《10到25岁》第一章(4)：颠覆无能模型，原来情感是理性的老师，年轻人有不同的动机优先级
说明：我正在连载《10到25岁》这本书的原文和翻译。本文是第一章的第4篇。到目前为止，原文的结构
- 介绍
- 第一部分：理解10到25岁的年轻人
- 第一章：我们为啥错了
- 第一章(1)：花费巨大但效果堪忧甚至反转的干预年轻人的两个项目
- 第一章(2)：对神经生物学无能模型的质疑和真相运动
- 第一章(3)：一场科学革命和父母唠叨研究
- 第一章(4)：颠覆无能模型 (本文)
Silk and Dahl’s parental-nagging study provided an interesting crack in the foundation of the neurobiological-incompetence model. It suggested that some of the perceived teenage incompetence might result from how teens respond to our words, not from a fixed biological inability to reason. But to really overturn the model, more evidence would be needed.
希尔克和达尔的父母唠叨研究，在神经生物学无能模型的地基上挖出了一道有趣的裂缝。它表明，一些被认为是青少年无能的现象，可能源于青少年对我们话语的反应方式，而并不是生物学本身的无能导致的无法推理。但要真正颠覆这个模型，还需要更多的证据。
From 2010 to 2012, “it started to feel like this [incompetence model] couldn’t be the whole story,” Galvan told me. The missing evidence, Galvan explained, came in part from studies that were able to use newly available technology to understand the brain. The technology examined the connectivity in the brain—that is, the extent to which one part of the brain talked to and influenced other parts of the brain. In the old studies, an fMRI scan could only assess whether there was any activation at all—whether people used their prefrontal cortices or their reward systems more in one circumstance or another. It couldn’t tell the difference between an adolescent being incapable of maturity versus unmotivated to think in a way that adults think is more mature. But new studies applying better technology —first with animal brains and later with human brains—started to show how the motivational, reward-system networks worked together with the prefrontal, planning networks. As it turned out, they were talking to each other in exactly the opposite way predicted by Plato’s chariot metaphor in Phaedrus.
从2010年到2012年，“开始感觉这个（无能模型）不可能是全部故事，”加尔万告诉我。加尔万解释说，缺失的证据部分来自能够利用新技术的脑部研究。这项技术检查了大脑的连通性——即大脑某一部分交流并影响另一部分的强度。在旧的研究中，fMRI扫描只能评估是否有任何激活——人们在不同情况下是否更多地使用了前额皮质或奖励系统。它无法区分两种情况：青少年是成熟能力不足还是缺乏（以成人认为更成熟的方式思考的）动力。但应用更先进技术的新研究——首先是在动物大脑上，后来在人类大脑上——开始展示动机和奖励系统网络如何与前额规划网络协同工作。事实证明，它们的交流方式与柏拉图在《斐德罗篇》中的战车隐喻所预测的完全相反。
The newer evidence showed that the logical, reasoning part of the brain (the prefrontal cortex) doesn’t teach the emotional and passionate regions of the brain (the limbic regions, like the nucleus accumbens) how to be more rational. Instead, the emotional regions serve as the teacher, and the prefrontal regions are the student. “Emotion is a learning tool,” Galvan explained to me. “It teaches you what to retreat from and what to approach; that’s so important in establishing that the emotions are not secondary to the reasoning parts of the brain.”
新的证据表明，大脑的逻辑推理部分（前额皮质）并不教导大脑的情感和激情区域（边缘区域，如伏隔核）如何变得更理性。相反，情感区域充当教师，前额区域是学生。“情感是一个学习工具，”加尔万向我解释道。“它教会你什么应该回避，什么应该接近；这对确立情感不是大脑推理部分的次要部分非常重要。”
In particular, an adolescent’s prefrontal regions and regions related to memory (such as the hippocampus) are focused on learning how to feel like a socially accepted and successful individual in their culture. Evidence for this came from studies showing that adolescents could show all the hallmarks of a mature, adult brain—planning ahead, weighing multiple options, accurately conducting complex value calculations—when it was for social rewards, such as helping others or looking good in front of a peer. After all, psychologists such as Erik Erikson have argued for almost a century—without neural evidence—that a central task of adolescence is to gradually become an independent social actor who can contribute to the community. One of the most noticeable effects of this developmental process is that young people become highly attuned to social status and respect.
特别是，青少年的前额区域和与记忆相关的区域（如海马体）专注于学习，如何在他们的文化中成为一个被社会接受和成功的个体。研究表明，当为了社会奖励，如帮助他人或在同龄人面前表现良好时，青少年可以展现出成熟成人大脑的所有特征——提前规划、权衡多种选择、准确进行复杂的价值计算。毕竟，像埃里克·埃里克森这样的心理学家一个世纪以来——几乎在没有神经证据的情况下——认为青春期的核心任务是逐渐成为一个能够为社区做出贡献的独立社会行为者。这一发展过程最显著的影响之一是年轻人对社会地位和尊重的高度敏感。
Let’s think about what this looked like in our evolutionary history. How did our ancestors survive? If you were a young person wandering the savanna, the single greatest threat to your daily survival, and to your potential to ever have children, was to be disrespected and excluded from the group. The group would only keep valuable contributors around—the ones who could hunt with the group, care for children, or acquire other resources. If our evolutionary ancestors didn’t pay very close attention to what gave them status and respect in their communities, then they’d run the risk of being ostracized, which meant eventual death. As a result, what looks like a problem of neurobiological incompetence is in fact a question of motivational prioritization. Young people deploy their considerable cognitive resources to attend to and protect their immediate social status and respect. If the information they get from adults threatens their social survival by robbing them of the status and respect they crave, they’ll likely tune it out. This isn’t because they’re immature. It’s because it’s part of learning how to survive.
让我们思考一下这在我们的演化历史中是什么样子。我们的祖先是如何生存的？如果你是一个在草原上游荡的年轻人，对你日常生存和未来生育潜力的最大威胁是被轻视和排斥在群体之外。群体只会保留有价值的贡献者——那些能够与群体一起狩猎、照顾孩子或获取其他资源的人。如果我们的进化祖先没有非常密切地关注什么能给他们带来社区中的地位和尊重，那么他们就有被排斥的风险，这意味着最终的死亡。因此，看似神经生物学无能的问题实际上是一个动机优先级的问题。年轻人调动他们相当大的认知资源来关注和保护他们当下的社会地位和尊重。如果他们从成年人那里获得的信息威胁到他们的社会生存，剥夺了他们渴望的地位和尊重，他们很可能会忽略它。其原因不是他们不成熟，而是学习如何生存的一部分。
Puberty drives this process. As your body starts preparing to develop sexual maturity, it pumps testosterone throughout your bloodstream, which affects many neural systems. “This spike in testosterone, in both boys and girls, contributes to adolescents’ hypersensitivity to signs of social status and respect,” Dahl told me. “It catalyzes the reward systems in the brain,” Galvan added. Of course, being disrespected feels bad at any age. But Dahl explained that the start of puberty triggers “an amplification of the salience of gaining social value. It makes it extra thrilling, and extra intense, when you’re admired, respected, or loved. And it’s extra painful when you’re diminished and disrespected.”
青春期推动了这一过程。当你的身体开始准备发展性成熟时，它会将睾酮泵入你的血液中，这会影响许多神经系统。“这种在男孩和女孩身体中睾酮的激增，导致青少年对社交地位和尊重的过度敏感，”达尔告诉我。“它催化了大脑中的奖励系统，”加尔万补充道。当然，在任何年龄被轻视都会感觉不好。但达尔解释说，青春期的开始触发了“获得社会价值的显著性放大。当你被钦佩、尊重或爱时，它会让你感到格外兴奋和强烈。而当你被贬低和轻视时，它会格外痛苦。”
Anyone who has spent time with a young person aged ten to twenty-five has probably seen this hypersensitivity play out. It dramatically changes what young people pay attention to and what things mean to them. My four-year-old doesn’t yell I know, Dad! when I ask him to put on his coat. My eleven-year-old does.
任何与10到25岁年轻人相处过的人可能都见过这种过度敏感的表现。它极大地改变了年轻人关注的事物以及这些事物对他们的意义。我的四岁孩子在我让他穿上外套时不会大喊“我知道，爸爸！”我的十一岁孩子会。
Dahl wants people to stop fearing the hormones of puberty, especially testosterone. In Shakespeare’s play The Winter’s Tale, a wise shepherd wished that “there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest” because all youth is for is “getting [women] with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.” Sound familiar? Dahl wants to rehabilitate puberty’s reputation. He thinks young people’s testosterone-induced hypersensitivity to status and respect is not a design flaw in the human condition. It’s a feature. It helps to motivate young people to learn and explore socially, seeking ways to contribute and gain social value. This probably aided survival throughout human history, such as learning how to navigate complex and unpredictable social groups. If, as The Winter’s Tale suggests, we just put adolescents to sleep, how would they learn to be competent adults? They would miss out on critical aspects of social and cultural learning, and particularly the trial-and-error learning that’s so crucial for growth.
达尔希望人们停止害怕青春期的激素，尤其是睾酮。在莎士比亚的戏剧《冬天的故事》中，一个明智的牧羊人希望“没有十岁到二十三岁之间的年龄，或者年轻人能睡过这段时间”因为年轻人的全部意义就是“让女人怀孕，冒犯老年人，偷窃，打架。”听起来熟悉吗？达尔想要恢复青春期的声誉。他认为年轻人因睾酮而对社会地位和尊重的过度敏感不是人类的设计缺陷，而是一个特征。它有助于激励年轻人学习和探索社交，寻找贡献和获得社会价值的方式。这在人类历史中可能有助于生存，例如学习如何驾驭复杂和不可预测的社交群体。如果像《冬天的故事》所建议的那样，我们只是让青少年睡觉，他们如何学会成为有能力的成年人？他们将错过社会和文化学习的关键方面，尤其是对成长至关重要的试错学习。
To drive this point home, Dahl points to studies of songbirds. When researchers block puberty and the associated changes in testosterone from happening, the birds never go through the arduous process of learning to sing a song that will attract a mate. Then they die alone. Puberty, Dahl believes, isn’t a threat to survival. It’s the means of survival.
为了强调这一点，达尔指向了对鸣鸟的研究。当研究人员阻止青春期和相关的睾酮变化发生时，这些鸟永远不会经历学习鸣唱吸引配偶的艰苦过程。然后它们孤独地死去。达尔认为，青春期不是生存的威胁，而是生存的手段。
In retrospect, Galvan and Dahl appreciated the contributions of the MacArthur network, but they thought it went too far in promulgating the neurobiological- incompetence model. The network didn’t have to say that puberty causes adolescents to lack mature decision-making abilities. Perhaps something closer to the truth of the matter—that young people have different motivational priorities, which would likely shift as they age—could have been as effective at achieving the valuable policy goal of promoting more humane sentences for convicted youth.
回顾过去，加尔万和达尔感激麦克阿瑟网络的贡献，但他们认为它在推广神经生物学无能模型方面走得太远。该网络不必说青春期导致了青少年缺乏成熟的决策能力。或许更接近事实的说法是：年轻人有不同的动机优先级，这些优先级可能会随着年龄的增长而改变；这一说法大约同样能有效实现有价值的政策目标：给犯罪的年轻人量刑更人道。