persistence [pə'sistəns, -'zis-] n. 持续；固执；存留
elbow ['elbəu]
n. 肘部；弯头；扶手; vt. 推挤；用手肘推开
inborn ['inbɔ:n] adj. 天生的；先天的
versus ['və:səs]
prep. 对；与...相对；对抗
limitation [,limi'teiʃən]
n. 限制；限度；极限；追诉时效；有效期限
staff [stɑ:f, stæf]
n. 职员；参谋；棒；支撑; adj. 职员的；...
reinforce [,ri:in'fɔ:s]
vt. 加强，加固；强化；补充; vi. 求援；...
mindset ['maindset]
n. 心态；倾向；习惯；精神状态
leverage ['li:vəridʒ, 'le-] n. 手段，影响力；杠杆作用；杠杆效率
tremendous [tri'mendəs] adj. 极大的，巨大的；惊人的
Why You Need to Fail
发布时间：2012-11-04 文章出自：blogs.hbr.org 原文链接：点击查看
\"Peter, I'd like you to stay for a minute after class.\" Calvin teaches my favorite body conditioning class at the gym.
\"What'd I do?\" I asked him.
\"It's what you didn't do.\"
\"What didn't I do?\"
\"Fail.\"
\"You kept me after class for not failing?\"
\"This, \" he began to mimic my casual weight lifting style, using weights that were obviously too light, \"is not going to get you anywhere. A muscle only grows if you work it till it fails. You need to use more challenging weights. You need to fail.\"
Calvin's onto something.
Every time I ask a room of executives to list the top five moments their career took a leap forward — not just a step, but a leap — failure is always on the list. For some it was the loss of a job. For others it was a project gone bad. And for others still it was the failure of a larger system, like an economic downturn, that required them to step up.
Yet most of us spend a tremendous effort trying to avoid even the possibility of failure.
According to Dr. Carol Dweck, professor at Stanford University, we have a mindset problem. Dweck has done a tremendous amount of research to understand what makes someone give up in the face of adversity versus strive to overcome it.
It turns out the answer is deceptively simple. It's all in your head.
If you believe that your talents are inborn or fixed, then you will try to avoid failure at all costs because failure is proof of your limitation. People with a fixed mindset like to solve the same problems over and over again. It reinforces their sense of competence.
Children with fixed mindsets would rather redo an easy jigsaw puzzle than try a harder one. Students with fixed mindsets would rather not learn new languages. CEOs with fixed mindsets will surround themselves with people who agree with them. They feel smart when they get it right.
But if you believe your talent grows with persistence and effort, then you seek failure as an opportunity to improve. People with a growth mindset feel smart when they're learning, not when they're flawless.
Michael Jordan, arguably the world's best basketball player, has a growth mindset. Most successful people do. In high school he was cut from the basketball team but that obviously didn't discourage him: \"I've missed more than 9, 000 shots in my career, I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.\"
If you have a growth mindset, then you use your failures to improve. If you have a fixed mindset, you may never fail, but neither do you learn or grow.
In business, we have to be discriminating about when we choose to challenge ourselves. In high risk, high leverage situations, it's better to stay within your current capability. In lower risk situations, where the consequences of failure are less, better to push the envelope. The important point is to know that pushing the envelope, that failing, is how you learn and grow and succeed. It's your opportunity.
Here's the good news: you can change your success by changing your mindset. When Dweck trained children to view themselves as capable of growing their intelligence, they
worked harder, more persistently, and with greater success on math problems they had previously abandoned as unsolvable.
A growth mindset is the secret to maximizing potential. Want to grow your staff? Give them tasks above their ability. They don't think they could do it? Tell them you expect them to work at it for a while, struggle with it. That it will take more time than the tasks they're used to doing. That you expect they'll make some mistakes along the way. But you know they could do it.
Want to increase your own performance? Set high goals where you have a 50-70% chance of success. According to Psychologist and Harvard researcher the late David McClelland, that's the sweet spot for high achievers. Then, when you fail half the time, figure out what you should do differently and try again. That's practice. And according to recent studies, 10, 000 hours of that kind of practice will make you an expert in anything. No matter where you start.
The next class I did with Calvin, I doubled the weight I was using. Yeah, that's right. Unfortunately, that gave me tendonitis in my elbow, which I'm nursing with rest and ice. Sometimes you can even fail when you're trying to fail.
Hey, I'm learning.
为何失败必不可少呢？
发布时间：2012-11-04 文章出自：译言 原文链接：点击查看
“彼得，下课后你留一下。”卡尔文是健身房的一位老师，教的是我最喜欢的体能训练课程。
“要我做什么？”我问他。
“是件你没有做的事。”
“我没有做什么呢？”
“你没有失败过。”
“因为我全都做成了，您就把我留下来？”
他开始模仿我悠闲的举重方式，使用的重量显然太轻了。“这样做的话你不会有任何提高的。只有当你不断地锻炼你的肌肉直到它举不动的时候，它才会增长。所以你需要尝试更有挑战性的重量。你需要失败。”
卡尔文对这事非常熟悉。
每次我让一屋子的高管列出他们职业生涯中取得巨大进步——不是一小步，而是一个飞跃——的前五大瞬间，往往失败被列其中。对于有的人来说，是工作丢了的时候。对于其他人来说，是项目黄了的时候。对于另外些人来说，是在一个更大的体系下（如经济低迷）的失败要求他们必须向前进的时候。
然而我们大多数人却在费着九牛二虎之力试图避免失败。
根据斯坦福大学教授卡罗·德韦克博士所说的，我们的心态存在问题。为了了解人们在面对逆境的时候，到底是什么让他选择了放弃或是坚持，德韦克博士已经做了大量的研究。
其答案简单得让人难以置信。结果就是完全取决于你自己的想法。
如果你相信你的天赋是天生的或是固定的，那么你会不惜一切代价去尽量避免失败，因为失败证明了你能力有限。拥有固定心态的人喜欢一遍又一遍地解决相同的问题，这加强了他们的成就感。
心态固定的孩子宁愿重做一个简单的拼图而不愿尝试一个更难的拼图。心态固定的学生不愿学习新的语言。心态固定的总裁周围都是与他们观点一致的人。当他们得到认同的时候，他们觉得自己很聪明。
但是如果你相信你的天赋随着你的毅力和努力而增长，那么你会把失败看作是提高自我的机遇而去寻求失败。拥有成长心态的人们不是觉得自己完美无缺而是觉得自己在学习中的时候，才会感到自己很有智慧。
迈克尔·乔丹可以说是世界上最好的篮球运动员。他拥有成长的心态。大多数成功人士也都如此。在高中的时候，他没有被学校篮球队选上，但是这显然没有使他灰心丧气。“在我的职业生涯中，我有9000多个球没有投进，输的比赛大概有300场。一共有26次我被信任为会投进制胜的一球，然而我却错过了。我的一生中失败了一次又一次，一次再一次。而这就是我为什么会成功的原因。”
如果你拥有一个成长心态，那么利用你的失败来提高自己吧。如果你的心态一成不变，你可能不会失败，但是你也不会有所收获、有所成长。
在商业上，对于何时我们要选择挑战自己，我们必须有辨别力。在高风险、高杠杆比率的情况下，最好保持你的现状。在低风险的情况下，失败的后果较少，你就可以挑战极限。关键是挑战极限、尝试失败让你知道如何去学习、成长并获得成功。这是你的机遇。
好消息是：你可以通过改变心态来改变成功。德韦克博士训练一些小孩，让他们认为自己有能力提高他们的智力，于是他们更加勤奋努力了，更加坚持不懈了，他们在数学上取得了更大的成功，解决了之前被认为是无法解决而放弃的数学问题。
成长心态是使潜力最大化的秘诀。想要让你的员工有所成长吗？给他们力所不及的任务吧。他们认为他们不会做？那么告诉他们：你希望他们在这项任务上努力一段时间，与其进行斗争；这花的时间会比他们做习惯了的事所用的时间长；你也预料到他们会在这过程中犯一些错误；但是你知道他们一定可以做好。
想要让你表现得更好吗？那么把你的目标制定得高远一些吧，让你只有50%-70%的成功可能性。根据心理学家、哈佛研究院大卫·麦克勒兰德，这是对于高成就者的最有效点。然后，当你一半的时间是失败的时候，想出哪些地方你应该做的不同一点，并再次尝试一回。这就是练习。根据最近研究表明，10000小时这样的练习会使你成为任何事情的专家。不管你的起点在哪里。
接下来与卡尔文一起上的课上，我使用了两倍之前的重量。是啊，这对极了！不幸的是，这给我造成了肘部肌腱炎，我现在还在用冰块敷着，在休息调理中呢。有时候就算你想尝试失败，你也不见得会成功，你还是会失败。
嘿，我正在学习哦！
重点词
ego ['i:ɡəu, 'eɡəu] n. 自我；自负；自我意识
energize ['enədʒaiz]
vt. 激励；使活跃；供给…能量; vi. 活动...
psychology [psai'kɔlədʒi] n. 心理学；心理状态
gender ['dʒendə]
n. 性；性别；性交; vt. 生（过去式gen...
implication [,impli'keiʃən] n. 含义；暗示；牵连，卷入
infer [in'fə:]
vt. 推断；推论; vi. 推断；作出推论
fatigue [fə'ti:ɡ]
n. 疲劳，疲乏；杂役; vt. 使疲劳；使心智...
tolerance ['tɔlərəns] n. 公差；宽容；容忍；公差
trait [trei, treit] n. 特性，特点；品质；少许
sexually ['sekʃuəli] adv. 性别地；两性之间地
The Cognitive Psychology of Pick-up Lines
Every relationship begins with that first step. Some people never get past that first step. First impressions matter, and our opening few lines can either energize the interaction, or
cause the other person to look around for the nearest exit. Gratefully, psychologists have spent years of celibacy trying to understand the psychology behind pick-up lines for your own benefit.
In the '80s, Chris Kleinke and colleagues analyzed the effectiveness of 100 pick-up lines across a number of different settings, including bars, supermarkets, restaurants, laundromats, and beaches. They found three main categories of openers: direct gambits, which are honest and get right to the point (e.g, \"I'm sort of shy, but I'd like to get to know you\"), innocuous gambits, which hide a person's true intentions (\"e.g., \"What do you think of this band?\"), and cute/flippant gambits, which involve humor, but often in a cheesy, canned way (e.g., \"Do you have any raisins? No? Well then, how about a date?\".)*
Both men and women agreed that cute/flippant pick-up lines were the least attractive. Women, however, preferred innocuous lines and had a greater aversion to cute/flippant lines than men, while men had a greater preference for direct opening gambits than women. This basic pattern has been found over and over again in a variety of settings, including singles bars. What's going on?
Trait perception plays a crucial role. We don't have direct access to a person's characteristics, so we infer underlying traits from overt behaviors. One study found that people perceive those who use innocuous lines as smarter and sexier than those who use cute/flippant lines. Another study found that while women perceived men who use silly pick-up lines as more sociable, confident, and funny, they also perceived them as less trustworthy and intelligent. While all these traits are certainly valued in a mate, research shows that low trustworthiness and low intelligence are deal breakers for a long-term relationship, overriding other \"luxuries\
Women are rightfully skeptical of cute/flippant pick-up lines: researchshows that those with a long-term mating strategy tend to use supportive and honest pick-up strategies,
whereas those with a short-term strategy tend to use manipulation and dishonesty. I should note that when a woman is looking for a short-term fling, it may be an entirely different story: one study conducted on college students found that women were willing to have a short-term fling with men they were attracted to, regardless of the content of his pick-up lines! More stable individual differences also play a role, with extraverts and those with a general orientation toward hook-ups vs. long-term committed relationships, more receptive to humor and sexually charged pick-up lines.
While all these findings are informative, they don't address moment-to-moment mental fluctuations. We're not machines, with a steady supply of cognitive resources on command. Receptivity to pick-up lines involves cognitive processing, which requires thought. A certain amount of mental energy is required to follow the conversation and cut through the bullhonkey to figure out a person's true intentions. But your mental state at any given moment is influenced by a number of factors, including how much stress you've experienced that day, or even just before the current conversation. If you've already been hit by a barrage of cute/flippant lines, your brain may feel a bit fatigued.
Cognitive fatigue matters. When your mind is taxed, it is much more difficult to process information and regulate your emotions, thoughts, and actions. Like a muscle, self-control is a limited resource: when fatigued, it's hard to flex it. This has important implications for interpersonal relationships: people in monogamous relationships whose brains are tired spend more time looking at attractive potential mates, are more likely to accept a coffee date from an attractive person, report more interest in an attractive person who is not their partner, and are more likely to actually cheat.
But how does this relate to receptivity to pick-up lines? Does a person's mental state affect how a pick-up line is perceived? In a recent study, Gary Lewandowski and colleagues gave 99 undergraduates a five-minute writing task in which they were asked to describe a recent trip. In the \"ego-depletion\" condition, students were told they couldn't
use the letters A or N anywhere in the story, whereas in the \"non-depletion\" condition, they weren't given this cognitively taxing instruction. After the writing task, participants looked at a picture of an attractive opposite sex person and rated how they would respond if the person approached them, using one of three categories of openers: direct, innocuous, and cute/flippant. What did they find?
Those whose brains were cognitively taxed were less receptive to cute/flippant openers compared to those in the non-depletion condition. In the context of cute/flippant pick-up lines, those in the depleted group were more likely to \"ask the initiator to leave them alone\" and \"ignore the initiator.\" In contrast, for innocuous gambits, the depleted students were less likely to ignore the person and ask the person to leave them alone. Receptivity to direct gambits was unaffected by being cognitively depleted. There were also gender effects consistent with the prior research I mentioned earlier. Men were more receptive to direct openers, and females were more receptive to innocuous openers. Also, women were least receptive to cute/flippant openers.
What explains these effects? The researchers argue that when it comes to cute/flippant openers, less mental effort is required to figure out the persons' intentions. Mix that in with the fact that a depleted, frazzled individual may have less tolerance for obvious pick-up attempts, and you have an enhanced aversion to cheesy lines. When it comes to innocuous pick-up lines, however, the person's intentions are much more ambiguous. This requires much more cognitive resources to decipher intent, sometimes too much. As the researchers note, it's less socially awkward for the brain depleted individual to continue the conversation until the person's intentions become more obvious.
搭讪的心理学研究
发布时间：2012-11-03 文章出自：译言 原文链接：点击查看
每一段相识都要经过那个步骤。可总有些人永远处理不好这开始的第一个步骤。第一印象非常重要，它决定了人们否愿意和你深入交流，还是环顾四周寻找出口。心理学家们花费数年时间，对各种搭讪方式的效果做了详尽的研究，感谢他们吧，光棍们。
在80年代，Chris Kleinke 和他的同事们研究了100多种搭讪方式在包括酒吧，超市，酒店，洗衣店和沙滩等不同场景下的效果。他们把搭讪方式分为三大类：单刀直入式，诚实的说出自己的想法和目的（比如说，“我有点害羞，但我还是想认识你”）；今天天气哈哈哈式，掩藏目的，故作它言（例如，“你对着品牌有什么看法？”）；卖萌耍贱式，貌似是幽默，但通常看起来有点贱（例如，“妹子你有葡萄干么？没有？那你有约会么？”）。
无论男女都同意，耍贱的方式都是最差的开场白。女性跟喜欢婉约的今天天气哈哈哈式，并且比男性更厌恶耍贱的，而男性多数更喜欢直白的开场白。这种情况在所有场景都得到反复的验证。这是为什么呢？
性格成见在此扮演了一个十分重要的角色。我们无法直接的了解他人的性格特点，于是我们依靠他们的行为举止来判断。一份研究报告表明，人们普遍认为婉约的方式比耍贱的方式看上去更聪明和性感。另一份研究表明，女人们认为那些搭讪时表现的傻乎乎的男性更加成熟，自信和幽默，同时又觉得他们不够可靠和智慧。
女性对耍贱式搭讪的厌恶非常合理：一份调查显示，那些想要发展一段长期稳定关系的都倾向于使用诚实直接的搭讪方式，而那些只想玩玩的多数会采用不是那么真诚的方式来搭讪。另外，我发现，如果是女在寻找一段露水情，那么事情就完全不同了:一份基于在校大学生的调查指出，女性如果想和他们心仪的男性来段露水，无论什么开场白都不会影响成功率。个体差异也是影响搭讪感受的重要因素，那些外向、奔放的人比那些安稳老实的更能接受幽默和带黄段子的搭讪方式。
就算以上都符合了，被搭讪者当时的心理状况也会影响搭讪的效果。我们不是机器，输入相同的信息就会给出相同的反应。被搭讪人当时心中所想不同，对搭讪的接受程度和反应都会不同。想要得到精确的答案，就必须知道被搭讪人当时准确的心理状况。但是人的心理状态确实难以预测，它会受到各种影响，包括最近生活的压力，甚至是刚才的对话所产生的情绪。比如你被人用耍贱的方式搭讪了好几次，可能就会对此产生厌恶感，下次有人继续用此方式来搭讪就会效果很差。
疲劳感是个很麻烦的东西。当大脑疲劳时，它就不愿意处理信息，也不愿意调动情绪，想法和行动。大脑如同肌肉与自控力，都有他们的极限，一旦突破，要恢复过来，就很漫长。这件事在人际关系中有着很重要的影响：比如说，当人们处于一段稳定的一夫一妻的关系中时，他们就不再回去寻找另一段稳定的关系，而是希望能有一位充满异性魅力的对象来一次激情刺激短暂的约会，那些与他们伴侣截然不同的魅力异性的形同背叛的约会，会让他们感到极大的快感。
那么这种情况下该如何去搭讪呢？如何根据人所处的不同精神状态去选择搭讪语呢？在最近的一次研究中Gary Lewandowski和他的同事做了一项实验，他们给99位大学生一项任务，要求他们在5分钟内描写他们最近的一次旅行。99位大学生分为两个对照组，一组是“受限制组”，他们被要求不能使用A和N两个字母，另一个则为“无限制组”，没有做任何限制和要求。当他们写完以后，工作人员给他们看了一副非常有吸引力的异性的照片，并询问他们，如果这位异性通过前面所说的三种方式向他们搭讪，他们会作何反应。
实验表明，那些无限制组内的人比受限制组更能接受耍贱式搭讪。疲惫的受限制组的人，对这种耍贱式搭讪的反应多是让他离开或是无视。对照来看，对于间接型搭讪，受限制组的学生就很少有这样的反应。直接型搭讪的效果也不甚理想。同时，该实验也证明了上文的观点，男性更喜欢直接型搭讪，女性更喜欢间接型搭讪，厌恶耍贱式搭讪。
如何解释这些情况呢？研究者认为，耍贱的方式更不需要人们调动大脑去了解搭讪人的目的。一个疲惫的人本来就会对搭讪比较反感，当搭讪人还是用耍贱的方式去搭讪，更增强了这种
厌恶。而间接型搭讪对搭讪人的目的做了隐藏。被搭讪人需要更多的调动大脑来思索搭讪人的意图。研究者认为，对于疲倦者，不直接暴露意图，不会引起尴尬的搭讪方式是最好的。
这点很重要，要知道搭讪在酒吧和俱乐部里最为常见，在那里，人们的大脑总是不在最佳状态。老实说，想弄清一个人的真实目的，喝的醉醺醺的或者在自己精神不佳时跑去一个充满了搭讪的地方可不是什么好选择。当然，从另一个角度说，如果你总在和异性聊天时说那些无聊的黄段子，你得好好的改掉这毛病让自己看起来更聪明些——不然的话，你就只能当个出色理论家，但是无法在实战中拿下妹子。
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