题型：阅读理解 题类：其他 难易度：中档
C
The heat of the moment is a powerful, dangerous thing. My friend Eduardo Andrade and I wondered if emotions could influence how people make decisions even after the heat or anxiety wears off. However, really, we worried about it. If we were right, and recklessly (鲁莽地) poor emotional decisions guide later rational (理性的) moments, well, then, we’re not terribly sophisticated (精明的) decision makers, are we? If emotional decisions guide later rational moments, well, then, we’re not terribly sophisticated decision makers, are we?
To test the idea, we needed to observe some emotional decisions. So we annoyed some people, by showing them a five-minute clip from the movie Life as a House, in which an arrogant (自负的) boss fires an architect who proceeds to smash the firm’s models. We made other subjects happy, by showing them — what else? — a clip from the TV show Friends.
Right after that, we had them play a classic economics game, in which a “sender” (in this case, Eduardo and I) has $20 and offers a “receiver” (the movie watcher) a portion of the money. Some offers are fair (an even split) and some are unfair (you get $5, we get $15). The receiver can either accept or reject the offer. If he rejects it, both sides get nothing.
Traditional economics predicts that people — as rational beings — will accept any offer of money rather than reject an offer and get zero. But behavioral economics shows that people often prefer to lose money in order to punish a person for making an unfair offer.
Our findings followed suit, and, interestingly, the effect was amplified (增强) among our irritated (被惹恼了的) subjects. Life as a House watchers rejected far more offers than Friends watchers, even though the content of the movie had nothing to do with the offer. Just as a fight at home may sour your mood, increasing the chances that you’ll send a terrible e-mail, being subjected to an annoying movie leads people to reject unfair offers more frequently even though the offer wasn’t the cause of their mood.
Next came the important part. We waited. And when the emotions caused by the movie were no longer a factor, we had the participants play the game again. Those who had been annoyed the first time they played the game rejected far more offers this time as well. They were tapping the memory of the decisions they had made earlier, when they were responding under the influence of feeling annoyed. In other words, the tendency to reject offers remained heightened among our Life as a House group — compared with control groups — even when they were no longer irritated.
| A. Whether we are emotional in making decisions. |
| B. Whether our emotions are influenced by actions. |
| C. Whether decision makers have emotional problems. |
| D. Whether short-term emotions have long-term effects. |
| A. are more likely to reject unfair offers |
| B. are annoyed to be receivers of the money |
| C. are willing to accept any offer of money |
| D. are in no mood to offer others any money |
| A. their findings correspond to what traditional economics predicts
|
| B. their findings correspond to what behavioral economics shows
|
| C. they did their study by following the rules of behavioral economics
|
| D. they did their study by following the rules of traditional economics |
| A. confirmed their assumption
|
| B. changed their study objectives
|
| C. disagreed with their assumption
|
| D. adopted a different study method |
