客觀只是一種錯覺 Delusions of objectivity

“Have you ever noticed when you’re driving,” the comedian George Carlin commented, “that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”

“你開車的時候有沒有注意到，”喜劇演員喬治•卡林(George Carlin)評論道，“任何開得比你慢的人都是笨蛋，任何開得比你快的人都是瘋子？”

True enough. But when you think for a moment about Carlin’s quip, how could it be otherwise? You’ve made a decision about the appropriate speed for the driving conditions, so by definition everybody else is driving at a speed that you regard as inappropriate.

的確如此。但如果你想一想卡林的俏皮話，你就會發現，還可能是什麼其他結果嗎？你根據行車條件決定了合適的行車速度，因此從定義上說，在你看來其他任何人的駕駛速度都是不合適的。

If I am driving at 70 and pass a car doing 60, perhaps my view should be, “Hmm, the average opinion on this road is that the right speed is 65.” Almost nobody actually thinks like this, however. Why not?

如果我以每小時70公里的速度開車超過了一輛以每小時60公里的速度行駛的汽車，可能我應該這麼想，“嗯，對於這條路上的合理車速，平均的看法是每小時65公里。”然而，幾乎沒人會真的這麼想。爲什麼呢？

Lee Ross, a psychologist at Stanford University and co-author of a new book, The Wisest One in the Room, describes the problem as “naive realism”. By this he means the seductive sense that we’re seeing the world as it truly is, without bias or error. This is such a powerful illusion that whenever we meet someone whose views conflict with our own, we instinctively believe we’ve met someone who is deluded, rather than realising that perhaps we’re the ones who could learn something.

斯坦福大學(Stanford University)心理學家、新書《房間裏最聰明的人》( The Wisest One in the Room)的合著者之一李•羅斯(Lee Ross)，將這個問題描述成“天真的現實主義”。他指的是一種誘人的觀念：我們看到的是世界真正的模樣，既沒有偏見，也沒有謬誤。這是一種非常強大的錯覺，以至於一旦我們遇到了觀點與我們相左的人，我們會本能地認爲對方受到了誤導，而不是意識到或許我們自己纔是能夠從中學到點什麼的人。

The truth is that we all have biases that shape what we see. One early demonstration of this was a 1954 study of the way people perceived a college-football game between Dartmouth and Princeton. The researchers, Albert Hastorf and Hadley Cantril, showed a recording of the game to Dartmouth students and to Princeton students, and found that their perceptions of it varied so wildly that it is hard to believe they actually saw the same footage: the Princeton students, for example, counted twice as many fouls by Dartmouth as the Dartmouth students did.

真相是，我們都有偏見，這些偏見決定了我們所看到的景象。一個較早的例子是1954年的一項研究，內容是有關人們如何看達特茅斯學院(Dartmouth College)和普林斯頓大學(Princeton University)之間的一場大學橄欖球賽。研究者艾伯特•哈斯托夫(Albert Hastorf)和哈德利•坎特里爾(Hadley Cantril)向達特茅斯學院和普林斯頓大學的學生展示了一段比賽錄像，發現他們對比賽的認知相差極大，讓人難以相信他們看到的實際上是同一段錄像。比如，普林斯頓的學生記下的達特茅斯學院的橄欖球隊員的犯規次數是達特茅斯學院學生的兩倍。

A more recent investigation by a team including Dan Kahan of Yale showed students footage of a demonstration and spun a yarn about what it was about. Some students were told it was an anti-abortion protest in front of an abortion clinic; others were told it was a protest outside an army recruitment office against the military’s (then) policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

後來，一個包括耶魯大學(Yale University)的丹•卡亨(Dan Kahan)在內的小組進行了一項調查，調查人員向學生們展示了一段遊行的視頻片段，並且編造了一些有關這次遊行的說法。一些學生被告知，這是一次在墮胎診所前進行的反墮胎抗議遊行；其他人則被告知，這是一次在徵兵辦公室外、針對美國軍隊（當時）的“不問，不說”政策的抗議遊行。

Despite looking at exactly the same footage, the experimental subjects drew sharply different conclusions about how aggressive the protesters were being. Liberal students were relaxed about the behaviour of people they thought were gay-rights protesters but worried about what the pro-life protesters were doing; conservative students took the opposite view. This was despite the fact that the researchers were asking not about the general acceptability of the protest but about specifics: did the protesters scream at bystanders? Did they block access to the building?

儘管看的是完全一樣的片段，實驗對象對抗議者的激進程度得出了截然不同的結論。持自由主義觀點的學生並不擔心他們眼中捍衛同性戀權利的抗議者的行爲，但他們擔心那些反墮胎抗議者的行爲；持保守主義觀點的學生的看法則與之相反。儘管事實上，研究人員提出的並不是抗議活動總體上能否被接受的問題，而是有關抗議活動的一些細節的問題：抗議者是否向旁觀者大叫？抗議者是否堵住了建築物的出入口？

We see what we want to see. We also tend to think the worst of the “idiots” and “maniacs” who think or act differently. One study by Emily Pronin and others asked people to fill in a survey about various political issues. The researchers then redistributed the surveys, so that each participant was shown the survey responses of someone else. Then the participants were asked to describe their own reasoning and speculate about the reasoning of the other person.

我們只會看到自己想看的東西。我們還傾向於把那些和我們的想法和行動不一致的“笨蛋”和“瘋子”往最壞了想。葉米利•普羅寧(Emily Pronin)等人進行的一項研究要求人們填寫一份有關各種政治問題的調查問卷。然後研究人員重新分發這些問卷，這樣每一位參與者都會看到另外一個人的回答。之後研究人員會要求參與者描述他們回答這些問題的思路，並猜測另一個人的思路是怎樣的。

People tended to say that they were influenced by rational reasons such as “attention to fact”, and that people who agreed with them had similar motives. Those who disagreed were thought to be seeking “peer approval”, or acting out of “political correctness”. I pay attention to facts but you’re a slave to the approval of your peers. I weigh up the pros and cons but you’re in the pocket of the lobbyists.

受調查者通常會說，他們受到了一些理性上的原因的影響，比如“關注事實”，那些和他們意見一致的人也是出於同樣的動機。他們認爲，那些和他們意見不一致的人是在尋求“同輩的認可”，或者是出於“政治正確”的考慮。我關注事實，而你卻爲了同輩的認可而屈從。我衡量利弊，而你卻被遊說分子玩弄於股掌之上。

Even when we take a tolerant view of those who disagree with us, our empathy only goes so far. For example, we might allow that someone takes a different view because of their cultural upbringing — but we would tend to feel that they might learn the error of their ways, rather than that we will learn the error of ours.

即使我們對那些與我們意見不一致的人持寬容的看法，我們的同理心也只到這裏爲止。比如，我們或許會允許某人因爲他們的文化背景持不同的觀點——但我們往往會認爲，他們或許能夠認識到自己觀點的錯誤，而不是我們會認識到自己的觀點的錯誤。

Pity the BBC’s attempts to deliver objective and neutral coverage of a politicised issue such as the British referendum on leaving the EU. Eurosceptics will perceive a pro-Brussels slant, Europhiles will see the opposite. Both sides will assume corruption, knavery or stupidity is at play. That is always possible, of course, but it is also possible that passionate advocates simply don’t recognise objectivity when they see it.

可憐英國廣播公司(BBC)還試圖對英國全民公投決定是否退歐這樣的政治話題進行客觀中立的報道。疑歐派會認爲這些報道傾向於布魯塞爾，而親歐派則會抱相反的看法。雙方都會認爲腐敗、欺詐或者愚蠢在作怪。當然，這總是有可能的，但也有可能這些激情澎湃的支持者在看到客觀性的時候根本不認爲那是客觀。

But then how could the situation be otherwise? If any media outlet criticises a political position that you personally admire, there is a contradiction to be resolved, and an easy way to explain the disagreement is to conclude either that the media are biased, or that you are. You can guess which choice people instinctively make. Small wonder that careful studies of media bias in the US show that most newspapers and radio or TV stations don’t try to persuade their readers and viewers; instead, they pander to the biases of their audience.

然而事情還能是什麼其他樣子嗎？如果任何媒體批評一種你個人欣賞的政治立場，那麼就有一個矛盾要解決了。要解釋這一分歧，一個簡單的方法是得出結論：要麼是媒體有偏見，要麼是你有偏見。你可以猜一猜人們在本能之下會做出什麼選擇。難怪對美國媒體偏見的嚴謹的研究表明，大多數報紙、電臺或者電視臺不會試圖說服他們的讀者、聽衆和觀衆；相反，它們會迎合受衆的偏見。

It is hard to combat naive realism because the illusion that we see the world objectively is such a powerful one. At least I’ve not had to worry about it too much myself. Fortunately, my own perspective is based on a careful analysis of the facts, and my political views reflect a cool assessment of reality rather than self-interest, groupthink or cultural bias. Of course, there are people to the left of my position. They’re idiots. And the people on my right? Maniacs.

要對抗“天真的現實主義”很難，因爲“我們客觀地看待世界”這個錯覺非常強大。至少，我自己還未曾太過擔心這一點。幸運的是，我自己的觀點是基於對事實的仔細分析，我的政治觀點反映的是對事實的冷靜評估，而不是出於自利、集體思維或者文化偏見。當然，會有人比我的立場更左，他們是笨蛋。比我右的人呢？瘋子。