考研时文阅读2

考研时文阅读（2）Altruism（利他主义）, according to the text books, has two forms. One is known technically as kin selection, and familiarly as nepotism. This spreads an individual's genes collaterally, rather than directly, but is otherwise similar to his helping his own offspring. The second form is reciprocal altruism, or “you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours”. It relies on trust, and a good memory for favours given and received, but is otherwise not much different from simultaneous collaboration (such as a wolf pack hunting) in that the benefit exceeds the cost for all parties involved. Humans, however, show a third sort of altruism—one that has no obvious pay-off. This is altruism towards strangers, for example, charity. That may enhance reputation. But how does an enhanced reputation weigh in the Darwinian balance? To investigate this question, the researchers made an interesting link. At first sight, helping charities looks to be at the opposite end of the selfishness spectrum from conspicuous consumption. Yet they have something in common: both involve the profligate deployment of resources. That is characteristic of the consequences of sexual selection. An individual shows he (or she) has resources to burn—whether those are biochemical reserves, time or, in the human instance, money—by using them to make costly signals. That demonstrates underlying fitness of the sort favoured by evolution. Viewed this way, both conspicuous consumption and what the researchers call “blatant benevolence” are costly signals. A nd since they are behaviours rather than structures, and thus controlled by the brain, they may be part of the mating mind. Researchers divided a bunch of volunteers into two groups. Those in one were put into what the researchers hoped would be a “romantic mindset” by being shown pictures of attractive members of the opposite sex. They were each asked to write a description of a perfect date with one of these people. The unlucky members of the other group were shown pictures of buildings and told to write about the weather. The participants were then asked two things. The first was to imagine they had $5,000 in the bank. They could spend part or all of it on various luxury items such as a new car, a dinner party at a restaurant or a holiday in Europe. They were also asked what fraction of a hypothetical 60 hours of leisure time during the course of a month they would devote to volunteer work. The results were just what the researchers hoped for. In the romantically primed group, the men went wild with the Monopoly money. Conversely, the women volunteered their lives away. Those women continued, however, to be skinflints, and the men remained callously indifferent to those less fortunate than themselves. Meanwhile, in the other group there was little inclination either to profligate spending or to good works. Based on this result, it looks as though the sexes do, indeed, have different strategies for showing off. Moreover, they do not waste their resources by behaving like that all the time. Only when it counts sexually are men profligate and women helpful. （选自Economist, 08/02/2007）参考译文根据教科书，利他主义有两种表现形式：一种就是所谓的血缘选择，即家庭亲戚关系。

这种利他主义是通过一个人的基因间接传播的，而不是直接的，但是另一方面也就像一个人会无私地帮助自己的孩子一样。

第二种形式是互惠的利他主义，或者说“你帮我搓背我也帮你搓背”。

这种利他主义的基础在于信任，并对自己得到和付出过的帮助保持较好的记忆，但是除此以外，这种利他主义和物种天然的合作关系（比如狼群共同寻找猎物）没有什么大的区别，因为对于所有的参与者来说，他们合作的所得远远超过其付出。

但是人类却表现出了第三种利他主义—一种不会有什么赢利的利他主义。

这是一种对陌生人的利他主义，比如说慈善业，从而能够增进人们的名誉。

但是名誉的增加如何在达尔文平衡中找到其位置呢？为了探讨这一问题，研究者们找到了一个有趣的关系。

乍一看，从自私角度来说参与慈善事业好像是炫耀性消费的相反面。

但是他们有一点是相同的，即二者都包含了对资源的大规模调度。

这是性别选择结果的一个特点。

一个人想要显示他（或者她）拥有的可以挥霍的资源—无论是生化储备、时间、还是对于人类来说的金钱—通过使用这些东西来发出一些昂贵的信号。

这也是进化过程中帮助物种生存下来的适切性。

如果从这个角度来看问题的话，那么炫耀性消费和研究者们所称的“炫耀性善行”都是昂贵信号。

而且它们都是行为而不是结构，因此是由大脑控制的，也许还是寻偶想法的一部分。

研究者将一群志愿者分成了两组。

他们向第一组的成员展示了一组相反性别的长得很漂亮或很帅的人们的照片，从而希望使志愿者们变得浮想联翩。

接着研究者要求他们写一个关于自己和照片上的人的一次完美约会。

而另一组的志愿者就没有这么幸运了，他们看到的是一组高楼大厦的图片，并要写一个关于天气的报告。

然后研究人员要求参与者们做两件事情。

第一件事情是要求他们想象自己在银行有5千美元。

他们可以把其中一部分或者所有的钱花在各种奢侈品上，比如一辆新车、在餐馆的一次晚宴、或者去欧洲度假。

第二件事情是，假设他们一周有60个小时的休闲时间，那么在一个月期间他们愿意花多少百分比的休闲时间在志愿者工作上。

研究结果正如研究人员最初预料的那样。

在充满浪漫气氛的第一组成员中，男人们疯狂地想完全占有金钱。

相反，女人们则更愿意做志愿者工作。

但是女人们却更加吝啬，而男人们却对财富的减少并不那么在意。

同时，在另一组成员中，人们既不倾向于大肆挥霍、也没有认真工作的偏好。

基于这一结果，看起来不同性别的人实际上对于炫耀有不同的策略。

此外，他们不会总是把他们的资源浪费这些行为上。

只有当吸引异性的时候，男人们才会花更多的钱、而女人们会更加乐于助人。