《10到25岁》第一章(5)：青少年窘境，情境给予的地位和尊重常常不足

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5篇。到目前为止，原文的结构

• 介绍
  • 介绍(1)：导师的困境
  • 介绍(2)：智慧反馈
  • 介绍(3)：10到25岁的大脑
  • 介绍(4)：传奇篮球教练奇普·恩格兰的故事
  • 介绍(5)：家族文化传承之皮特和蕾奥娜的故事
• 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
  • 第一章(5)：青少年窘境 (本文)

When society fails to appreciate the power of the situation young people are in, it leads to the neurobiological-incompetence model. This results in ineffective solutions like “Think. Don’t smoke” or the same old transplant-patient-education model. Tell, tell, tell. Blame and shame. I call it grownsplaining. Bogusky calls it the tale of woe. But when we understand young people’s situational predicaments, then we can feel more compassion for them. That helps us come up with more effective solutions, like Bogusky did with the “Truth” campaign.

当社会未能充分认识到年轻人与所处情境之间的强大对抗力量时，就出现了神经生物学无能模型。这会导致诸如“思考，不要吸烟”或陈旧的移植患者教育模型等无效的解决方案：告诉，告诉，再告诉；责备和羞辱。我称之为“成人说教”。博古斯基称之为“祸害故事”。但当我们理解了年轻人的窘迫情境时，我们就能对他们产生更多的同情。这有助于我们提出更有效的解决方案，就像博古斯基通过“真相”运动所做的那样。

What is the powerful situation that young people are in? It’s what I call the adolescent predicament. This is simply defined as the mismatch between young people’s neurobiological needs for status and respect and the level of status or respect afforded to them by their current circumstances (e.g., relationships, roles, jobs). This predicament is what happens when adults force young people to choose between social survival (and risk to long-term well-being) versus social harm (but better long-term well-being). Lots of things provoke the adolescent predicament. Being nagged by a parent. Receiving critical feedback on writing. Feeling berated by a superior at work during a performance review. Or being talked down to by a doctor. In all these examples, there’s a power imbalance between a young person and an authority figure. At the onset of puberty you become biologically attuned to being treated like a competent adult, but some new challenge always threatens to jeopardize your adultlike status. This predicament doesn’t just arise when you start middle school or high school. It happens any time you experience a change in roles, when you transition from one set of expectations and job descriptions to another, when status is on the line.

与年轻人对抗的强大的情境是什么？这就是我所说的“青少年窘境”。简单来说就是以下二者的不匹配：一是年轻人对地位和尊重的神经生物学需求，二是他们当前境况（例如，关系、角色、工作）所赋予他们的地位或尊重。当成年人迫使年轻人在社会生存（伴随长期福祉的风险）与社会伤害（但长期福祉更好）之间二选一时，这种​​窘境就出现了。许多事情会引发青少年窘境：被父母唠叨，收到对写作的批评反馈，在工作中被上级在绩效评估时斥责，或者被医生轻视。在所有这些例子中，年轻人与权威人物之间存在权力不平衡。在青春期开始时，你会在生物学上已经准备好，能被看作一个有能力的成年人，但总有新的挑战威胁到你的类成人地位。这种​​窘境不仅仅出现于在你开始上中学或高中时，还在你经历角色变化时，当你从一个期望和职位描述过渡到另一个时，当地位受到威胁时。

The adolescent predicament can last well into your twenties, even after puberty is done. The reason why is that our society, with its ever-increasing demands for advanced, technical skills, keeps young people in a holding pattern for so long. Consider that some early-maturing youth might be biologically prepared to reproduce by age thirteen, but they might not get a well-paying, full-time job until they are twenty-six, twice the age of biological maturity. That’s a long time to be waiting to be afforded status and respect, and it can raise serious questions in a young person’s mind about their social standing. Because of this predicament, it’s possible for over-twenty brains to still choose behaviors that seem immature from an older adult’s perspective. This is what makes the motivational priorities of the ten-year-old brain surprisingly similar to the priorities of a twenty-five-year-old brain, despite the differences in neural architecture. Thus, even a twentysomething employee can experience a gap between how they want to feel at a biological level and how their environments treat them. When the gap widens, then young people tend to pay much closer attention to whether they feel respected by those who have the power to shape their reputations.

青少年窘境可以持续到二十多岁，甚至在青春期结束后。原因在于，我们的社会对高级技术技能的需求不断增加，使年轻人长期处于等待状态。考虑到一些早熟的青少年可能在十三岁时在生物学上已准备好生育，但他们可能直到二十六岁才能获得一份高薪的全职工作，这是生物学成熟年龄的两倍。这是一段漫长的等待地位和尊重的时间，可能会在年轻人心中引发关于他们社会地位的严重问题。由于这种​​窘境，二十多岁的大脑仍可能选择（在年长成人看来）似乎不成熟的行为。这就是为什么十岁大脑的动机优先级与二十五岁大脑的优先级惊人地相似，尽管神经结构存在差异。因此，即使是二十多岁的员工也可能体验到二者的差距：希望从生物学层面感受到的，与环境如何对待他们的。当差距扩大时，年轻人往往会更加关注那些有权力塑造他们声誉的人是否尊重他们。

This explains why the UCLA report said that the brains of ten-year-olds and twenty-five-year-olds were similar, despite the many obvious differences. Both groups face an adolescent predicament. The specific details of their predicaments might differ—the younger ones might worry about humiliating themselves in front of their friends or romantic partners; the older ones might worry about looking bad in front of their first bosses—but the underlying principles remain the same.

这就解释了为什么UCLA的报告说，尽管有许多明显的差异，10岁和25岁的大脑是相似的。两组人都面临青少年窘境。他们​​窘境的具体细节可能不同——稍年轻的人可能担心在朋友或浪漫伴侣面前丢脸；稍年长者可能担心在第一任老板面前表现不佳——但底层的原理是相同的。

Notably, the UCLA report doesn’t conclude that twenty-five-year-olds are immature and need to be treated like children. Quite the opposite. It’s saying that twenty-five-year-olds want to be taken seriously and treated like meaningful contributors to the organization’s success, and ten-year-olds want to be taken seriously as well.

值得注意的是，UCLA的报告并没有得出如下结论：25岁的人不成熟且需要被当作孩子对待。恰恰相反，它说的是25岁的人希望被认真对待，希望被视为对组织成功有意义的贡献者，而10岁的人也希望被认真对待。

The adolescent predicament helps us understand complex issues like why kidney-transplant patients don’t take their pills, and it can suggest novel solutions that work with our pubertal hormones, not against them. To narrow the gap at the center of the adolescent predicament, we can increase experiences that grant status or respect. Consider a study I conducted involving the nutritional supplement Vegemite.

青少年窘境帮助我们理解诸如肾移植患者为何不服药等复杂问题，并可以提出与青春期激素合作而非对抗的新颖解决方案。为了缩小青少年窘境的中间差距，我们可以更多的赋予他们地位或尊重。一个我主导的涉及营养补充剂维吉麦酱的研究可提供启发。