Optimists all on same wavelength, but no two pessimists are alike
乐观者所见略同，悲观者各有不同
“All happy families are alike,” Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina. “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same is true for optimists and pessimists, scientists have found.
列夫·托尔斯泰在《安娜·卡列尼娜》中写道：“幸福的家庭都是相似的，不幸的家庭各有各的不幸。”科学家发现，乐观者和悲观者的情况亦是如此。
Researchers with expertise in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience came together to recruit 87 test subjects who had been identified, through testing, as covering a spectrum from sunny optimists to hardened pessimists.
具备社会心理学和认知神经科学专业知识的研究人员联合招募了87名受试者，通过测试，这些受试者涵盖了从极度乐观到极度悲观的各个类型。
The study found that optimists see the world in a very similar way to each other. Scans show that their brains tend to light up in the same way when asked to imagine events in the future.
研究发现，乐观者看待世界的方式彼此极为相似。扫描结果显示，当被要求想象未来事件时，他们的大脑往往会以相同的方式活跃起来。
Pessimists, however, are much more unique in their tendency to fear the worst, displaying a much wider and more diverse range of brain activity when asked to picture the future.
然而，悲观者在担忧最坏情况发生的倾向方面则要独特得多，当被要求想象未来时，他们的大脑活动范围更广、更为多样。
Kuniaki Yanagisawa, the lead researcher from Kobe University in Japan, amended the Tolstoy quotation to say: “Optimistic individuals are all alike, but each less optimistic individual imagines the future in their own way.”
日本神户大学的首席研究员柳泽邦明修改了托尔斯泰的名言，称：“乐观者皆相似，而每个不那么乐观的人想象未来的方式却各有不同。”
The subjects were asked to picture a range of scenarios and then imagine themselves or their partners experiencing those scenarios in the future. These included positive events, such as taking a big trip around the world, neutral events, such as submitting their CV with a job application, and negative events, such as being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
研究人员让受试者想象一系列场景，然后想象自己或伴侣在未来经历这些场景。这些场景包括积极事件，如进行一次环球大旅行；中性事件，如随求职申请提交简历；以及消极事件，如被诊断出患有晚期癌症。
During the experiment, their brain activity was recorded through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The researchers found that participants who scored highly for optimism displayed very similar patterns of neural activity in a part of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex, a region associated with thinking about the self and about the future.
实验期间，通过功能性磁共振成像记录他们的大脑活动。研究人员发现，乐观程度高的受试者，在大脑一个名为内侧前额叶皮层的区域显示出非常相似的神经活动模式，该区域与自我思考和未来思考相关。
“Optimistic individuals consistently exhibit convergent neural representations, reflecting shared patterns of episodic future thinking, whereas less optimistic individuals demonstrate increased variability,” the study reported, whereas pessimists showed more individual or “idiosyncratic” patterns.
研究报告称：“乐观者始终表现出趋同的神经表征，反映出情景未来思维的共同模式，而不太乐观者则表现出更大的变异性。”相比之下，悲观者则呈现出更多个体化或“特异”的模式。
It suggests that pessimists may be able to envisage a wider range of things that could go disastrously wrong in a worst-case scenario, whereas optimists are more likely to agree on a best-case scenario.
这表明，悲观者或许能够设想在最坏情况下可能出现的更多灾难性状况，而乐观者则更有可能就最佳情况达成共识。
It also suggests that when faced with negative future scenarios, optimists are more likely to see these in an “abstract and psychologically distant” way, rather than fearing that they will come to pass.
这也表明，当面对未来消极场景时，乐观者更可能以一种“抽象且心理上保持距离”的方式看待这些场景，而非担心它们会真的发生。
This shared way of seeing the world might be an evolutionary tool that bonds optimists together and makes them popular within a social group, the study suggested.
研究还提出，这种看待世界的共同方式可能是一种进化工具，它将乐观者凝聚在一起，使他们在社交群体中更受欢迎。
“We speculate that the observed shared cognitive structure positively impacts social relationships,” the report said. “Previous studies have demonstrated that, relative to pessimism, optimism is linked to larger social networks, higher relationship satisfaction, and increased perceived social support. Moreover, optimists are perceived as more likeable and attractive than pessimists and more likely to be accepted by their peer group.”
报告称：“我们推测，观察到的这种共同认知结构对社会关系具有积极影响。”“先前的研究表明，与悲观主义相比，乐观主义与更大的社交网络、更高的关系满意度以及更强的感知社会支持相关。此外，乐观者被认为比悲观者更讨人喜欢、更有吸引力，也更有可能被同龄群体所接受。”
Yanagisawa said: “The everyday feeling of ‘being on the same wavelength’ is not just a metaphor. The brains of optimists may in a very physical sense share a common concept of the future. But this raises new questions. Is this shared mechanism something they are born with or is it woven in later, for example through experience and dialogue?”
柳泽邦明说：“‘与某人合拍’这种日常感受并非仅仅是比喻。从非常实际的意义上讲，乐观者的大脑可能对未来有着共同的概念。但这引发了新的问题。这种共同机制是他们与生俱来的，还是后来通过经验和对话等形成的呢？”
