别再给你那沮丧的朋友打气了
There's a deep well of encouraging phrases most people turn to when trying to cheer up a friend or loved one: "You'll do better next time." Or "It's not really that bad, is it?" Or the relatively straightforward "Come on — cheer up!" All of these pick-you-ups are delivered with good intentions, but psychological researchers have known for a while that when they're offered to certain people, they're not very helpful. A new paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examines this within the context of the listener's self-esteem, and offers some very useful tips for how to comfort people going through difficult times.
有那么几句人们对垂头丧气的朋友经常说的话，例如“你下次会做得更好”，或者“其实也不是那么坏对吧”，又或者是比较简单直接的“别伤心了，快打起精神来”。所有这些话都是带着好意的，但心理学家们知道这些话对某些特定人并没有多大效果。一片刊登在《人性与社会心理学杂志》上的文章检测了这些话语和听者的自尊心之间的关系，并且提供了几条非常实用的如何安慰人的建议。
The researchers, from the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University, ran a bunch of experiments involving how to best support people with different levels of self-esteem. They found that so-called "positive reframing," which, as the name suggests, is an attempt to put negative events in their "proper" perspective, not only doesn't resonate with people with low self-esteem, but can actually fully backfire and make the comforter feel worse about themselves because their comforting is not working, potentially damaging their relationship with the person they're trying to comfort.
来自滑铁卢大学以及威尔弗瑞劳德瑞大学的研究人员开展了一系列的实验来探究该如何去安慰自尊程度不同的人。他们发现了一种被称作“积极重塑”的方法，即是鼓励人们去积极地看待负面问题。这不仅没有让低自尊的人产生共鸣，还会让安慰者感到沮丧，因为他们说的话根本没起什么作用，这样就潜在地破坏了两人之间的关系。
"Negative validation" — that is, "support behaviors that communicate that the feelings, actions, or responses of the recipient are normal and appropriate to the situation" — did resonate with people with low self-esteem, on the other hand. (People with high self-esteem tended to respond well to either positive reframing or negative validation.)
而另一方面，“消极对待”——即“考虑到了被安慰者的心情、行为和反应而作出的合适的安慰行为”——可以确实地让低自尊的人产生共鸣(对于高自尊的人来说两种方法他们都会接受)。
So why don't people with low self-esteem respond to positive reframing? Taking the example of someone positively reframing their partner's anxiety about a job interview, the researchers write that positive reframing "may suggest to some … that their anxiety about the upcoming event is unfounded and that their relationship partner does not truly understand or accept their feelings." The comforter may then react negatively to the comfortee's lack of responsiveness, leading to a negative cycle.
那么为什么低自尊的人不会对“积极重塑”有反应呢？让我们以工作面试为例，当一个人用”积极重塑“方法试图消除一个低自尊的人的紧张感时，研究人员写道积极重塑方法“可能不起作用，因为他们自己也不知道自己为何会紧张，而他们的同伴并不理解他们的感受就开始试着安慰他们。”由于没有得到期待中的回应，安慰者本身也会变得消极，从而进入了一个恶性循环。
None of this is to say the cheer-uppers are bad friends or partners, or that they lack empathy. The authors point out that it's simply hard for people who have high self-esteem to slip into a properly empathetic mode when dealing with people who lack it — they even cite research showing that people who know when to steer clear of positive reframing have a tendency to slip into it nonetheless. It can be exhausting dealing with someone who appears to simply refuse to feel better. Even if you're well-versed on mental-health issues and know this not a helpful response, at a certain point it's extremely tempting to say, "Get over it! The sun will rise tomorrow. Let's go get a beer."
这并不是说那些鼓励你振作起来的人就不适合当朋友，或者说他们缺乏同情心。作者指出这仅仅是由于对拥有高自尊的人来说，他们很难明白别人为什么会一直这么垂头丧气的，这样就使得他们在安慰那些一直无法打起精神来的同伴时候感觉很累，即使你精通心理学健康问题并且知道这样做并没什么用。
In fact, this is a big component of training to work on a suicide hotline: What the Samaritans call "befriending" is not about telling callers that they should go for a walk around the block (which they may be too depressed to do), or that things will get better (w
hich they may not). It's about validating their feelings, about simply being present and offering consolation to the best extent you can.
事实上，这在训练自杀热线接线员的时候是很重要的一点，接线员并不只是简单地告诉自杀者出去走一走(他们或许根本就不想出去)或者一切都会好起来的(或许根本好不起来)。而是在于理解他们的内心感受，然后尽最大的努力来表达出你的理解来安慰他们。uppers
So, to take a practical example: If you're trying to console someone with low self-esteem who is convinced a bad grade on a grad-school paper is a disaster that highlights how lazy and stupid they are, you'll likely be a lot more successful with a line like "That must really suck to feel so down about your grade," as opposed to reassuring them they'll do better next time.
其实只需要一个简单的例子你就明白怎么回事了。如果一名低自尊的同学认为他考试考得不好代表着他又懒又笨，你应该说“考得不好的感觉一定很难过”，这比对他说“下次一定会考好的”会更有效果。

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