如何制定更理性的新年計劃大綱

Can 'goal factoring' help you keep your New Year's resolution to hit the gym every day in 2014?

“目標構想”能幫助你堅持自己的新年決心，在2014年的每一天都去健身房健身嗎？

'Goal factoring, ' a method of designing better plans, is one of the techniques taught by the Center for Applied Rationality, which hosts three-day workshops that teach attendees how to use science-based approaches to achieve goals. A November workshop in Ossining, N.Y., instructed 23 participants on how thinking about one's future self as a different person can help goal-setting and why building up an 'emotional library' of associations can reduce procrastination.

“目標構想”是應用理性學習中心(Center for Applied Rationality，簡稱“CFAR”)所教授的技巧之一，是一種擬定更合理計劃的方法。該中心常舉辦爲期三天的講習班，教授與會者如何採用有科學依據的方法來實現目標。他們於11月份在紐約州奧西寧(Ossining)舉辦的講習班吸引了23名參加者，指導他們把未來的自己想象成一個不同的人可如何幫助制定目標，以及建立“情感（聯想）庫”爲何能減輕拖延。

CFAR, a Berkeley, Calif.-based nonprofit, is prominent in the growing 'rationality movement, ' which explores the science of optimized decision-making. In recent years, books about decision-making and probability theory -- including 'Predictably Irrational' by Dan Ariely, who writes a regular column for The Wall Street Journal, and 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' by Daniel Kahneman -- have been best-sellers. Websites like Overcoming Bias and Less Wrong serve as communities for those who believe the best way to be effective, whether in changing eating habits or changing the world, is to actively look at the lessons of science and hard data. The movement draws on some of the same research as economists who argue that investors behave irrationally.

CFAR是加州伯克利(Berkeley)的一個非營利機構，它在影響正在日益擴大的探討優化決策制定科學的“理性運動”中地位顯著。近些年，有關決策制定及概率論的書籍一直都是暢銷書，包括也爲《華爾街日報》(The Wall Street Journal)定期撰寫專欄的丹·阿雷利(Dan Ariely)所寫的《可預見的非理性》(Predictably Irrational)，以及丹尼爾·卡內曼(Daniel Kahneman)撰寫的《思考，快與慢》(Thinking, Fast and Slow)等。諸如Overcoming Bias和Less Wrong這樣的網站成爲了那些認爲變得高效──無論是改變飲食習慣或是改變世界──的最佳方法就是積極參考科學經驗和硬數據的人士的活動中心。此外，理性運動還借鑑了那些提出投資者總是不理性地行動的經濟學家所借鑑的部分研究。

Very smart people often make irrational decisions, says University of Toronto psychologist Keith Stanovich. This leads to, say, physicians choosing less effective medical treatments or governments spending millions on unneeded projects. In 2013, Dr. Stanovich received a $1 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to develop a rigorous 'rationality quotient' test similar to an IQ test. Dr. Stanovich, who sits on CFAR's advisory board, hopes to have such a test ready in two years. He hopes the test will encourage people to learn to be more rational.

多倫多大學(University of Toronto)的心理學家基思·斯塔諾維奇(Keith Stanovich)稱，非常聰明的人常常也會做出不理智的決定。這會導致醫生選擇了不怎麼有效的醫療方案，或者是政府在不必要的工程上花了幾百萬。2013年，斯塔諾維奇博士收到了約翰·坦普爾頓基金會(John Templeton Foundation)提供的100萬美元資助，以開發一個類似智商測試的嚴密的“理性商數”測試。斯塔諾維奇博士也是CFAR的顧問之一，他希望在兩年後設計出這樣的測試，並希望該測試能促動大家學習變得更理性一些。

For individuals, the odd secret of rationality is its reliance on emotions, proponents say. 'People are always really surprised at how much time we spend at the workshops talking about our feelings, ' says CFAR President Julia Galef, who has a statistics degree from Columbia University. 'Rationality isn't about getting rid of emotions, but analyzing them and taking them into consideration when making decisions, ' she says.

支持者稱，對於個人而言，理性的奇特祕密在於它對情感的依賴。CFAR主席朱莉婭·加利夫(Julia Galef)指出：“總是有人對自己在講習班中花了那麼多時間談論自己的感受非常驚訝。理性並不是要你消除情感，而是要分析它們並在做決定時把它們考慮進去。”加利夫擁有哥倫比亞大學(Columbia University)的統計學學位。

Attendees, who each paid about $4, 000 to participate in the Ossining workshop (meals and lodging included), learned a technique called 'pre-hindsight' that uses emotional cues to create more foolproof plans. It works like this: Imagine that six months have passed, and you haven't achieved the body of your dreams. How surprised are you? The less surprised you are, the less likely it is you will succeed at your goal. Then think in detail about each reason you wouldn't be surprised if June comes and the number on the scale hasn't budged. Each reason -- whether 'I don't have time' or 'I don't like running in the mornings' -- is a possible cause of failure. Using the surprise level to anticipate these is crucial to creating a plan to address each weak point.

參加奧西寧講習班的人每人需交費約4,000美元（包括食宿），學習的是一項名爲“事後認識預測”的技能，即運用情感暗示來制定更萬無一失的計劃。它是這樣起作用的：想象一下六個月已經過去，而你還未實現你的理想身材。你會有多驚訝？你越是不驚訝，你成功實現目標的可能性就越低。接下來，你要仔細想想假如6月份已經到來，但體重秤上的數字還沒變化，對此你並不驚訝的每個原因。每一個原因──無論是“我沒有時間”還是“我不喜歡在早晨跑步”──都是可能讓你失敗的原因。利用驚訝程度來預測這些是制定計劃以解決每個弱點的關鍵。

Similarly, goal factoring can help determine whether shelling out $40 a month at the YMCA is the best way to get in shape. This involves mapping out the motivations (health, stress relief, weight loss) behind doing something (going to the gym), and questioning whether there is a more effective way to achieve the same things. Goal factoring could lead a person to realize that, given time and interests, an hour on the treadmill is unrealistic, but a weekly soccer tournament with friends is doable.

同樣地，目標構想能幫助你決定每個月在基督教青年會(YMCA)花上40美元是否是保持體型的最佳方法。這包括要列出做某件事情（比如去健身房）背後的動因（爲了健康、減壓或減肥），然後自問做成同樣的事情是否還有更有效的方法。目標構想可讓一個人意識到，考慮到時間和興趣問題，在跑步機上跑一小時是不切實際的，而每週和朋友踢場足球則是可行的。

Other lessons include 'structured procrastination.' The idea is that if you're going to procrastinate, you might as well procrastinate by doing something that works toward another goal -- for example, procrastinate on starting a work project by watching a TED talk you've been meaning to catch or starting a book you've wanted to read.

其他技巧包括“結構化拖延”。其理念是假如你想拖延某事，倒不如通過做些有助於實現另一個目標的事情來拖延它。比如說，如果你想延遲開始一個工作項目，你可以去看一段你一直想補上的TED的演講，或者開始讀一本以前想讀的書。

If it seems like the rationalists are overthinking the decision-making process, consider the audience, Ms. Galef says. Most workshop participants have been software engineers, entrepreneurs, students or scientists. In one session, the instructor asked whether anyone present hadn't written a computer program. No hands went up.

加利夫說，如果你覺得理性主義者似乎對決策制定過程思慮過度了，想想講習班的那些人吧。參加講習班的人大多數曾是軟件工程師、企業家、學生和科學家。在某節課上，講師問在座的人是否有沒有寫過電腦程序的。沒有一個人舉手。

Can rationality exercises actually teach us to act more rational day to day?

理性訓練真能教會我們一天比一天更理性地行動嗎？

Psychologist Dr. Kahneman, who won a Nobel Prize in economics for research into decision-making in 2002, says it is very difficult to overcome our split-second irrational reactions. 'Much of it is automatic, ' he says. 'Preferences come to mind and emotions arise, and we're not aware that we're making [decisions and assumptions] and therefore cannot control them.'

憑藉對決策制定的研究在2002年獲得諾貝爾經濟學獎的心理學家卡內曼博士指出，我們會很難克服我們自己在一瞬間的非理性反應。他說：“多數是自然出現的，你偏愛的東西會出現在你的腦海中，情緒會隨之產生，而且我們也意識不到我們正在做出決定和假設，所以我們無法控制它們。”

Organizations can generally make gains by adopting rational procedures enforced from the top, but Dr. Kahneman is skeptical of how much individuals can change.

機構團體一般都能夠從採納自上而下執行的理性程序中受益，但卡內曼博士對個人能改變多少持懷疑態度。

Dr. Stanovich is more optimistic. It is true that automatic biases can't be removed, he says, but people can train themselves to slow down and question these biases, and learn other mechanisms -- even something as simple as deliberately thinking of the effect of the opposite decision -- that may counteract such biases.

斯塔諾維奇博士則更爲樂觀。他說，自然而然的偏見確實不能消除，但人們可以訓練自己減緩和質疑這些偏見，並學會其他也許能抵消這些偏見的機制──甚至是像審慎考慮相反決定的後果這樣簡單的事情。

Max Tegmark, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says he 'already had a high level of rationalism' but found the CFAR workshop useful.

麻省理工學院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)物理學家馬克斯·泰格馬克(Max Tegmark)說他“已經具備很高的理性程度”，不過還是發現CFAR的講習班很有用。

'I had this huge to-do list with over a thousand things on it, and I found I wasn't looking at it very often because whenever I did, I just got this depressing feeling of being overwhelmed by my failure to accomplish stuff, ' says Dr. Tegmark. After the March workshop in Berkeley, Calif., the 46-year-old developed an improved system for tackling emails by writing a program that responds to routine emails with automated messages. He also got better at staying on track with long-term projects. 'I learned that if I want Max to do something in December, I should think about December Max as a different person, ' he says. Instead of just putting a reminder to do something in a few months, he'll plan ahead and send email reminders and incentives for his 'future self.'

泰格馬克博士說：“我制定了一份龐大的任務清單，單子上列了1000多件事情，我發現我並不會經常看它，因爲每當我去看它時，我就會因爲受不了自己做不成那些事情而產生一種沮喪的感覺。”在3月份於加州伯克利參加了講習班後，46歲的泰格馬克寫了一個以自動生成的信息回覆日常郵件的程序，由此開發了一個跟蹤郵件的升級系統。他在堅持長期項目方面也做得更好了。他說：“我瞭解到如果我要馬克斯在12月份做些事情，我應該把12月的馬克斯想象成一個不同的人。”他不只是記上要在幾個月後做某件事的提醒，而是提前計劃，給“未來的自己”發送郵件提醒和激勵。

Another March attendee, Estonian computer programmer and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, says the workshop helped him improve his fitness plan. After analyzing his actions, Mr. Tallinn, 41, realized that he was avoiding exercise mostly because his routine was too long. He designed a shorter routine with different exercises that he finds it easier to stick to. (Mr. Tallinn is an investor in the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, which is affiliated with CFAR.)

愛沙尼亞電腦程序員、Skype的聯合創始人揚·塔林(Jaan Tallinn)也在3月份參加了講習班。他說講習班幫助他改進了他的健身計劃。在分析了自己的行動後，41歲的塔林意識到他逃避健身主要是因爲他的那個日常計劃太長了，於是他擬定了一個他認爲更容易堅持的包含不同鍛鍊項目的較短期的計劃。（塔林爲隸屬於CFAR的機器智能研究所(Machine Intelligence Research Institute)的投資者。）

That individuals -- as well as markets and corporations -- don't always behave rationally is a tenet of behavioral economics.

個人──連同市場及企業──並不總是理性行事是行爲經濟學的一大信條。

Scholars of behavioral economics, including Dr. Kahneman, have attempted to tease out the factors behind individuals' and investors' shifting risk tolerances and decisions.

包括卡內曼博士在內，行爲經濟學的學者曾嘗試理出個人及投資者的風險容忍度和決策不斷變化背後的因素。

Behavioral economics, which has gained ground among academic economists over the past several decades, departs from traditional notions by assuming that individuals don't always behave rationally and act in their own best interests. Thus we have market bubbles in which investors inflate stocks or homes way above their rational value.

過去數十年來，行爲經濟學在學院派經濟學家中得到了發展，它與傳統觀念不同，認爲個人的行爲並不總是理性的，並且總是按照自己的最大利益行事。因此，我們會看到市場泡沫，投資者將股票或房產的價格擡高到遠遠高於它們合理價值的水平。