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Here's a question for you: What's something you're afraid of?
有个问题问你：你害怕什么东西？
The first answer that comes to mind might be your typical boggart stuff.
你想到的的第一个答案可能就是你觉得特别古怪的事物。
Like, small children in horror movies, taking a test in a class that you haven't been to all semester, that kind of thing.
比如，恐怖电影中的小孩，参加一场你没学过的课程的测试等等。
What about when you used to, like, leap into your bed, the monsters would nip at your toes?
你之前跳到床上时，会觉得怪物咬你的脚趾吗？
Or that time your flight was so bumpy, you thought it was all over?
或者你的航班太颠簸，你就以为一切都结束了吗？
Or maybe worst of all, when you took off your cap and gown and wondered what was next?
或者最糟糕的是，当你摘掉帽子、脱下长袍时，会好奇接下来发生的事？
Sorry, that just got real.
抱歉，这些是真的。
Most of us experience these common fears, of the dark, of death, or of the future, at some point in our lives.
我们中的大多数人在生命中的某个时刻都会经历对黑暗、死亡或未来的恐惧。
And according to psychologists, there could be a reason for that.
心理学家认为这可能是有原因的。
Some researchers have argued that there might be one fundamental fear underlying all of these things.
一些研究人员认为，所有这些事情背后可能有一种恐惧根源。
One you can trace all of your worries to: the fear of the unknown.
即你所有担忧的源头：对未知的恐惧。
So when Albus Dumbledore said, "It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more",
所以当阿不思·邓布利多说：“当我们看待死亡和黑暗时，害怕得是未知，不是别的。”
he might've actually been right. Jo Rowling strikes again.
他可能说对了。J.A.罗琳再次罢工。
Psychologists, maybe unsurprisingly, have been trying to understand fear for a long time.
毋庸置疑，心理学家一直在试图理解恐惧。
It was obvious early on that people have individual differences
人们的个体差异
that make them more or less likely to feel afraid and anxious.
让他们或多或少感到害怕和焦虑，这在早期很明显。
But what was less clear was why some fears are more common than others.
但心理学家们不太清楚的是，为什么有些恐惧比其他的更普遍。
One idea was that certain stimuli might be quote-unquote "biologically prepared" to provoke fear,
一种观点认为，某些刺激可能是天生用来引发恐惧的，
which was basically a fancy way of saying that being afraid of some stuff is innate because it helps keep us alive.
它认为对某些东西的恐惧是天生的，因为这能让我们活下去，这种观点很奇怪。
In theory, this could explain why so many of us are afraid of things like spiders and snakes.
理论上，它可能能够解释为什么我们中有很多人害怕蜘蛛和蛇之类的东西。
The problem, though, is that most spiders aren't really that dangerous.
但问题是大多数蜘蛛并不那么危险。
Generally speaking, they're not as nearly as dangerous as, like mushrooms.
老实讲，它们可能还没有蘑菇危险。
But most of us don't find mushrooms especially terrifying.
但我们大多数人都不觉得蘑菇特别可怕。
Another problem is that research shows that most six-month-old infants aren't afraid of things like snakes,
另一个问题是，研究表明，六个月大的婴儿不害怕蛇之类的东西，
which seems to suggest that we learn to fear them later.
这似乎表明我们学会害怕它们是之后的事情。
Four-months-olds, however, do generally show fear in response to unfamiliar stimuli.
不过，4个月大的婴儿在面对陌生刺激时通常表现出恐惧。
And evolutionarily speaking, the unknown makes a lot more sense as a universal, innate thing to be afraid of.
从进化的角度来说，未知是人们害怕得普遍天生的东西，这种说法更讲得通。
If you've never encountered something before, you don't know how to deal with it…
如果你以前从未遇到过某件事，不知道如何应对……
which means a little caution might be in order.
这就意味着要谨慎行事。
The idea of this kind of broad, fundamental fear, rather than innate fears to specific stimuli,
对未知的恐惧是广泛的恐惧根源，而不是对特定刺激的先天恐惧的观点
was proposed by a clinical psychologist in 1991.
是一位临床心理学家在1991年提出的。
He suggested a few criteria for this base fear:
他提出了一些判定恐惧根源的标准：
It had to be of something inherently unpleasant, it had to be distinct from other fundamental fears,
它必须是某种固有的不愉快的东西；它必须有别于其他的恐惧根源；
and it had to explain other common things we're afraid of.
它必须能解释我们害怕其他常见事物的原因。
He believed there were three of them: the fears of anxiety, of physical injury and of negative evaluation.
他认为恐惧有三种：焦虑恐惧、对物理伤害的恐惧和对否定评价的恐惧。
And there was some support for this idea.
有一些研究支持这一观点。
Like, a 1993 study that surveyed 100 subjects found that
比如，1993年的一项研究调查了100名受试者，
the common fears people reported, like being terrified of heights, were well explained by these fundamental fears.
发现人们报告的普遍恐惧如恐高，能被这些恐惧根源充分解释。
And the categories also seemed to be distinct from each other.
这些类别似乎也不同。
But more recently, psychologists have started to argue that additional criteria are necessary to define a fundamental fear.
但最近，心理学家开始争论说需要额外的标准来定义一种恐惧根源。
In addition to the stuff we've already mentioned,
除了我们已经提到的，
these researchers suggest that they should also be distributed evenly throughout the population
这些研究人员建议的标准是，它们也应该均匀分布于整个人群，
and be supported by an evolutionary explanation.
并有进化论方面的解释。
It also shouldn't be possible to reduce them to anything more fundamental.
而且再没有比它们更根本的了。
This means that the fears of anxiety, physical injury and negative evaluation might not pass the test.
这意味着对焦虑、身体伤害和负面评价的恐惧可能无法通过测试。
For one, not everybody has them, like,
首先，不是每个人都有这些恐惧，比如，
plenty of people, from thrill seekers to deadline junkies, actually seek out anxiety.
从寻求刺激的人到晚期瘾君子，很多人实际上都想获得焦虑。
The bigger problem, though, is that all of these can be reduced or attributed to other fears…
不过更大的问题是，所有这些都可以被减弱或归因于其他恐惧……
one of which is the fear of the unknown.
其中之一就是对未知的恐惧。
And this fear does meet all the criteria.
这种恐惧确实符合所有标准。
As the researchers writing about it point out, it very well could be the one fear to rule them all.
正如研究人员所写的那样，未知恐惧很可能是一切恐惧的来源。
In case you were wondering: Yes. The Tolkien reference is deliberate and heavy-handed in the paper, too.
如果你想知道结论的话：是的，论文中托尔金的参考文献也是经过深思熟虑的。
Because sometimes, scientists are a bunch of dorks.
因为有时候，科学家是一群呆子。
Of course, fear of the unknown isn't an easy thing to validate in the lab.
当然，在实验室里不容易验证对未知的恐惧。
But there are plenty of studies to suggest that we prefer familiarity and the sure thing,
但是很多研究表明我们更喜欢熟悉和确定的东西，
and that they can have a pretty wild effect on our behavior.
而且它们会对我们的行为产生了很大影响。
Research shows that we're more likely to visit a travel destination that we've been to before,
研究表明，我们更有可能游览我们以前去过的旅游目的地，
and we're more likely to attend a baseball game if we feel confident that our team will win.
如果我们相信自己的球队会赢，就更有可能参加棒球赛。
And, although no one wants to be zapped,
虽然没人想被电击，
knowing when electrical shocks are coming even makes the experience less stressful and anxiety-provoking than not knowing.
但知道电击时间比不知道更能减轻压力和焦虑。
There's also clinical evidence to suggest that the fear of the unknown really gets to us.
还有临床证据表明，对未知的恐惧真的会降临到我们身上。
If you're uncomfortable with uncertainty, studies have shown, you're likely to have more fear and anxiety.
研究表明，如果你对不确定性感到不安，很可能有更多的恐惧和焦虑。
And those with certain disorders, anything from panic and social anxiety disorders to OCD and depression,
那些患有特定疾病的人，从恐慌和社交焦虑症患者到强迫症和抑郁症患者，
seem to be especially affected by this fear.
似乎特别受这种恐惧的影响。
While it does seem like there's something there, it's hard to say for sure whether fundamental fears exist,
虽然一些东西看起来确实存在，但很难确定恐惧根源是否存在，
let alone whether the fear of the unknown is the base human fear.
更不用说对未知的恐惧是人类的恐惧根源了。
If it is, though, it would be a pretty satisfying answer to a lot of questions we have about ourselves, big and small.
如果是这样的话，对于我们自身的许多大小问题，它将是一个相当令人满意的答案。
It could help explain why horror movies stop being as scary once you've seen the monster,
它可以解释为什么当你看到怪物时，恐怖电影就不再那么可怕了，
or why there's literally nothing worse than waiting to find out what someone thinks or whether you got that job.
或者为什么没有比等着发现别人的想法或者纠结你是否得到那份工作更糟糕的了。
For now, though, we've just got to deal with the fact that
但现在，我们必须处理这个事实
there's still a lot of, well, unknowns when it comes to our fear of the unknown.
即涉及到对未知的恐惧的问题，我们还有许多未知。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych!
感谢您收看本期的心理科学秀！
If you want to learn even more about why stuff freaks us out,
如果你想了解更多有些东西让我们抓狂的原因，
you can watch our episode about why scientists think we're specifically afraid of the dark.
可以看“为什么科学家认为我们特别害怕黑暗”的那期节目。
