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Lesson 1 Spillonomics: Underestimating Risk[1] In retrospect, the pattern seems clear. Years before the Deepwater Horizon rig blew, BP was developing a reputation as an oil company that took safety risks to save money. An explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, and federal regulators and a panel led by James A. BakerⅢ, the former secretary of state, said that cost cutting was partly to blame. The next year, a corroded pipeline in Alaska poured oil into Prudhoe Bay. None other than Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas and a global-warming skeptic, upbraided BP managers for their “seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues”.[2] Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work. The people running BP did a dreadful job of estimating the true chances of events that seemed unlikely—but that would bring enormous costs.[3] Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to consider what BP executives must be thinking today. Surely, given the expense of the clean-up and the hit to BP’s reputation, the executives wish they could go back and spend the extra money to make Deepwater Horizon safer. That they did not suggests that they figured the rig would be fine an itwas.[4]For all the criticism BP executives may deserve, they are far from the only people to struggle with such low-probability, high-cost events. Nearly everyone does. “These are precisely the kinds of events that are hard for us as humans to get our hands around and react to rationally, ”Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard, says. We make two basic—and opposite—types of mistakes. When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood. This is the proverbial black swan. Most of the people running Deepwater Horizon probably never had a rig explode on them. So they assumed it would not happen , at least not to them.[5] Similarly, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan liked to argue, not so long ago, that the national real estate market was not in a bubble because it had never been in one before. Wall Street traders took the same view and built mathematical models that did not allow for the possibility that house prices would decline. And may home buyers signed up for unaffordable mortgages, believing they could refinance or sell the house once its price rose. That’s what house prices did, it seemed.[6]On the other hand, when an unlikely event is all too easy to imagine, we often go in the opposite direction and overestimate the odds. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans canceled plane trips and took to the road. There were no terrorist attacks in this country in 2002, yet theadditional driving apparently led to an increase in traffic fatalities.[7]When the stakes are high enough, it falls to government to help its citizens avoid these entirely human errors. The market, left to its own devices, often cannot do so. Yet in the case of Deepwater Horizon, government policy actually went the other way. It encouraged BP to underestimate the odds of a catastrophe.[8] In a little-noticed provision in a 1990 law passed after the Exxon Valdez spill, Congress capped a spiller’s liability over and above cleanup costs at $7500 million for a rig spill. Even if the party is on the hook for only $7500 million. (In this instance, BP has agreed to waive the cap for claims it deems legitimate. ) Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist who runs the Hamilton Project in Washington, says the law fundamentally distorts a company’s decision making. Without the cap, executives would have to weigh the possible revenue from a well against the cost of drilling there and the risk of damage. With the cap, they can largely ignore the potential damage beyond cleanup costs. So they end up drilling wells even in places where the damage can be horrific, like close to a shoreline. To put it another way, human frailty helped BP’s executives underestimate the chance of a low-probability, high-cost event. Federal law helped them underestimate the costs.[9] In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, Congress and Obama administration will no doubt be tempted to pass laws meant to reducethe risks of another deep-water disaster. Certainly there are some sensible steps they can take, like lifting the liability cap and freeing regulators from the sway of industry. But it would be foolish to think that the only risks we are still underestimating are the ones that have suddenly become salient.[10]The big financial risk is no longer a housing bubble. Instead, it may be the huge deficits that the growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will cause in coming years—and the possibility that lender will eventually become nervous about extending credit to Washington. True, some economists and policy makers insist the country should not get worked up about this possibility, because lenders have never soured on the Unite States government before and show no signs of doing so now. but isn’t that reminiscent of the old Bernanke-Greenspan tune about the housing market?[11]Then, of course, there are the greenhouse gases that oil wells ( among other things) send into the atmosphere even when the wells function properly. Scientists say the buildup of these gases is already likely to warm the planet by at least three degrees over the next century and cause droughts, storms and more ice-cap melting. The researcher’s estimates have risen recently, too, and it is also possible the planet could get around 12 degree hotter. That kind of could flood major cities and cause parts of Antarctica to collapse.[12]Nothing like that has ever happened before. Even imagining it is difficult. It is much easier to hope that the odds of such an outcome are vanishingly small. In fact, it’s only natural to have this hope. But that doesn’t make it wise.。
新研究生英语阅读教程(基础级)第三次修订版课文参考译文研究生英语阅读教程（基础级）第三次修订版课文参考译文第一课 A世界英语：是福是祸？汤姆•麦克阿瑟（1）2000 年，语言学家、威尔士人格兰维尔•普莱斯，在他编辑的《英国与爱尔兰的语言》中发表了如下的观点：因为英语是个杀手。
正是英语，导致坎伯兰语、康沃尔语、诺恩语和马恩语灭亡。
在那些岛屿的部分地区，还有较大规模的群体讲比英语更古老的当地语言。
但是，现在日常生活中，英语无处不在，人人—或者说—几乎人人都懂英语。
英语威胁到那三种遗留的凯尔特语：爱尔兰语、苏格兰盖尔语和威尔士语，……所以必须意识到，从长远来看，这三种语言的未来……十分危险。
（第141 页）在此几年前，1992 年，英国学者罗伯特．菲利普森（他如今在丹麦工作）在牛津大学出版了一本书，名为《语言领域的帝国主义》。
在书中，他指出，主要的英语国家、世界范围内英语教学产业，尤其是英国文化委员会，实施的是语言扩张政策。
他还把这种政策和他所称的“语言歧视”（这个情况类似于“种族歧视”、“性别歧视”）联系在一起。
在菲利普森看来，以“白人”为主的英语世界中，起主导作用的机构和个人，或故意或无意，鼓励或者至少容忍英语大肆扩张，他们当然不反对英语的扩张。
英语的扩张开始于大约三个世纪以前，最初表现形式是经济与殖民扩张。
（2）菲利普森本人为英国文化委员会工作过几年。
和他一样，还有一些母语为英语的学者，也试图强调英语作为世界语言的危险。
在过去几十年里，人们从三个群体的角度，就英语的国际化进行了广泛的讨论。
第一个群体是ENL 国家，英语是母语（这个群体也叫“内部圈”）；第二个群体是ESL 国家，英语是第二语言（“外部圈”）；第三个群体是EFL 国家，英语是外语（“扩展圈”）。
二十世纪八十年代，这些词语开始流行。
从那时起，这第三圈实际上已扩展到全球范围。
（3）从来没有像英语这样?语言，这既有利也有弊。
曾经有许多“世界语言”，例如：阿拉伯语、汉语、希腊语、拉丁语和梵语。
Can you imagine a plane that doesn’t need any fuel? Here it is. It’s a solar-powered plane.你能想象的出一架不用任何燃料的飞机吗？看，这就是，一架太阳能飞机。
It’s only a prototype right now but a man in Switzerland took it for a test flight and the take-off, they say was, pretty smooth.目前这还只是一架原型机，不过瑞士的一名飞行员架着它完成了一次试飞。
测试人员称，飞机起飞十分平稳。
That’s pretty cool! The propellers lifted off the ground at 28 miles per hour. And they say there are 12 solar cells built into its wings.太酷了！飞机飞离地面后，以每小时28英里的速度向高空爬升。
技术人员称，飞机的两翼内置有12块太阳能电池。
A night flight has planned before July and then a second plane will be built based on those results. They hope to fly that second plane around the world within two years.计划今年7月前再执行一次夜间试飞，之后，下一架太阳能飞机就基于这些研究成果来制造。
技术人员们期望，下一架飞机能够实现在两年内环绕地球飞行。
You know I look at something like this and I think, ooh the future of this will be that our planes could be solar-powered, and it’d better still pay 40 dollars to check a bag. That’s probably still what would happen.知道吗，当我看到它时，我就想，喔，将来的飞机就都可以用太阳能提供动力了，最好呢，就是机票还是40美元。
Unit OneWorld English: A Blessing or a Curse (p7)1. There has been much opposition from social groups, B from the farmingcommunity.A. straightforwardly(直接地)B. notably（显著地，尤其）C. virtually（事实上）D. exceptionally（例外地）译文：社会团体，尤其是农业团体，对此有许多反对意见。
2. The A view in Britain and other Western countries associates aging with decline,dependency, isolation, and often poverty.A. predominant（占支配地位的）B. credulous（轻信的）C. inclusive（包含的）D. sustainable（可持续的）译文：英国和其他西方国家的主流观点认为，老龄化意味着衰落、依赖、孤立，而且往往是贫穷。
3. But gifts such as these cannot be awarded to everybody, either by judges or by themost D of governments.A. tough（困难的）B. demanding（苛求的）C. diverse（不同的）D. benign（有利的；善良的）译文：但是，这样的礼物不可能由法官或最仁慈的政府颁发给所有人。
4. The foreman read the C of guilty fourteen times, one for each defendant.A. prejudice（偏见）B. verification（政审）C. verdict（判断；裁决）D. punishment（惩罚）译文：陪审团念了十四遍有罪判决，为每位被告都念了一遍。
Lesson 11.For English is a killer. It is English that has killed off Cumbric, Cornish, Norn and Manx.There are still parts of these islands where sizeable communities speak languages that were there before English. Y et English is everywhere in everyday use and understood by all or virtually all, constituting such a threat to the three remaining Celtic languages, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh...that their long-term future must be considered...very greatly at risk.因为英语是个杀手。
正是英语造成了康瑞克、康尼施、诺恩、曼科斯等语言的消亡。
在其中一部分岛上还有相当多的人使用在英语到来之前就已存在的语言。
然而，英语在日常生活中无处不在。
所有的人或几乎所有的人都懂英语。
英语对现存的凯尔特语——爱尔兰语、苏格兰盖尔语及威尔士语的威胁是如此之大，它们的未来岌岌可危。
2.He also associated such policies with a prejudice which he calls linguicism (a conditionparallel to racism and sexism). As Phillipson sees it, leading institutions and individuals within the predominantly "white" English-speaking world, have (by design or default) encouraged or at least tolerated-and certainly have not opposed-the hegemonic spread of English, a spread which began some three centuries ago as economic and colonial expansion.同时，他认为这些政策和他称之为语言歧视（和种族歧视、性别歧视的情况类似）的偏见密切相关。
研究生英语阅读教程（基础级）第三次修订版课文参考译文第一课A世界英语：是福是祸？汤姆•麦克阿瑟（1）2000 年，语言学家、威尔士人格兰维尔•普莱斯，在他编辑的《英国与爱尔兰的语言》中发表了如下的观点：因为英语是个杀手。
正是英语，导致坎伯兰语、康沃尔语、诺恩语和马恩语灭亡。
在那些岛屿的部分地区，还有较大规模的群体讲比英语更古老的当地语言。
但是，现在日常生活中，英语无处不在，人人—或者说—几乎人人都懂英语。
英语威胁到那三种遗留的凯尔特语：爱尔兰语、苏格兰盖尔语和威尔士语，……所以必须意识到，从长远来看，这三种语言的未来……十分危险。
（第141 页）在此几年前，1992 年，英国学者罗伯特．菲利普森（他如今在丹麦工作）在牛津大学出版了一本书，名为《语言领域的帝国主义》。
在书中，他指出，主要的英语国家、世界范围内英语教学产业，尤其是英国文化委员会，实施的是语言扩张政策。
他还把这种政策和他所称的“语言歧视”（这个情况类似于“种族歧视”、“性别歧视”）联系在一起。
在菲利普森看来，以“白人”为主的英语世界中，起主导作用的机构和个人，鼓励或者至少容忍英语大肆扩张，他们当然不反对英语的扩张。
英语的扩张开始于大约三个世纪以前，最初表现形式是经济与殖民扩张。
（2）菲利普森本人为英国文化委员会工作过几年。
和他一样，还有一些母语为英语的学者，也试图强调英语作为世界语言的危险。
在过去几十年里，人们从三个群体的角度，就英语的国际化进行了广泛的讨论。
第一个群体是ENL 国家，英语是母语（这个群体也叫“内部圈”）；第二个群体是ESL 国家，英语是第二语言（“外部圈”）；第三个群体是EFL 国家，英语是外语（“扩展圈”）。
二十世纪八十年代，这些词语开始流行。
从那时起，这第三圈实际上已扩展到全球范围。
（3）从来没有像英语这样?语言，这既有利也有弊。
曾经有许多“世界语言”，例如：阿拉伯语、汉语、希腊语、拉丁语和梵语。
总的来说，我们现在认为这些语言比较好，经常以赞美、感激的语气谈论与它们相关的文化以及它们给世界带来的变化。
Unit OneText:You Are What You ThinkAnd if you change your mind-from pessimism tooptimism-you can change your lifeClaipe Safran[1] Do you see the glass as half full rather than half empty? Do you keep your eye upon the doughnut, not upon the hole? S uddenly these clichés are scientific questions, as researchers scrutinize the power of positive thinking.[2] A fast-growing body of research—104 studies so far, involving some 15,000 people—is proving that optimism can help you to be happier, healthier and more successful. Pessimism leads, by contrast, to hopelessness, sickness and failure, and is linked to depression, loneliness and painful shyness. "If we could teach people to think more positively," says psychologist Craig A. Anderson of Rice Universit y① in Houston②，"it would be like inoculating them againstthese mental ills."[3] "Your abilities count," explains psychologist Michael F. Scheier of Carnegie Mellon University③ in Pittsburgh④, "but the belief that you can succeed affects whether or not you will." In part , that's because optimists and pessimists deal with the same challenges and disappointments in very different ways.[4] Take, for example, your job. In a major study, psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania⑤and colleague Peter Schulman surveyed sales representatives at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. They found that the positive-thinkers among longtime representatives sold 37-percent more insurance than did the negative-thinkers. Of newly hired representatives, optimists sold 20-percent more.[5] Impressed, the company hired 100 people who had failed the standard industry test⑥ but had scored high on optimism. These people, who might never have been hired, sold 10 percent more insurance than did the average representative.[ 6 ] How did they do it? The secret to an optimist's success, according to Seligman, is in his "explanatory style". When things go wrong the pessimist tends to blame himself. "I'm no good at this, " he says, "I always fail." The optimist looks for loopholes. He blames the weather, the phone connection, even the other person. That customer was in a bad mood, he thinks. When things go right, the optimist takes credit while the pessimist sees success as a fluke. [ 7 ] Craig Anderson had a group of students phone strangers and ask them to donate blood to the Red Cross⑦. When they failed on the first call or two, pessimists said, "I can't do this." Optimists told themselves, "I need to try a different approach."[ 8 ] Negative or positive, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. "If people feel hopeless, "says Anderson, "they don't bother to acquire the skills they need to succeed."[9] A sense of control, according to Anderson, is the litmus test⑧ for success. The optimist feels in control of his own life. If things are going badly, he acts quickly, looking for solutions, forming a new plan ofaction, and reaching out for advice. The pessimist feels like fate's plaything and moves slowly. He doesn't seek advice, since he assumes nothing can be done.[ 10 ] Optimists may think they are better than the facts would justify—and sometimes that's what keeps them alive. Dr. Sandra Levy of the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute studied women with advanced breast cancer. For the women who were generally optimistic, there was a longer disease-free interval, the best predictor of survival. In a pilot study of women in the early stages of breast cancer, Dr. Levy found the disease recurred sooner among the pessimists.[ 11 ] Optimism won't cure the incurable, but it may prevent illness. In a long term study, researchers examined the health histories of a group of Harvard graduates, all of whom were in the top half of their class and in fine physical condition. Yet some were positive thinkers, and some negative. Twenty years later, there were more middle-age diseases—hypertension, diabetes, heart ailments —among the pessimists than the optimists.[ 12 ] Many studies suggest that the pessimist's feeling of helplessness undermines the body's natural defenses, the immune system. Dr. Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan⑨has found that the pessimist doesn't take good care of himself. Feeling passive and unable to dodge life's blows, he expects ill health and other misfortunes, no matter what he does. He munches on junk food⑩，avoids exercise, ignores the doctor, has another drink.[ 13 ] Most people are a mix of optimism and pessimism, but are inclined in one direction or the other. It is a pattern of thinking learned “at your mother‘s knee”，says Seligman. It grows out of thousands of cautions or encouragements, negative statements or positive ones. Too many “don’ts” and warnings of danger can make a child feel incompetent, fearful—and pessimistic.[ 14 ] As they grow, children experience small triumphs, such as learning to tie shoelaces. Parents can help turn these successes into a sense of control, and that breeds optimism.[ 15 ] Pessimism is a hard habit to break—but it canbe done. In a series of landmark studies, Dr. Carol Dweck11of the University of Illinois12has been working with children in the early grades of school. As she helps floundering students to change the explanations for their failures—from "I must be dumb" to "I didn't study hard enough“—their academic performance improves.[ 16 ] Pittsburgh's Dr. Levy wondered if turning patients into optimists would lengthen their lives. In a pilot study, two groups of colon-cancer patients were given the same medical treatment, but some were also given psychological help to encourage optimism. Results showed that this worked. Now a major study is planned to determine whether this psychological change can alter the course of the disease.[ 17 ] So, if you're a pessimist, there's reason for optimism. You can change. Here's how, says Steve Hollon, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University13: [ 18 ] 1. Pay careful attention to your thoughts when bad things happen. Write down the first thing that comes to mind, unedited and uncensored[ 19 ] 2. Now try an experiment. Do something that'scontrary to any negative reactions. Let's say something has gone wrong at work. Do you think, I hate my job, but I could never get a better one? Act as if that weren't so. Send out resumés. Go to interviews. Look into training and check job leads[ 20 ] 3. Keep track of what happens. Were your first thoughts right or wrong? "If your thoughts are holding you back, change them," says Hollon. "It's trial and error, no guarantees, but give yourself a chance."[ 21 ] Positive thinking leads to positive action, and reaction. What you expect from the world, the evidence suggests, is what you're likely to get..。
Lesson 1 Spillonomics: Underestimating Risk[1] In retrospect, the pattern seems clear. Years before the Deepwater Horizon rig blew, BP was developing a reputation as an oil company that took safety risks to save money. An explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, and federal regulators and a panel led by James A. BakerⅢ, the former secretary of state, said that cost cutting was partly to blame. The next year, a corroded pipeline in Alaska poured oil into Prudhoe Bay. None other than Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas and a global-warming skeptic, upbraided BP managers for their “seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues”.[2] Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work. The people running BP did a dreadful job of estimating the true chances of events that seemed unlikely—but that would bring enormous costs.[3] Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to consider what BP executives must be thinking today. Surely, given the expense of the clean-up and the hit to BP’s reputation, the executives wish they could go back and spend the extra money to make Deepwater Horizon safer. That they did not suggests that they figured the rig would be fine an itwas.[4]For all the criticism BP executives may deserve, they are far from the only people to struggle with such low-probability, high-cost events. Nearly everyone does. “These are precisely the kinds of events that are hard for us as humans to get our hands around and react to rationally, ”Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard, says. We make two basic—and opposite—types of mistakes. When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood. This is the proverbial black swan. Most of the people running Deepwater Horizon probably never had a rig explode on them. So they assumed it would not happen , at least not to them.[5] Similarly, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan liked to argue, not so long ago, that the national real estate market was not in a bubble because it had never been in one before. Wall Street traders took the same view and built mathematical models that did not allow for the possibility that house prices would decline. And may home buyers signed up for unaffordable mortgages, believing they could refinance or sell the house once its price rose. That’s what house prices did, it seemed.[6]On the other hand, when an unlikely event is all too easy to imagine, we often go in the opposite direction and overestimate the odds. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans canceled plane trips and took to the road. There were no terrorist attacks in this country in 2002, yet theadditional driving apparently led to an increase in traffic fatalities.[7]When the stakes are high enough, it falls to government to help its citizens avoid these entirely human errors. The market, left to its own devices, often cannot do so. Yet in the case of Deepwater Horizon, government policy actually went the other way. It encouraged BP to underestimate the odds of a catastrophe.[8] In a little-noticed provision in a 1990 law passed after the Exxon Valdez spill, Congress capped a spiller’s liability over and above cleanup costs at $7500 million for a rig spill. Even if the party is on the hook for only $7500 million. (In this instance, BP has agreed to waive the cap for claims it deems legitimate. ) Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist who runs the Hamilton Project in Washington, says the law fundamentally distorts a company’s decision making. Without the cap, executives would have to weigh the possible revenue from a well against the cost of drilling there and the risk of damage. With the cap, they can largely ignore the potential damage beyond cleanup costs. So they end up drilling wells even in places where the damage can be horrific, like close to a shoreline. To put it another way, human frailty helped BP’s executives underestimate the chance of a low-probability, high-cost event. Federal law helped them underestimate the costs.[9] In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, Congress and Obama administration will no doubt be tempted to pass laws meant to reducethe risks of another deep-water disaster. Certainly there are some sensible steps they can take, like lifting the liability cap and freeing regulators from the sway of industry. But it would be foolish to think that the only risks we are still underestimating are the ones that have suddenly become salient.[10]The big financial risk is no longer a housing bubble. Instead, it may be the huge deficits that the growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will cause in coming years—and the possibility that lender will eventually become nervous about extending credit to Washington. True, some economists and policy makers insist the country should not get worked up about this possibility, because lenders have never soured on the Unite States government before and show no signs of doing so now. but isn’t that reminiscent of the old Bernanke-Greenspan tune about the housing market?[11]Then, of course, there are the greenhouse gases that oil wells ( among other things) send into the atmosphere even when the wells function properly. Scientists say the buildup of these gases is already likely to warm the planet by at least three degrees over the next century and cause droughts, storms and more ice-cap melting. The researcher’s estimates have risen recently, too, and it is also possible the planet could get around 12 degree hotter. That kind of could flood major cities and cause parts of Antarctica to collapse.[12]Nothing like that has ever happened before. Even imagining it is difficult. It is much easier to hope that the odds of such an outcome are vanishingly small. In fact, it’s only natural to have this hope. But that doesn’t make it wise.。
Unit OneText:You Are What You ThinkAnd if you change your mind-from pessimism to optimism-you can change your lifeClaipe Safran[1] Do you see the glass as half full rather than half empty? Do you keep your eye upon the doughnut, not upon the hole? Suddenly these clichés are scientific questions, as researchers scrutinize the power of positive thinking.[2] A fast-growing body of research—104 studies so far, involving some 15,000 people—is proving that optimism can help you to be happier, healthier and more successful. Pessimism leads, by contrast, to hopelessness, sickness and failure, and is linked to depression, loneliness and painful shyness. "If we could teach people to think more positively," says psychologist Craig A. Anderson of Rice University①in Houston②，"it would be like inoculating them against these mental ills."[3] "Your abilities count," explains psychologist Michael F. Scheier of Carnegie Mellon University③in Pittsburgh④, "but the belief that you can succeed affects whether or not you will."In part , that's because optimists and pessimists deal with the same challenges and disappointments in very different ways. [4] Take, for example, your job. In a major study, psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania⑤ and colleague Peter Schulman surveyed sales representatives at the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. They found that the positive-thinkers among longtime representatives sold 37-percent more insurance than did the negative-thinkers. Of newly hired representatives, optimists sold 20-percent more. [5] Impressed, the company hired 100 people who had failed the standard industry test⑥ but had scored high on optimism. These people, who might never have been hired, sold 10 percent more insurance than did the average representative.[ 6 ] How did they do it? The secret to an optimist's success, according to Seligman, is in his "explanatory style". When things go wrong the pessimist tends to blame himself. "I'm no good at this, " he says, "I always fail." The optimist looks for loopholes. He blames the weather, the phone connection, even the other person. That customer was in a bad mood, he thinks. When things go right, the optimist takes credit while the pessimist sees success as a fluke.[ 7 ] Craig Anderson had a group of students phone strangersand ask them to donate blood to the Red Cross⑦. When they failed on the first call or two, pessimists said, "I can't do this." Optimists told themselves, "I need to try a different approach." [ 8 ] Negative or positive, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. "If people feel hopeless, "says Anderson, "they don't bother to acquire the skills they need to succeed."[9] A sense of control, according to Anderson, is the litmus test⑧ for success. The optimist feels in control of his own life. If things are going badly, he acts quickly, looking for solutions, forming a new plan of action, and reaching out for advice. The pessimist feels like fate's plaything and moves slowly. He doesn't seek advice, since he assumes nothing can be done.[ 10 ] Optimists may think they are better than the facts would justify—and sometimes that's what keeps them alive. Dr. Sandra Levy of the Pittsburgh Cancer Institute studied women with advanced breast cancer. For the women who were generally optimistic, there was a longer disease-free interval, the best predictor of survival. In a pilot study of women in the early stages of breast cancer, Dr. Levy found the disease recurred sooner among the pessimists.[ 11 ] Optimism won't cure the incurable, but it may prevent illness. In a long term study, researchers examined the healthhistories of a group of Harvard graduates, all of whom were in the top half of their class and in fine physical condition. Yet some were positive thinkers, and some negative. Twenty years later, there were more middle-age diseases—hypertension, diabetes, heart ailments —among the pessimists than the optimists.[ 12 ] Many studies suggest that the pessimist's feeling of helplessness undermines the body's natural defenses, the immune system. Dr. Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan⑨ has found that the pessimist doesn't take good care of himself. Feeling passive and unable to dodge life's blows, he expects ill health and other misfortunes, no matter what he does. He munches on junk food⑩，avoids exercise, ignores the doctor, has another drink.[ 13 ] Most people are a mix of optimism and pessimism, but are inclined in one direction or the other. It is a pattern of thinking learned “at your mother‘s knee”，says Seligman. It grows out of thousands of cautions or encouragements, negative statements or positive ones. Too many “don’ts” and warnings of danger can make a child feel incompetent, fearful—and pessimistic.[ 14 ] As they grow, children experience small triumphs, suchas learning to tie shoelaces. Parents can help turn these successes into a sense of control, and that breeds optimism. [ 15 ] Pessimism is a hard habit to break—but it can be done. In a series of landmark studies, Dr. Carol Dweck11of the University of Illinois12has been working with children in the early grades of school. As she helps floundering students to change the explanations for their failures—from "I must be dumb" to "I didn't study hard enough“—their academic performance improves.[ 16 ] Pittsburgh's Dr. Levy wondered if turning patients into optimists would lengthen their lives. In a pilot study, two groups of colon-cancer patients were given the same medical treatment, but some were also given psychological help to encourage optimism. Results showed that this worked. Now a major study is planned to determine whether this psychological change can alter the course of the disease.[ 17 ] So, if you're a pessimist, there's reason for optimism. You can change. Here's how, says Steve Hollon, a psychologist at Vanderbilt University13:[ 18 ] 1. Pay careful attention to your thoughts when bad things happen. Write down the first thing that comes to mind, unedited and uncensored[ 19 ] 2. Now try an experiment. Do something that's contrary to any negative reactions. Let's say something has gone wrong at work. Do you think, I hate my job, but I could never get a better one?Act as if that weren't so. Send out resumés. Go to interviews. Look into training and check job leads[ 20 ] 3. Keep track of what happens. Were your first thoughts right or wrong? "If your thoughts are holding you back, change them," says Hollon. "It's trial and error, no guarantees, but give yourself a chance."[ 21 ] Positive thinking leads to positive action, and reaction. What you expect from the world, the evidence suggests, is what you're likely to get..。
