[Music]
[音乐]
[Applause]
[鼓掌]
So think back to your last extented family gathering.
回想一下你最近一次的家庭聚会
Let’s say, you know on Mildred turn 65 or something like that.
比如米尔德丽德65岁生日聚会之类的场合
You don’t, you don’t really want to be there and
你真的不想待在那里
this is, this is especially true if you are a scientist
尤其当你是一名像我一样
like me, you don’t have very good social skills.
并不具备很好的社交技巧的科学家
I can see my dinner tables from last night,
我可以一整晚都盯着面前的餐桌
nodding vigorously in the back.
在背后使劲地点头
Um… which is, which is ironic because
这很讽刺
I’m a social scientist and so sort of the oxymoron of a lifetime,
因为我是一名社会科学家 这样矛盾的生活
like…like…being a vegetarian assassin.
就像是成为一名素食杀手
But anyway you’re at this gathering
但是不管怎样 身处于这样的聚会上
and there’s usually a point in the evening when
晚上总有一个时刻
uncle George has had about ten glasses of wine and he says
乔治叔叔在喝完大概十杯酒后会对你说一些
to you something along the lines of you know money doesn’t buy happiness.
类似金钱买不到幸福之类的事情
As well, as well I’m German, so I
而且 我是一个德国人
suppose this would be delivered in sort of a drunken but Stern German accent.
所以我想这应该是带着醉意却严厉的德国口音
But so when he…when he does this to you the next time,
但当他下次再这样的时候
I want you to tell him that he’s wrong.
我希望你能告诉他 他错了
And for the rest of the talk,
接下来的时间
I’m going to tell you how we know this.
我将告诉你为什么是这样
And there’s two reasons to be interested in this question.
这个问题中有两个值得关注的点
The first is that you want to extricate yourself
第一是你想从和乔治叔叔的
from this conversation with uncle George.
谈话中脱身
But the second is that there is still about a billion people in the world
第二是世界上大约仍有十亿人
who live in abject poverty.
不幸地生活在贫穷中
And I think it’s really urgent that we solve this problem.
我认为解决这个问题迫在眉睫
And I think that asking this question
同时 提出这个问题
can be a first step in that direction.
就是解决它的第一步
So the kind of poverty that I have in mind
所以我想到的贫穷
is first and foremost economic poverty.
最先也最重要的是经济上的贫困
So not having enough money to buy food,
例如没钱购买食物
being unable to pay for health care and education,
无力支付医疗和教育费用
raising children who face similar prospects, and so on.
或是抚养未来和他们一样贫困的孩子等等
And over the past few decades,
在过去的几十年中
economists and other social scientists have tried to
经济学家和一些社会科学家正尝试着
understand how we can alleviate poverty.
寻找减少这种贫困的方法
And so let me take a quick detour and tell you
让我先绕个圈子再告诉你
about a tool that we use to do this.
我们做这件事所用的方法
So randomized control trials, take the idea of clinical trials,
随机对照试验 它将临床试验的想法
and apply it to social programs.
应用到社会项目中
So we work together with partner organizations,
我们和合作组织一起
and we take a poverty alleviation intervention in which we’re interested.
采取了我们感兴趣的扶贫干预措施
And the partner organization delivers it to a randomly chosen group of people,
他们随机地对一群人采取干预措施
and then comparing those people
然后将这些人与
to others who didn’t get the program,
没有参加项目的人进行对比
allows us to make rigorous statements
从而对于哪些干预有效哪些无效
about which interventions work and which don’t.
得出严格的结论
And so this approach has been very successful
所以这种方法成功地
over the past few decades in identifying poverty alleviation interventions that are successful.
在过去几十年确定了有效的扶贫干预措施
So some of my favorite examples
我最喜欢的例子是
come from attempts to increase school attendance in developing countries.
尝试提高发展中国家学生入学率的项目
This is very important because children there often don’t go to school
这一点非常重要 因为那里的孩子经常不去上学
with very bad long-term consequences.
而这会带来槽糕的长期影响
And so suppose you had a hundred dollars to spend to increase school attendance,
假设你用100美元来提高学校的出勤率
how should you spend them?
你该怎么花呢
So it turns out that you can buy about an extra week worth of school
事实证明 仅仅是将这100美元给予贫困家庭
attendance, if you simply give your hundred dollars to poor families.
你就可以买到额外一周的出勤时间
You can buy about an extra three weeks of school attendance
如果将这笔钱用于家长送孩子上学
if you instead you make the money conditional on family sending their children to school.
你就可以买到额外三周的出勤时间
But it turns out there is an even better intervention available which is information
但事实证明 还有一种更好的干预手段
that buys you about an extra three months of school attendance for every hundred dollars that you spend.
每花100美元就可以买到额外三个月的出勤时间
And it’s an interesting intervention because it works simply by providing information
这是一种有趣的方法 因为它仅仅是向父母提供信息
to parents about the returns to education that their children can expect
告诉他们孩子上学后可以得到的教育回报
when they do go to school which the parents often underestimate.
而父母往往低估了这一点
So I want you to notice three things about these numbers.
关于这些数字 我想提醒你们三点
The first is that there’re large differences here.
第一 这些措施的结果截然不同
It’s so, it’s useful to do these randomized experiments
通过这些随机实验
to find out which the effective interventions are.
来找到有效的干预措施是很有用的
The second is that the interventions that work well aren’t necessarily the ones
第二 我们认为效果好的干预措施
that we would have expected.
不一定就是最好的
So for instance the effectiveness of information
例如 信息的有效性
that was a surprise to many people.
让很多人感到惊讶
And third and that’s the point of the departure for my own work.
第三 这也是我工作的出发点
This very effective information intervention that happens entirely in people’s heads.
这种非常有效的信息干预完全发生在人们的头脑中
There’s no change in macroeconomic policy or the institutional environment or corruption
像是宏观经济政策 制度环境以及腐败等等
or anything like that.
都没有得到改变
It’s purely a change in the way that parents think
仅仅是父母对于教育回报的看法改变
about the returns to education that has these large effects.
就能带来如此大的改变
So what that suggests to me is that these small nudges
所以我认为个人层面上的微小改变
at the level of individuals people’s phy…individual people’s psychology
也就是个体心理的变化
can be very effective at alleviating poverty.
可以非常有效的减少贫困
And that in turn says I think that
反过来说 我认为
we might be able to develop even better poverty alleviation programs
我们可能会开发出更好的扶贫项目
if we first try to understand better
如果我们首先尝试更好的理解
where the poverty itself has a psychology.
贫困本身蕴含着哪些心理学
So could it be the case that poverty has particular psychological consequences?
那么 贫困是否会产生特殊的心理后果呢
So for instance, what does it lead to
例如 它会导致
unhappiness, stress, depression, and so on.
伤心 紧张 沮丧等等
And secondly, could it be the case
其次
that those psychological consequences in turn
这些心理后果会反过来
have effect for economic behavior and decision-making that make it difficult to escape poverty.
影响经济行为和决策 从而使人们难以摆脱贫困吗
So if you put those pieces together you have something like a psychological poverty trap.
如果你将这些因素放在一起 你就会发现一个心理贫困陷阱
And so over the past few years, I’ve been trying to understand
所以在过去的几年里 我一直在试图理解
whether something like this exists.
这些东西是否存在
And I want to tell you what I’ve learned
我想告诉你们我学到的东西
but I want to start with two caveats.
但我有两点要提先说明
The first is that asking these questions isn’t the same
首先 问这些问题并不是说
as saying the poor somehow to blame for their poverty
穷人应当为他们的贫困而受到责备
or that they’re somehow intrinsically deficient.
或是他们本身就存在缺陷
In fact it’s doing the exact opposite, it’s asking whether
实际上 它的作用正好相反
all of us might experience particular psychological consequences or behave in particular ways
他是在问我们每个人是否都经历过特殊心理所带来的影响
if we happen to find ourselves in a situation of poverty.
或是碰巧发现自己身处贫困而表现的不同
The second point is that I don’t think these psychological channels if they even exist
第二点 我认为这些心理渠道即使存在
are the only ones that are important.
也不是唯一重要的
There’s many other important ones,
还有很多其他重要的因素
no macroeconomic policy institutions.
无关宏观经济政策制度
We should work on those as well.
我们也应该在这些方面努力
But I think we should also ask whether psychology has some role to play.
但我认为我们也应思考心理学是否起了作用
So what have we learned, let’s start with the first question
所以我们从中学到了什么 从第一个问题开始
about the relationship between poverty and psychological outcomes.
那就是关于贫困和心理后果的关系
And let’s first ask it just at the level of a correlation.
我们先从相关性角度来探讨这个问题
It’s the correlation between poverty and happiness for instance.
比如贫穷和幸福之间的关系
For a long time we didn’t think this was the case.
很长一段时间我们都认为这不值得讨论
This is the somewhat condescending view of you know happy
这是一种居高临下的观点
poor people sitting under palm trees having a good time.
像是快乐的穷人坐在棕榈树下玩得很开心
Um…with new and better data,
有了更新更好的数据
maybe newfound respect for the poor,
也许会对穷人产生新的尊重
we now know that this isn’t true.
现在我们才知道并不是这样的
So the best science now shows that
如今最好的科学表明
there are in fact large differences in happiness between rich and poor.
穷人和富人之间的幸福感存在巨大差异
This is true both within countries and across countries.
这一结论在国家内部和国家之间都是成立的
So within the country the poor are less happy than the rich,
在国家内部 穷人的幸福指数低于富人
but also poor countries on average have lower levels of happiness
同时 贫穷国家的平均幸福指数
than rich countries on average.
也低于富裕国家
And this is also true for stress and depression, so poor people
压力和抑郁这是这样
are more likely to be stressed and depressed.
穷人更容易感到压力和抑郁
So this is at the level of a correlation,
这体现的是相关性水平
but what we really not want to know is whether there’s a causal relationship here.
但我们真的不想知道的是这其中是否存在因果关系
And to answer that question we need an experiment,
为了回答这个问题 我们需要一个实验
but obviously we can’t increase poverty ethically.
但显然从道德层面上我们并不能增加贫困
But we can do the opposite we can decrease it,
但我们可以反过来减少贫困
and ask whether that has positive psychological consequences.
来看看是否会产生积极的心理效应
Now it turns out there’s a wonderful program out there
现在有一个很棒的项目
that allows us to ask this question,
可以让我们提出这个问题
gives directly, is a charity that
“直接捐赠” 是一个慈善机构
has as its mission to collect donations from people like you and me.
它的使命是收集像你我这样的人的捐款
And send them directly to poor families in developing countries.
然后直接给予发展中国家的贫困家庭
These are called unconditional cash transfers
这被称作无条件现金转移
which means that the families get to spend the money however they wish.
这意味着这些家庭可以按照自己的意愿来消费
The idea here is to treat the people as the grown-ups that they are,
这里的理念是把人们当作成年人来对待
and not patronize them by telling them what they should do with the money,
不是用高人一等的态度告诉他们应该用这些钱来做什么
but instead letting them make their own decisions.
而是让他们自己决定如何使用这些钱
And so we were interested in this program for two reasons.
我们对这个项目感兴趣的原因有两点
First, it’s a very interesting poverty alleviation intervention
第一 这本身就是一个很有趣的扶贫干预项目
in its own right and we wanted to understand how well it works.
我们想知道它的效果如何
But secondly, it’s the perfect setting in which we can ask the scientific question.
第二 这是我们提出科学问题的最佳设定
So does this very definitional alleviation of poverty
那么这种仅是定义上的减轻贫困
simply giving people money also make them happier?
只是给予金钱也会让他们开心吗
Does it make them less stressed and less depressed?
这样会让他们少一些压力和抑郁吗
So together with my friend and colleague Jeremy Shapiro,
为此 我和我的朋友兼同事杰里米·夏皮罗
and our partner organization give directly,
以及我们的合作伙伴 “直接捐赠”组织
we ran a randomized control trial in Kenya on this program
在肯尼亚对这个项目进行了随机对照试验
that covered 120 villages about 1,500 households,
其中覆盖了120个村庄1500户家庭
and give directly delivered to these households unconditional
直接捐赠给这些家庭无条件的现金
cash transfers of about 700 dollars on average.
平均约700美元
This is roughly two years of per capita income.
这大约相当于两年的人均收入
And a year later we came back and we asked
一年之后 我们又回来询问
how these transfers had affected people’s psychological well-being.
这些钱是如何影响人们的心理健康的
And we found that the people who had got the transfers
我们发现 得到这笔钱的人
were much happier than they would otherwise have been.
远比他们原来更加快乐
They had lower levels of stress lower levels of depression.
他们的压力感和抑郁感都降低了
And when they got very large transfers we found that that even led to reductions
我们甚至发现 当他们得到大量金钱时
in cortisol, the stress hormone.
皮质醇和压力荷尔蒙水平都降低了
By the way, I should say we also didn’t find increases in
顺便说一下 我们发现
spending on tobacco and alcohol.
他们在烟酒方面的支出也并没有增加
The alcohol result of course being of particular importance to Uncle George
酒精的作用对乔治叔叔来讲特别重要
who is very concerned about just eight dollars being spent on, on alcohol, you know.
你知道的 他很在意花在酒精上的那八美元
Meanwhile he himself has moved on to the tequila phase of the evening
同时 他也开始了夜晚的龙舌兰酒阶段
which always works out well for him.
这对他来说总是效果很好
But he’s happy that the poor are making better decisions than him.
但他很高兴穷人能做出比他更好的决定
So that means that when you alleviate poverty by giving people money,
这意味着当你通过给钱来减轻贫困时
you improve psychological outcomes.
你就改善了人们的心理结果
This is why uncle George is wrong.
这也就是为什么乔治叔叔错了
So money does buy happiness.
金钱是可以买到幸福的
Now if uncle George at this stage is sort of still
如果乔治叔叔在这个时候还保持清醒
sober and with you enough,
并且足够支持你的话
he…he will say something like
他可能会说
well, but what about lottery winners?
好吧 那彩票中奖者呢
I suppose I’m forgetting that he’s German, said…would be said that,
我想我忘了他是个德国人 他应该会说
Johannes thought about a lot of evenness.
那彩票中奖者呢（德语）
So what he has in mind are these anecdotes of which there’s no shortage,
所以他想到的是这些常见的奇闻轶事
that when people win the lottery, they essentially ruin their own lives.
当人们中了彩票 就基本上毁了自己的生活
They make imprudent financial decisions and they end up being worse off
他们会轻率地支配这些钱 最终的结果是
than they would have been if they hadn’t won in the first place.
他们的处境会比当初没有赢得彩票时更加糟糕
Now it turns out that also doesn’t hold up in the data.
如今的数据却并不支持这一点
So the best science now shows that lottery winners on average are actually
现在最好的科学表明 平均而言
a lot happier than the non-winners.
彩票中奖者实际上要比未中奖者快乐的多
So that’s an attempt to answer the first question the relationship between
这是为了回答第一个问题
poverty and psychological well-being.
即贫困和心理健康之间的关联
Now let’s turn to the second question.
现在我们来回答第二个问题
Could it be that these psychological consequences of poverty
这些贫困的心理后果
have implications for economic decision-making
是否会对经济决策产生影响
that make it hard to escape poverty?
从而使人们难以摆脱贫困
And there’s two ways that you might imagine this could happen.
思考这个问题可以从两点出发
The first is that the stress that’s brought on by poverty
第一是贫困所带来的压力
might affect economic choices in subtle ways.
可能会以微妙的方式影响经济决策
And there’s now evidence suggesting that
现在有证据表明
when you’re under stress
当你身处压力时
you’re much more impatient than you are when you’re not stressed.
会比没有压力时更没有耐心
And that’s not a good thing if you’re supposed to make long-term decisions
如果你要在医疗和教育等方面做长期的决定和投资
and investments in things like health care and education.
这并不是一件好事
And so unless you, poverty causes stress, stress makes you impatient.
所以除非你 贫穷导致压力从而使人失去耐心
And then that impatience doesn’t help you to lift yourself out of poverty.
而这种缺乏耐心也不能帮助你摆脱贫困
But there’s a second sense in which the psychological consequences of
但在另一种意义上
poverty might exacerbate poverty.
贫困的心理后果可能会加剧贫困
And that is that they may simply incapacitate you.
那就是他们可能会让你丧失能力
So when chronic stress turns into full-fledged clinical depression,
因此 当慢性压力转化为完全的临床抑郁时
it’s very hard for people to keep earning a living.
人们很难继续谋生
So you don’t think your efforts will amount to anything.
你会觉得自己的努力不会有任何结果
You know no amount of information about returns to education can convince you otherwise.
你知道 再多关于教育回报的说法也无法说服你
It’s hard for you to even get out of bed in the morning
你甚至很难早上从床上爬起来
and your livelihood crumbles.
你的生活也变得支离破碎
So this is bad enough when you’re wealthy,
当你有钱的时候这已经够糟糕了
but it’s worse when you’re poor.
但当你贫穷的时候 情况更糟
And you don’t have as much of a safety net to fall back on.
而且你也没有那么多可以依靠的安全网
So as a result of this, there’s a silent epidemic of depression among the poor.
因此 抑郁症在穷人中悄然流行
And that’s the problem not only for psychological well-being,
这不仅是心理健康带来的问题
but also for economic outcomes.
同时也是经济结果所造成的
So if we think that this feedback loop exists
如果我们认为这种反馈循环存在于
between poverty and psychological well-being, that then leads to more poverty.
贫穷和心理健康之间 那就会导致更多的贫困
The next thing we want to do is break it.
接下来我们要做的就是打破这种困境
So how can we do that?
那么我们该怎么做呢
Well, there’s two obvious points where you can think about intervening.
其中有两个明显可以进行干预的点
One is on the poverty end itself.
一个是关于贫困本身
The other is on the psychological end.
另一个是心理层面的
I’ve already told you that intervening on poverty
我已经告诉过你们对贫困进行干预
has positive psychological effects.
会产生积极的心理效应
What I haven’t told you yet is that it also has positive economic effects.
我还没有告诉你们的是 它还会产生积极的经济影响
So in our study we find that the people who receive the transfers
在我们的研究中发现 那些收到转账的人
have higher levels of consumption a year later.
在一年之后的消费水平更高
They grow their asset holdings, they grow their businesses, they improve
他们增加了资产持有量 扩大了业务规模
their economic lives in a very general sense.
从整体上改善了自己的经济生活
This is also true for other programs.
这也适用于其他项目
Many other studies have found similar results.
许多其他研究也发现了类似的结果
But we don’t know much about yet
但我们还无法知道
is how effective it can be to intervene on the psychological end.
它在心理上干预的效果如何
So there now simple versions of psychotherapy available
现在有一些简单的心理治疗方法
that can be deployed in low-income contexts
适用于低收入人群
if you train laypeople to deliver them.
如果你训练外行来提供这些服务
And they’ve already been shown to effective to be effective in, in alleviating depression,
它们已经被证明可以有效的缓解抑郁症
but we don’t know yet
但我们还不知道
whether they also have positive economic benefits.
它们是否也会产生积极的经济效益
So that’s my big question for the future.
这是我对未来最大的疑问
Can we think of psychotherapy as not only an intervention for psychological well-being
我们是否可以认为心理治疗不仅是一种心理健康的干预手段
but also a tool that people can use to improve their economic situation?
同时也是一种人们用来改善自身经济状况的方法
So there’s now studies underway in a number of different countries that
现在很多不同国家正在进行相关研究
will give us an answer to this question.
这将会给这一问题带来解答
And I’m really excited to learn that answer as uncle George.
我真的很期待以乔治叔叔的身份得知这一答案
Thank you very much!
非常感谢
[Applause]
[鼓掌]