happened when Aaliyah told volunteers about a gene that predisposed people to overeating.

于是我们设计了一项类似的研究，但针对的是FTO基因。在这个实验中，参与者来到实验室，进行了基因检测，然后喝了一杯奶昔。他们能参与奶昔研究比运动研究更幸运些。喝完奶昔后，我们测量了与饱腹感相关的肠道肽的血液样本。我们先测了基线值，一周后他们回来喝完全相同的奶昔，而在饮用前，我们向他们提供了关于FTO基因及其所带来风险的信息。

So we ran a similar designed study but with the FTO gene. In this paradigm, they came to the lab, they did the genetic test, then they drank a milkshake. They were more lucky to be in the milkshake study than the exercise study. They drank a milkshake, and we measured blood samples of a gut peptide that's related to satiety. And we measured them at baseline, and then they came back one week later, drank the same exact milkshake, and here again, immediately before drinking that milkshake, we gave them their information about the FTO gene and the risk that that conferred.

你们发现了什么？

And what did you find?

是的，我们再次发现，了解自己的基因风险改变了他们的血液指标，比如这种促进饱腹感的肠道肽激素水平，其变化方式正体现了那种风险。

Yeah, and here again, we found that learning their genetic risk changed their blood levels, like their gut peptide levels of this satiety inducing hormone in ways that conferred that risk.

如我所说，数百万美国人做过基因检测。当检测结果能让他们对多种疾病采取预防措施时，这显然是好事。但也有许多人收到关于某些基因的坏消息——他们对此无能为力的坏消息。这类信息是否可能重塑他们的心态和身体，使其向更糟的方向发展？

Millions of Americans, as I said, have taken genetic tests. In cases where those tests have allowed them to take protective measures against various medical ailments that's obviously a good thing. But lots of people have also received bad news about various genes. Bad news that they can do nothing about. What are the risks this information has reshaped their mindsets and their bodies for the worse?

在另一项研究中，阿莉娅发现，如果说有些人因相信自己不适合运动而受到伤害，那么另一些人——比如大学时期的阿莉娅自己——则深受'运动不足'观念的影响，即便他们实际运动量足够。

In another study Aliyah has found that if there are some people hurt by believing they are not cut out for exercise others like Aliyah herself in college are affected by the belief that they are not getting enough exercise even when they are.

没错，这个研究的灵感其实来自我的本科导师、哈佛大学的埃伦·兰格教授。当时我在打冰球，我们常讨论那种'永远运动不够'的感觉。有天我记得带着这个问题参加兰格的实验室会议，告诉她我刚训练完就来参会。她立刻说：‘运动？那不就是安慰剂效应嘛。’兰格就是这样的人——既爱挑衅又充满智慧。

Yeah the idea for this study actually came from Professor Ellen Langer who was a mentor of mine, as an undergrad at Harvard. And this was when I was playing hockey, and as we talked about having that feeling of never getting enough exercise. And I remember going to a lab meeting one day with Ellen, and, you know, I sort of told her that I was on the hockey team, and then I had just come from a workout or something, and she was like, Oh, exercise, you know, that's just a placebo effect, Right? And Ellen Ellen was like this. She's one of these people who's very provocative, but also very wise.

那句话让我震惊不已，心想：等等，运动不是安慰剂吧？这事很严肃的。你做什么运动、做多少，都很重要，不是吗？

And I remember that phrase, that saying just sort of shocking me. I was like, Wait, what? Exercise is not a placebo? This is very serious. Know, what you're doing and how much you're doing, it matters, right?

当时我就愣住了。我们早就知道药物效果部分源于安慰剂效应——人们对药物的信念。如今社会已转向依赖行为医学：运动、饮食、减压来改善健康。既然如此，为什么安慰剂效应——或者说信念效应——不会同样影响运动、饮食和减压等健康行为的益处呢？仔细想想，这观点其实并不离谱，只是此前无人研究。

And that was like, Woah, wait a second. You know, we've learned, we know very well that the effects of drugs are in part driven by placebos, by the belief in them. And we've shifted as a society towards relying on behavioral medicine, exercise, diet, reducing stress, to improve our health, why wouldn't it be the case that the placebo like effect, the placebo effect, if you will, or the belief effect, why wouldn't it play a role too in determining the benefit of health behaviors like exercise, diet, and stress? So when I started to think about it, I realized this wasn't such an outrageous thing to say. But nobody had looked into that.

难点在于我们无法制造'安慰剂运动'。不像给人一颗糖丸却让他相信是真药那么简单。于是我们设计了一项研究，本质上让人做完全相同的事，只改变对其的认知。最终我们选择与酒店女清洁工合作——她们工作时运动量惊人。

And the reason was we don't have placebo exercise, right? It's not as easy as giving somebody a sugar pill, with the belief that it's a real medication. So we had to design a study that, essentially mirrored the concept of doing the exact same thing, but just changing your belief about it. And what we came up with was to work with a group of women, who were cleaning hotel rooms. So these were housekeepers, and they were getting an extraordinary amount of physical activity every day in their jobs.

她们整天站着工作：推车、换床单、吸尘等等。虽然难以精确量化，但显然远超当时卫生局长建议的每日30分钟中等强度运动。她们本应因此获得健康体重、强健心脏和良好心理状态。但有趣的是，这些女性并未意识到这点。当我们询问‘您平时运动量如何’时...

Were on their feet all day long, pushing carts, changing linens, vacuuming, you name it. It's tough to quantify the exact amount, but it was clear that they were getting above and beyond the Surgeon General's requirements, which were at the time to accumulate thirty minutes of moderate physical activity per day. So it's clear that they were getting the exercise they needed to be healthy, to have a healthy weight, a healthy heart, healthy mental health, and so forth. But what was interesting about these women is that they were not aware of it. So when we asked them, we said, Hey, how much, you know, do you get regular exercise?

是或不是？其中三分之二的人回答‘不是’。然后我们问他们，‘从0到10分，你平时做多少运动？’三分之一的人回答‘0分’。他们说一点运动都没有。

Yes or no? And two thirds of them said, No. And then we asked them, How much exercise do you get on a scale of zero to 10? And a third of them said, Zero. They said nothing.

我完全不运动。

I get no exercise at all.

因为他们认为运动就是去健身房或跑步机上锻炼，而不是他们日常所做的工作。

Because they were thinking of going getting exercise as actually going to a gym or running on a treadmill as opposed to the work they were doing every day.

没错。他们脑子里有一种观念，认为运动就是尊巴课、动感单车课或跑步，而不是他们的工作。他们每天下班回家时筋疲力尽、疲惫不堪，但他们认为自己的工作就是那样：辛苦、没有回报、令人厌倦。所以我们想看看，如果我们能改变这种观念，让他们相信自己的工作就是很好的运动，会发生什么。

Exactly. They had the in their heads, the mindset that exercise is the Zumba class or the, you know, spin class or running, that it wasn't, you know, their work. And they would go home at the end of the day, exhausted and tired and sore. But they had the mindset that their work was just that: hard, thankless, tiresome work. And so what we wanted to see was what would happen if we could change that, if we could instill in them, the mindset that their work was good exercise.

而且这很容易做到。这项研究最棒的地方在于，我得以进入这些酒店。我们与七家酒店合作，有些在波士顿地区，有些在科罗拉多州。我进去后只是说，‘嘿，你们做的工作就是很好的运动。它符合卫生局长的要求，因此你们应该会获得这些好处：健康的心脏、健康的体重等等。’

And it was so easy to do. That was what was so neat about this study was I got to go into these hotels. We worked with seven hotels, some in the Boston area and some in Colorado. And I went in and all I did was say, Hey, the work you are doing is good exercise. It meets the Surgeon General's requirements, and as a result, you should be receiving these benefits: a healthy heart, a healthy weight, and so forth.

我们以策略性的方式传递了这些信息。我们进行了一项随机对照试验，只随机让一半的人在同一时间接收这些信息。这样我们就能比较收到信息的女性群体和尚未收到信息的女性群体。研究结束后，我们也向后者提供了这些信息。我们发现，仅仅告诉他们‘你们的工作就是很好的运动’，就能对他们的健康产生改变。

Now, we gave this information, but we did it in a strategic way. We did it in a randomized control trial in which we randomized only half of them to receive that at one time. So we were able to compare the group of women who received that information versus the group of women who didn't receive it yet. We gave it to them after the end of the study. And what we found was that simply informing them that their work was good exercise led to changes in their health.

她们的体重减轻了，收缩压也有所下降。我们在论文中没有报告，但我们也发现她们的心理健康有所改善，身体形象和自我感觉更好了。这很合理，对吧？你可以想象，如果你的整个人生被定义为一种方式，然后你发现可以用完全不同的方式看待它，而这种新方式让你对自己感觉更好，

They had a reduction in weight. They showed a reduction in systolic blood pressure. We found we didn't report it in the paper, but we also showed improvements in their mental health, better body image, better self esteem, and so forth. And it makes sense, right? You can think about if your whole life is defined in one way, and then you learned that you can view it in a wholly different way, and that way makes you feel better about yourself,

你

you

就能理解这对她们来说意味着多大的改变。

can see how the whole game would really change for them.

但这真的很深刻。我的意思是，这些女性在前后做着同样的工作——或者说同样的‘运动’，仅仅因为对工作的看法不同，就改变了她们健康的生物学指标。这实际上相当惊人。

It's really profound though. I mean, the idea that these these women were doing the same work there, or if you will, doing the same exercise before and after, after, and just thinking about what they were doing differently transforms biological markers of their health. I mean, it's actually quite astonishing.

是的。当时这让我非常震惊。你知道，我在这个领域做的研究越多，就越意识到我们其实不应该对此感到惊讶，原因正如你指出的和我们讨论过的。我们大脑的全部工作就是根据它对外部环境的认知来准备、优先处理和调节内部身体状态。所以如果你改变了认知，就会改变身体的调节方式。

Yeah. It was astonishing to me at the time. You know, the more research I've done in this area, you come to realize that, you know, we really shouldn't be astonished by this for reasons you've pointed out and that we've discussed. It's like our brain's whole job is to prepare, prioritize and regulate the internal body based on what it believes to be true about the external environment. And so if you change that, it just changes how our body's being regulated.

而且我认为我们需要转变观念。我已经转变了，我认为整个社会都应该从对这些研究感到惊奇，转变为认为这是预期之中的事。大脑是身体的器官，改变认知就是改变心理框架，我们应该预期这会改变我们的生理状态。

And, you know, I think we need to move. I've moved and I think it would benefit our society as a whole to move from being less wowed by this research more to, okay, this is something to be expected. Our brain is an organ in the body, and you change that, you change our mental framework. We should expect that it will change our physiology.

我想谈谈你另一项当初发布时确实令人惊叹的研究——奶昔研究。Aliyah，请介绍一下这个研究。

Well, I want to talk about one other study of yours that I think did have a big wow factor when it first came out, and that was your milkshake study. Tell me about that study, Aliyah.

好的，在这个研究中，我们在两个不同时间点给人们喝完全相同的奶昔。这是一份约350卡路里、含糖量适中的奶昔。但在一个时间点，我们告诉人们这是放纵版奶昔——620卡路里、高脂肪、高热量、高糖；另一个时间点则告诉他们这是140卡路里的轻盈健康版'Sensei奶昔'。结果发现，尽管两次喝的是完全相同的奶昔，他们的身体反应却不同。

Yeah, so in this study, we gave people the same exact milkshake at two different time points. It was about a three fifty calorie modest amount of sugar milkshake. But at one time point, we told people it was an indulgent shake, six twenty calories, high fat, high calorie, high sugar. And at the other time point, we told them it was 140 calories, light and fit diet shake, we called it the Sensei shake. And what we found was that even though they were drinking the same exact milkshake at both time points, their bodies responded differently.

我们测量了他们的肠道肽水平，特别是调控饥饿和新陈代谢的饥饿素。结果显示：当受试者认为自己喝的是放纵版奶昔时，其饥饿素下降速度是喝健康版时的三倍。

We were measuring their gut peptide levels. In this case, we were looking at ghrelin, which is a hunger and metabolism regulating hormone. And what we found was that when they thought they were eating an indulgent milkshake, their ghrelin levels dropped at a threefold rate compared to when they thought they were consuming the sensible shake.

也就是说，当他们以为自己喝的是放纵版奶昔时，比喝健康版时更有饱腹感。

Other words, when they thought they were having the indulgent milkshake, they felt fuller compared to when they thought they were having the healthy milkshake.

是的，从生理上说他们确实感到更满足。

Yeah, physiologically, they felt more satiated.

Aliyah，你认为这个研究说明了什么？一方面确实令人震惊——人们会惊讶于同样的奶昔因认知不同竟能对荷尔蒙产生不同影响。但我想知道你的解读，以及你如何看待这与你自己对食物消费的担忧和饮食观念的关联。

What do you think the study is telling us, Aliyah? On the one hand, I do think it's astonishing. I think people would be surprised to learn that the very same milkshake can have different effects on your hormones depending on how you think about them. But I'm wondering what you make of this and also what you make of this in the light of your own concerns about your own food consumption and how you thought about food.

首先这个研究表明，身体对食物的反应不仅是营养成分客观属性的产物，还受我们对这些营养物质的信念和预期影响。这两者的结合——食物的客观属性与我们的主观认知——本身就是突破性的发现。我们总在讨论热量收支、碳水高低、生酮饮食等流行趋势...

Yeah, so the first thing to realize in this study is that our body's response to food is not merely the product of the actual objective qualities of the nutrients. It's also a product of what we believe and expect about those nutrients. So the fact that it's a combination of those things, the objective reality of what we're eating and our beliefs about what we're eating, that alone is groundbreaking. It's like, wow, you know, oh, we haven't been thinking about that. We spend so much time talking about calories in, calories out, or high carb, low carb, keto, not keto, whatever the, you know, fad diet of the month is.

这些全都聚焦于食物的客观属性，却几乎没考虑过信念、心态和体验在塑造身体反应中的作用。但对我来说更深刻的是第二个发现：心态影响的方式完全与我预期相反。我原以为会看到类似安慰剂效应或健身房服务员研究中的生理影响...

It's all about the objective qualities of the food. And we've done almost nothing to think about the role our beliefs and mindsets and experience might play in shaping our body's response to that food. So that's one thing. But the second thing we learned in this study was actually most profound, for me at least, and that is that the manner in which our mindsets mattered was actually the exact opposite of how I thought it would play out. So I went into the study thinking, Okay, I bet we're going to see some physiological effect, because I'd seen it before with placebo effects and with the exercise room attendant study and so forth.

所以我原以为我们会有所收获。但我当时假设更健康的心态是认为自己饮食合理，喝的是健康奶昔。我想这样会带来更健康的身体结果。然而我们发现事实恰恰相反——如果你想维持或减轻体重，你实际上需要让胃饥饿素水平在进食后更快下降。

So I thought we might get something. But I just assumed that the better mindset to be in was the mindset that you were eating sensibly, you were eating a health shake. And I thought, okay, that that will confer healthier outcomes. And what we found was that it was the exact opposite. So assuming you want to maintain or lose weight, you would want to actually have your ghrelin levels drop at a greater rate after after you eat food.

为什么？因为这会让你的生理饱腹感更强，同时提升新陈代谢来燃烧刚摄入的营养。我们发现当人们认为自己吃的是健康食品时（在这个案例中），这会传递一种节制感，甚至是热量不足的感觉，这种'不够'的信号会让身体认为没获得足够营养。因此他们的生理饱腹感更低。由于没有长期跟踪测试，我们不确定这是否会通过减缓新陈代谢的方式影响体重变化——可能导致增重而非减重。

Why? Because that will make you feel more physiologically satiated, and it will also raise metabolism to burn the nutrients that were just ingested. And what we found was that when people thought they were eating healthy, in this case, it conveyed a sense of sensibility or in fact, a lack of calories, a sense of not enough, that sent signals to the body that they weren't getting enough. So, they felt less physiologically satiated. And we don't know because we didn't test people over a long period of time, but that could have influenced metabolism in ways that slowed metabolism, led to weight gain versus weight loss.

这对我而言是个重大发现。

So that was a huge for me.

是啊。某种程度上这与我们日常谈论食物的方式完全对立对吧？我们说健康食物是高尚的、明智的、虽然不太美味但对你特别好；而不健康食物则是罪恶般美味、令人惊艳、浓郁可口的。

Yeah. And in some ways, is so diametrically opposed to the way we talk about food in general. Right? We talk about healthy food as being virtuous, as being sensible, as being, yeah, not very tasty, but really, really good for you. And we talk about unhealthy food as being, wow, really sinfully delicious and so amazing and so rich and tasty.

某种意义上我们完全说反了。

And in some ways, we're talking about things backward.

完全正确。一旦你意识到这点，就会发现无处不在——每次说某物健康时（至少在美国文化中，乃至逐渐全球范围），潜台词就是它不饱腹、不纵享、不好吃，有时甚至令人反感和剥夺食欲。这些对健康食品的信念和联想不仅改变我们的进食意愿，我们的研究更表明它们可能正以某种方式影响生理机能，阻碍我们从健康饮食中获益。

That's exactly right. And then once you see it, you see it everywhere. Every time you say it's healthy, at least in, you know, in our culture in The US and, you know, gradually across the whole world, the assumption is that it's not filling, not indulgent, not tasty, and kind of in some cases, disgusting and depriving, right? And those beliefs, those associations with healthy food, don't just lead to us, you know, not wanting to eat those things, changing our behavior, but what we showed in the study is that they might also be influencing our physiology in ways that keep us from getting the benefits of eating healthy foods.

广告回来后，我们将探讨如何将思维模式科学应用到生活中。

When we come back, applying the science of mindsets in our own lives.

像'多汁'、'垂涎欲滴'、'丝滑'、'重口味'、'赤裸'、'摄人心魄'这些词——它们不是在描述菜肴，只是营销话术。

The words like succulent, mouth watering, creamy, dirty, naked, spellbinding, right? Those don't describe the dish. They're just flair.

您正在收听《隐藏大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。这里是《隐藏大脑》，我是尚卡尔·韦丹塔。几周前我在一家墨西哥餐厅。

You're listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Some weeks ago, I found myself at a Mexican restaurant.

浏览鸡尾酒单时看到一款叫'La Piñata'的玛格丽特。皮纳塔本是挂在天花板上供孩子击打的彩饰玩具。我觉得名字有趣就点了这杯酒。而当我看向菜单的健康饮食区时，没有叫'La Piñata'的菜品——只有朴实的沙拉、温和的蔬菜和养生的时蔬。

I was looking through the cocktails and came by a margarita called La Pinata. A pinata of course is a decorated toy hung from a ceiling that kids break open by whacking with a stick. Sounds good I thought and ordered the drink. When I glanced over to the healthy side of the menu nothing was called La Pinata. They were sober salads, gentle greens and virtuous vegetables.

在与斯坦福大学心理学家阿利亚·克拉姆交谈后，我回想起了那份菜单。为什么不健康食品总能拥有酷炫的名字？而健康食品的名字却如此乏味？

I thought back to that menu after I talked with Stanford psychologist Aliyah Crum. Why do unhealthy foods get the cool names? Why do healthy foods get boring names?

我们与斯坦福大学语言学家丹·尤拉夫斯基合作进行了一项语言学研究，分析了美国连锁餐厅如Chili's、Applebee's和Outback Steakhouse菜单上的用语。我们对比了常规菜单与标有健康标识（如单独页面或绿色叶子标记）菜单的描述语言。研究发现，健康食品的描述词汇吸引力远低于普通菜品——缺乏'疯狂'、'摄人心魄'等激动人心的词汇，缺少'危险'、'粗犷'、'赤裸'等挑逗性用语，也罕有'极乐'、'多汁'、'令人垂涎'等放纵型表达。

We ran a linguistic study with Dan Jurafsky who's a linguist here at Stanford where we analyzed the language used to describe items on chain restaurants in America, like Chili's and Applebee's and Outback Steakhouse. And we looked at the language used to describe items on the regular menu and compared that to the language used to describe the items on the designated healthy menu. You know, it's either its own page or marked by a little green leaf or something. And essentially, what we found there is that the language, the words used to describe the healthy foods, was far less appealing than the words used to describe the normal dishes. So it was far less exciting, words like crazy or spellbinding, far less sort of provocative words like dangerous, dirty, or naked, far less indulgent words like bliss, succulent, mouthwatering.

这个发现很有趣但并不意外——健康食品通常使用'营养丰富'、'新鲜现做'等务实描述，确实很少搭配令人兴奋的修饰词。

And this was really interesting because, you know, we were maybe not surprised by that. We're like, okay. You know, how are healthy foods described? Well, they're used with very nutritious words like wholesome, or nutritional, or perhaps fresh words like fresh or freshly, but they're not often described with these exciting descriptors. So that was not all that surprising.

真正耐人寻味的是，这些诱人词汇几乎都与菜品本质无关。放纵型词汇并非汉堡专属，低脂鳟鱼同样适用这些描述，对吧？

What was interesting is that when we looked at these words, almost none of them said anything about the dish itself. Right? So it wasn't like the indulgent words had to be reserved for the hamburger and not for the low fat trout dish. Right. Right?

'多汁'、'令人垂涎'、'奶油般'、'粗犷'、'赤裸'、'摄人心魄'这些词并不刻画食物本身，只是营销噱头。那么问题来了——

The words like succulent, mouthwatering, creamy, dirty, naked, spellbinding. Right? Those don't describe the dish. They're just flare. So what would happen?

我们是否真的可以用同样的词汇来描述健康食物？于是我们在斯坦福进行了这项实验，随后又在美国多所大学进行了复现。我们选取了学校食堂供应给学生的那道蔬菜菜肴，要求他们以完全相同的方式烹制。这项实验持续了十周的学期时间。我们让他们用完全相同的做法，但随机改变菜品的标签描述。

Could we actually use those same words to describe healthy foods? And so we did this at Stanford, and we later replicated it at several different universities around The US. We took the vegetable dish that they were serving to their students, and we had them prepare it the same exact way. This was over the course of a ten week quarter. We had them prepare it the same exact way, but we randomized how it was labeled.

有时候标签会非常基础，比如直接写胡萝卜或甜菜根。有时候会标注为健康版——比如'无添加糖低卡甜菜根'。有时候则会使用放纵型描述。

So sometimes it was labeled just very basic. So it would be carrots or beets. Sometimes it was labeled healthy. So lighter choice beets with no added sugar. And sometimes it was labeled in the indulgent way.

比如'劲爆辣椒青柠风味甜菜根'，或是'热情扭拧柑橘胡萝卜'之类的。我们直接借用了美国连锁餐厅推销不太健康食品时使用的词汇。结果发现，当蔬菜采用放纵型描述时，人们选择并食用它们的频率显著提高。不同研究数据略有差异，但平均而言蔬菜消费量增加了约30%。

So dynamite chili lime seasoned beets, or zesty twisted citrus carrots, something like that. We just use the same words that are used on these chain restaurants out in America selling less healthy items. And what we found was that when the vegetables were labeled with indulgent descriptors, people chose them and consumed them at a far greater rate. The studies differed, but the average was about a 30% increase in vegetable consumption.

哇。某种程度上这呼应了你自己对饮食观念的挑战，阿莉雅，回溯到你大学时期——那时你总在纠结自己是否吃太多，或是为了运动员生涯吃得对不对？这个发现某种程度上颠覆了传统认知，不是吗？关于我们应该如何看待食物和饮食选择。

Wow. Wow. In some ways, this speaks to your own challenges in thinking about food, going back to your college days, Aliyah, where you were asking yourself, am I eating too much or am I eating right in terms of my athletic endeavors? And in some ways this turns things on its head, does it not, in terms of how we should think about food and our diet choices?

大学时期我与食物有着非常不健康的关系，其特征就是持续觉得'我应该吃健康食物'，但那并非我真正想吃的。于是我总是陷入这种循环：健康饮食、健康饮食、健康饮食，然后突然崩溃暴食。事实上这种心态曾让我短暂患上暴食症。而这个研究洞见永远改变了我，是持续性的改变。

I had a really unhealthy relationship with food, when I was in college, and it was characterised by this constant feeling like I should eat the healthy foods, but it's not what I really wanted to eat. And so I would go through these patterns of eating healthy, eating healthy, eating healthy, and then kind of like breaking that and having overeating. And I actually went through a short period of bulimia because of that approach. And this insight, this changed me forever. It changed me in a sustained way.

我至今仍被这一天所改变。这个认知让我明白两点：A) 我所处的心态会产生影响。如果我总觉得自己摄入不足或在限制饮食，这种心态本身就可能与我作对，抵消我在节食或健康饮食上的努力。另一个领悟是：饮食的目的是什么？是为了感到吃得足够、吃得尽兴、感到满足、对所吃的东西感觉良好。

I I'm changed to this day. And it was this realization, A) that the mindset that I'm in has an impact. So if I'm feeling like I'm not getting enough or that I'm restricting my food, that mindset alone might be working against me, might be counteracting my hard efforts at dieting or eating healthy. And then the other thing it made me realize was, what's the goal of eating? The goal of eating is to feel like you're eating enough, to feel like you're eating indulgently, that you're feeling satisfied, that you're feeling good with what you eat.

于是这成了我的目标。但这并非意味着完全放纵自己只喝奶昔吃薯条。事实上我发现，当我不刻意回避这些食物时，反而不会真正渴望它们。当我以‘吃什么能真正让我感到满足和适度’为目标时，自然会选择更健康的食物，对吧？

So that became the goal for me. And it didn't mean I just threw all caution to the wind and ate, you know, only milkshakes and fries. In fact, I found that I didn't actually crave those things when I wasn't trying to avoid them. If I went about life with the goal of what can I eat that will actually make me feel satisfied, feel that sense of enough, And that was the goal? I would choose things naturally that were healthier, right?

当然并非每次都如此。有时我会选择汉堡，但那正是我当下需要的。这种自由感是深刻的——这确实是改变我人生轨迹最深的研究。

And not all the time. Sometimes I would choose a hamburger, but that's what felt right for me. And it was freeing and it was profound. It really truly was the study that changed me most on my journey.

当我思考公共卫生领域关于饮食运动的宣传时，发现许多健康信息都带着惩罚性色彩。我们告诉人们美国或全球存在肥胖流行病，必须吃得健康，否则会有恶果。社交媒体充斥着健康人士每天跑20英里的例子，人们会不自觉与之比较。

When I think about the public health messages we often have around food and exercise, you know, so many of the healthful messages have a punitive edge to them. You know, we tell people there's an obesity epidemic in America or around the world. We need to eat healthier. Bad things are gonna happen to you, you know, if you don't eat healthier. Social media is full of examples of, you know, healthy people working out and, you know, running, you know, 20 miles every day, and we make comparisons to those people.

某种程度上，我不确定这些宣传与你关于心态的研究是否吻合——对那些没时间每天锻炼三小时的普通人来说，什么才能真正改变现状？

And in some ways, I'm not sure all of this really squares with your work on mindsets in terms of what's actually going to move the needle for ordinary people who might not have time to work out three hours every day.

是的，我们知道健康饮食和适量运动有益身心。但这些说教往往只让人对现状感到糟糕。心理学研究表明，匮乏感并不能激励大多数人采取行动，反而常导致放弃或不再关注健康。我们需要在传播行为价值的同时，培养让人认同并渴望这些行为的心态。

Yeah, so we know that, you know, food, eating healthy, and getting good amount of exercise is good for us. But all these messages telling people what to do often just make people feel badly about what they're doing. And what we've learned as psychologists is that feeling like you're not getting enough does not motivate you, most people at least, to get more, right? In some cases, it often leads to giving up or letting go or deciding you really don't care about being healthy. So we need to find that line between informing people about the value of these behaviors, but also instilling mindsets that actually make people feel like they identify with those behaviours and like they want to do those behaviours.

如何让健康饮食变得愉悦放纵？如何让运动充满吸引力？这些才是关键问题。如果我们能把时间金钱精力集中在培养这类心态上，而非反复提醒人们‘你做得不够’，我们的国家和社会将变得更好。

How can we make healthy eating pleasurable, indulgent? How can we make exercise feel inviting and inspiring? Those are the questions. And I think our country, our world would be better served if we could focus our time, money, effort and energy on instilling those mindsets, rather than reminding people time and time again that they're not enough.

艾莉娅特别提醒人们——尤其是刚接触心态力量的人——不要过度解读这些见解。建议医生和公共卫生专家在传播健康信息时关注心态是一回事，断言心态是唯一重要的因素则完全是另一回事。

Aaliyah is at pains to remind people, especially those who have just heard about the power of mindsets, not to go overboard with these insights. It's one thing to say doctors and public health experts should pay attention to mindsets when they communicate health information. It's another thing entirely to say that mindsets are the only thing that matter.

面对癌症的最佳心态不是‘我没病’或‘癌症无所谓’，而是‘癌症可控’——这种心态至少已被证明能带来更好结果。对于健康饮食，单纯想着‘我在吃健康食物’反而可能适得其反。

The best mindset to be in when you have cancer is not, I don't have cancer, or cancer is nothing, right? It's cancer is manageable. That's a different mindset that has more adaptive outcomes, at least that we've seen. When it comes to healthy food, it's not just, Oh, I'm eating healthy. It's, Oh, actually, that mindset is counterproductive.

为什么？这要回到心态如何影响注意力、行为、情绪和生理反应。如果能弄明白这些，你就会发现什么心态最有效。心态的影响极其精妙，我们目前对重要心态的认知只是冰山一角——为什么它们重要？

Why? Well, back to how that mindset influences your attention, your behavior, your emotions and physiology, if you can figure that out. And then you'll realize what mindset is most effective. So the effects of mindset is very sophisticated, and we're really just at the tip of the iceberg of understanding which mindsets matter. Why do they matter?

它们有多重要？又在何时不重要？我想在完全弄清这些之前，一个好的处理方式是始终兼顾两者，对吧？比如我生病时，不仅会调整心态，也会在必要时去看医生。

How much do they matter? And when do they not matter? And again, I think before we know all of that, a good way to sort of approach this is to always do both, right? So if I get sick, I don't just change my mindset. I go to the doctor where appropriate.

该吃药时我会服药，采取实际措施恢复健康，同时也会专注于心态调整。

I take medications where appropriate. I do the physical things to make me better, but I also focus on my mindset.

阿莉娅·克鲁姆是斯坦福大学的心理学家，她研究心态如何塑造我们体验和回应世界的方式。阿莉娅，非常感谢你今天做客《隐藏大脑》。

Aaliyah Krum is a psychologist at Stanford University. She studies the power of mindsets to shape the way we experience and respond to the world. Aliyya, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

非常感谢尚卡尔，非常荣幸。

Thanks so much Shankar. It's been such a pleasure.

《隐藏大脑》由Hidden Brain Media制作。音频制作团队包括布里奇特·麦卡锡、安妮·墨菲·保罗、克里斯汀·黄、劳拉·夸雷尔、瑞安·卡茨、奥顿·巴恩斯和安德鲁·查德威克。塔拉·博伊尔是我们的执行制片人，我是《隐藏大脑》的执行主编。幕后英雄是我们的广告合作伙伴Stitcher Media的亚历山德拉·格洛纳。

Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media. Our audio production team includes Bridget McCarthy, Annie Murphy Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Quarrell, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, and Andrew Chadwick. Tara Boyle is our executive producer. I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor. Our unsung hero is Alexandra Gloner at our advertising partner Stitcher Media.

她协助我们追踪播客数据指标，包括每周/每月下载量及其他互动形式。这极为重要，因为这是判断哪些节目引发听众共鸣、哪些主题触动心弦的最清晰方式。被大家称作AJ的她认真负责，其洞见帮助我们提升了节目质量。如果你有特别喜爱的《隐藏大脑》单集，AJ很可能就是那个帮我们构思主题的无名英雄。感谢AJ！若你喜欢本期节目并希望我们制作更多类似内容，请考虑支持我们的工作。

She helps us keep track of our podcast metrics, weekly and monthly downloads, and other forms of engagement. This is extremely important because it is the clearest way for us to tell what episodes resonate with you, what themes and topics strike a chord. AJ, as she is called, is conscientious and helpful and her insights have helped improve our work. If there are Hidden Brain episodes you especially love, AJ might well have been the unsung hero who helped us dream up the topic. Thank you, If you like this episode and would like us to produce more shows like this, please consider supporting our work.

请访问support.hiddenbrain.org。再次重申，若你想支持喜爱的节目，请访问support.hiddenbrain.org。我是尚卡尔·维丹塔姆，下次见。

Go to support.hiddenbrain.org. Again, if you would like to help support the show you love, go to support.hiddenbrain.org. I'm Shankar Vedantam. See you soon.