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The news of society's growing inequality makes all of us uneasy. But why? Dan Ariely reveals some new, surprising research on what we think is fair, as far as how wealth is distributed over societies ... then shows how it stacks up to the real stats.
社会越发不公，这让我们都坐立不安。但是为什么？丹·艾瑞里揭露了一些新颖惊人的研究，研究话题涉及我们对公平以及财富在不同社会阶层如何分布的认知……然后他向我们展示了真实的数据。
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- Transcript -
It would be nice to be objective in life, in many ways. The problem is that we have these color-tinted glasses as we look at all kinds of situations. For example, think about something as simple as beer. If I gave you a few beers to taste and I asked you to rate them on intensity and bitterness, different beers would occupy different space. But what if we tried to be objective about it? In the case of beer, it would be very simple. What if we did a blind taste? Well, if we did the same thing, you tasted the same beer, now in the blind taste, things would look slightly different. Most of the beers will go into one place. You will basically not be able to distinguish them, and the exception, of course, will be Guinness. (Laughter)
在生活中的很多方面 保持客观是有益的。 问题是，我们常常会带着有色眼镜 去看待身边的各种事物。 简单来说，以啤酒为例。 如果我让你品尝一些啤酒， 并让你根据烈度和苦味值打分， 不同的啤酒会得不同的分数。 如果我们想客观一些，怎么办？ 对于啤酒来说，这很简单。 我们可以做盲品测试。 我们做同样的测试， 让人品尝同样的啤酒， 但盲品测试的结果会稍有不同。 大多数啤酒的得分会很相近。 你基本分辨不出它们的差别。 当然，健力士啤酒是个例外。 （笑声）
Similarly, we can think about physiology. What happens when people expect something from their physiology? For example, we sold people pain medications. Some people, we told them the medications were expensive. Some people, we told them it was cheap. And the expensive pain medication worked better. It relieved more pain from people, because expectations do change our physiology. And of course, we all know that in sports, if you are a fan of a particular team, you can't help but see the game develop from the perspective of your team.
同样的，生理体验也是一样。 人们对生理体验有 一定预期的时候会如何呢？ 比如我们卖给人们一些止痛药。 对一些人，我们说药很贵。 对另一些人，我们说药很便宜。 结果是：贵的止痛药似乎更有效果， 更能减轻人们的痛苦。 这是因为预期会改变生理体验。 当然，我们都知道，看比赛时， 如果你是其中一支球队的粉丝， 你就只会从那支球队的视角 来看待这场比赛。
So all of those are cases in which our preconceived notions and our expectations color our world. But what happened in more important questions? What happened with questions that had to do with social justice? So we wanted to think about what is the blind tasting version for thinking about inequality? So we started looking at inequality, and we did some large-scale surveys around the U.S. and other countries. So we asked two questions: Do people know what kind of level of inequality we have? And then, what level of inequality do we want to have? So let's think about the first question. Imagine I took all the people in the U.S. and I sorted them from the poorest on the right to the richest on the left, and then I divided them into five buckets: the poorest 20 percent, the next 20 percent, the next, the next, and the richest 20 percent. And then I asked you to tell me how much wealth do you think is concentrated in each of those buckets. So to make it simpler, imagine I ask you to tell me, how much wealth do you think is concentrated in the bottom two buckets, the bottom 40 percent? Take a second. Think about it and have a number. Usually we don't think. Think for a second, have a real number in your mind. You have it?
在所有这些案例中， 我们的成见和预期 都会影响自己对世界的观察。 但在重要问题上也是这样吗？ 比如关于社会正义的问题。 我们想知道，在贫富差距问题上 进行“盲品测试”会有什么结果？ 所以，我们开始考虑贫富差距， 我们在美国和其他国家 做了一些大规模的调查。 我们问了两个问题： 人们了解目前的贫富差距吗？ 人们理想的贫富差距又是怎样的？ 我们首先看第一个问题。 想象一下，这是美国全部的人口， 最穷的人排在最右边， 最富的人排在最左边。 然后，我把他们分成五组： 每20%一组，最穷的20%人口， 以此类推到最富的20%人口。 然后，我问道：你认为每组人口 各占有多少财富。 再简单点儿，请告诉我， 你认为最穷的两组， 也就是最底层的40%人口 占有多少财富？ 想一想，想一个具体的数字。 通常我们都不去想。 现在想一下，要有一个确实的数字。 想好了吗？
Okay, here's what lots of Americans tell us. They think that the bottom 20 percent has about 2.9 percent of the wealth, the next group has 6.4, so together it's slightly more than nine. The next group, they say, has 12 percent, 20 percent, and the richest 20 percent, people think has 58 percent of the wealth. You can see how this relates to what you thought.
好，这是很多美国人的答案。 他们认为，最底层的20%人口 拥有2.9%的财富， 稍富的一组拥有6.4%， 所以两者之和略大于9%。 下一组，他们说，拥有12%， 然后是20%， 人们认为，最富的20%人口 拥有58%的财富。 大家可以比较一下自己的想法。
Now, what's reality? Reality is slightly different. The bottom 20 percent has 0.1 percent of the wealth. The next 20 percent has 0.2 percent of the wealth. Together, it's 0.3. The next group has 3.9, 11.3, and the richest group has 84-85 percent of the wealth. So what we actually have and what we think we have are very different.
那么，实际数据是怎样呢？ 实际数据略有不同。 底层的20%人口拥有0.1%的财富。 第二组20%拥有0.2%。 合起来是0.3%。 再下一组拥有3.9%， 11.3%， 最富的一组拥有84%-85%的财富。 所以，我们的想法跟现实 其实非常不一样。
What about what we want? How do we even figure this out? So to look at this, to look at what we really want, we thought about the philosopher John Rawls. If you remember John Rawls, he had this notion of what's a just society. He said a just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you would be willing to enter it in a random place. And it's a beautiful definition, because if you're wealthy, you might want the wealthy to have more money, the poor to have less. If you're poor, you might want more equality. But if you're going to go into that society in every possible situation, and you don't know, you have to consider all the aspects. It's a little bit like blind tasting in which you don't know what the outcome will be when you make a decision, and Rawls called this the "veil of ignorance."
那么，我们理想的贫富差距是多少？ 怎么来计算这个？ 为了得到答案， 了解我们真正想要什么， 我们要了解一下哲学家约翰·罗尔斯。 你们可能记得， 约翰·罗尔斯有一个 关于公平社会的理念。 他说，公平社会是这样一个社会： 当你了解了这个社会的一切， 你仍然愿意成为任何社会阶层中一份子。 这个定义很精彩， 因为如果你是富人， 你会希望富人更富，穷人更穷。 如果你是穷人，你会希望缩小贫富差距。 但是，如果你进入社会， 但不知道自己会处于哪个阶层， 你不得不考虑所有的方面。 这有点像盲品测试， 选择的时候，连自己也不知道结果， 罗尔斯把这叫做“无知之幕”。
So, we took another group, a large group of Americans, and we asked them the question in the veil of ignorance. What are the characteristics of a country that would make you want to join it, knowing that you could end randomly at any place? And here is what we got. What did people want to give to the first group, the bottom 20 percent? They wanted to give them about 10 percent of the wealth. The next group, 14 percent of the wealth, 21, 22 and 32.
所以，我们找来另一组美国人， 基于“无知之幕”，我们问他们： 如果你可能进入社会的任一阶层， 你希望你的国家有哪些特质？ 这是我们得到的结果。 第一组，即底层的20%人口， 人们想给这一组分配多少财富呢？ 人们愿意给这一组10%的财富。 下一组是14%的财富， 接着是21%，22%，最后是32%。
Now, nobody in our sample wanted full equality. Nobody thought that socialism is a fantastic idea in our sample. But what does it mean? It means that we have this knowledge gap between what we have and what we think we have, but we have at least as big a gap between what we think is right to what we think we have.
注意：我们的样本里， 没人想要绝对的平等。 我们的研究中，没人认为 社会主义是一个好主意。 这意味着什么？ 这意味着， 在现实和认知之间存在差距， 而我们的理想和认知之间， 也同样存在着差距。
Now, we can ask these questions, by the way, not just about wealth. We can ask it about other things as well. So for example, we asked people from different parts of the world about this question, people who are liberals and conservatives, and they gave us basically the same answer. We asked rich and poor, they gave us the same answer, men and women, NPR listeners and Forbes readers. We asked people in England, Australia, the U.S. -- very similar answers. We even asked different departments of a university. We went to Harvard and we checked almost every department, and in fact, from Harvard Business School, where a few people wanted the wealthy to have more and the [poor] to have less, the similarity was astonishing. I know some of you went to Harvard Business School.
另外，这些问题不仅限于财富的角度， 我们也能从其他角度来做测验。 比如，我们针对世界不同地方的人 做了这个测验。 我们问了自由主义者和保守主义者， 他们给了我们大致相同的答案。 我们问了富人和穷人，也是相同的答案， 男人和女人， 全国公共广播电台(NPR)的听众 和《福布斯》的读者。 我们问了英格兰人， 澳大利亚人，美国人…… 答案基本相同。 我们甚至问了大学里不同学院的人。 我们去哈佛， 问了几乎每个学院的学生， 事实上，哈佛商学院的学生中， 一些人希望富人更富或者更穷， 相似度是惊人的。 我知道，这儿有些人上过哈佛商学院。
We also asked this question about something else. We asked, what about the ratio of CEO pay to unskilled workers? So you can see what people think is the ratio, and then we can ask the question, what do they think should be the ratio? And then we can ask, what is reality? What is reality? And you could say, well, it's not that bad, right? The red and the yellow are not that different. But the fact is, it's because I didn't draw them on the same scale. It's hard to see, there's yellow and blue in there.
我们也测验了其他话题。 比如，CEO跟非技术人员的收入比率。 这是人们认为的比率， 然后我们问，理想比率应该是多少。 我们也可以问，现实比率是多少。 现实是多少？ 你也许会说，还算合理啊， 橘色跟黄色没差那么多。 不过，这是因为我用了不同的比例尺。 这下很难看到中间的黄色和蓝色了吧。
So what about other outcomes of wealth? Wealth is not just about wealth. We asked, what about things like health? What about availability of prescription medication? What about life expectancy? What about life expectancy of infants? How do we want this to be distributed? What about education for young people? And for older people? And across all of those things, what we learned was that people don't like inequality of wealth, but there's other things where inequality, which is an outcome of wealth, is even more aversive to them: for example, inequality in health or education. We also learned that people are particularly open to changes in equality when it comes to people who have less agency -- basically, young kids and babies, because we don't think of them as responsible for their situation.
那么财富衍生品方面， 测试结果又如何呢？ 财富不只是金钱意义上的财富， 我们也问了关于：健康， 处方药物治疗的供给， 平均寿命， 婴儿的预期寿命。 我们想要怎样的数据分布呢？ 还有年轻人的教育， 以及成年人的教育。 通过测试这些方面， 我们发现人们不喜欢贫富差距， 但更不喜欢、甚至厌恶 其他方面的不平等， 而这些恰恰是贫富差距的结果： 比如，健康或教育的不平等。 我们也发现，当谈论到 能动性较低的人群的时候—— 比如孩子或者婴儿—— 人们更愿意改变这种不平等， 因为我们认为，这类人群 无法对自己的情况负责。
So what are some lessons from this? We have two gaps: We have a knowledge gap and we have a desirability gap And the knowledge gap is something that we think about, how do we educate people? How do we get people to think differently about inequality and the consequences of inequality in terms of health, education, jealousy, crime rate, and so on?
那么，我们可以从中学到什么呢？ 我们有两种差距： 现实跟认知的差距，以及 认知跟理想的差距。 先考虑现实跟认知的差距， 我们要怎样去教育人们？ 怎样让人们更好地认识贫富差距， 以及贫富差距所带来的后果？ 譬如健康、教育、嫉妒、犯罪率等等。
Then we have the desirability gap. How do we get people to think differently about what we really want? You see, the Rawls definition, the Rawls way of looking at the world, the blind tasting approach, takes our selfish motivation out of the picture. How do we implement that to a higher degree on a more extensive scale?
然后是认知跟理想的差距。 我们怎样让人们更好地认识 他们到底想要什么？ 罗尔斯的定义，他观察世界的方式， 这种盲品测试， 屏蔽了自私的动机。 我们怎样能在更大程度、 更广的范围内 来应用这个思路？
And finally, we also have an action gap. How do we take these things and actually do something about it? I think part of the answer is to think about people like young kids and babies that don't have much agency, because people seem to be more willing to do this.
最后，我们还有理想跟行动的差距。 我们怎样才能把这些转化成行动？ 我认为，首先我们可以多想想 缺乏能动性的人，比如孩子或婴儿， 因为人们更愿意考虑这些人。
To summarize, I would say, next time you go to drink beer or wine, first of all, think about, what is it in your experience that is real, and what is it in your experience that is a placebo effect coming from expectations? And then think about what it also means for other decisions in your life, and hopefully also for policy questions that affect all of us.
总之，下一次你喝啤酒、葡萄酒， 可以先想一想， 你的体验有哪些是真实的， 又有哪些是来自预期的安慰剂效应？ 也要好好想想，这对 我们个人生活中的其他决策， 对影响我们所有人的 政策方面的问题 能有什么启迪。
Thanks a lot. (Applause)
非常感谢。（鼓掌）
