评论
打印
It was the 1970s in Romania.
这是20世纪70年代的罗马尼亚。
Secretary General Nicolae Ceausescu was the communist leader in charge of the country
总书记尼古拉·齐奥塞斯库是管理国家的共产党领导人，
and he wanted to grow the population,
他想要增加人口，
so he enacted a series of policies that outlawed both abortion and birth control.
于是他制定了一系列政策，宣布堕胎和节育都不合法。
As you can probably imagine, this did not go very well.
正如你所想，事情进行的并不顺利。
The population did grow, but so did widespread poverty,
人口确实增长了，但随之而来的是大范围饥荒，
and by the time Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989,
到1989年齐奥塞斯库政权被推翻时，
more than 100,000 children had been abandoned to institutionalized, state-run orphanages.
已经有10万多名儿童被遗弃在了制度化的国营孤儿院里。
Which maybe would have been okay if they'd been given proper care. But they weren't.
如果他们得到了合适的照顾，也许还不错。但他们没有得到照顾。
When the regime fell, it became clear that the conditions in these orphanages were horrific.
当政权垮台时，很明显，孤儿院的条件很糟糕。
The children were extremely malnourished,
孩子们极度营养不良，
had very little social interaction with adults, and minimal care from their nurses.
与成年人几乎没有社会交往，从护士那里得到的照顾也很少。
Some had been tied to their beds.
有些人曾被绑在床上。
They were effectively left to fend for themselves, in some cases almost from birth.
他们实际上是被留下来自谋生路的，在某些情况下，他们几乎从出生就开始谋生了。
Psychologists had already known that early-life relationships and care were incredibly important for brain development.
心理学家已经知道，早期生活中的人际关系和照料对大脑的发育极其重要。
But what followed the release of these children is one of the clearest examples we've ever seen
但是这些孩子被释放后的情况是我们见过的最明显例子之一：
of what happens when someone is almost completely deprived of those things,
人们几乎被完全剥夺了这些体验时会发生什么，
as well as how they might be able to recover.
以及他们如何能够恢复。
If you're like most people, you probably don't remember much from before about the age of three,
如果你和大多数人一样，那么你可能记不住三岁之前的太多东西，
but some pretty important stuff happens in those early years.
但早年间会有一些非常重要的事情发生。
Human infants are basically helpless, so obviously they depend on their caregivers for food and shelter.
人类婴儿基本上是无助的，所以很明显，他们依靠自己的看护人来获得食物和庇护。
But babies also need social relationships to grow and learn.
但是婴儿也需要社会关系来成长和学习。
And without that, the Romanian children in the institutions
没有这些关系，罗马尼亚孤儿院里的孩子们
didn't develop cognitive, emotional and social skills the way they should have.
就不能发展出本该有的认知、情感和社会技能。
After the regime fell, people began adopting these children into more stable families, mostly outside Romania.
罗马尼亚政权倒台后，人们开始把这些孩子送到更稳定的家庭，这些家庭大多数是在罗马尼亚境外。
As they were integrated into their new families,
当他们融入新家庭时，
psychology researchers began to study how they'd been affected by this early, extreme deprivation,
心理学研究人员开始研究他们如何受到早期极度贫困的影响，
and the factors that influenced their recovery.
以及影响他们康复的因素。
One of the main avenues of research was the English and Romanian Adoptee Study,
该研究的主要途径之一是英国籍和罗马尼亚籍被收养者的研究，
which followed 165 Romanian children adopted by families in the UK, 144 of whom had been in these institutions.
它追踪了英国家庭收养的165名罗马尼亚儿童，其中144名曾住过那些孤儿院。
For comparison, it also included 52 children adopted from within the UK.
为了比较，它还追踪了52名从英国境内收养的儿童。
The study was longitudinal, meaning it followed the children over time to track their progress,
这项研究是纵向的，也就是说它长年累月地追踪孩子们的进步，
in this case by using tests, observations, and in-depth interviews
通过测试、观察和深度访谈
to measure things like their cognitive and social abilities.
来衡量他们的认知能力和社交能力等。
Overall, after about 2 to 3 years in loving and supportive families,
总的来说，在友爱助人的家庭生活两三年后，
these children had gone a long way toward catching up to their typically-developing peers.
这些孩子在追赶那些正常发育的同龄人的道路上前进了很多。
But the degree of catch-up was related to how old they were when they were adopted.
但是追赶的程度与他们被收养时的年龄有关。
Babies who were adopted before they were about 6 months old showed the highest degree of recovery,
未满6个月被领养的婴儿恢复程度最高，
probably because it was still relatively early in their brains' development.
这可能是因为它仍处于大脑发育的相对早期，
But older children were much more likely to show cognitive delays
但年龄较大的孩子更容易出现认知延迟、
and difficulties forming healthy relationships with their adoptive parents,
难以和养父母建立健康关系等情况，
even if you take into account things like malnutrition and their overall health.
即使你把营养不良和他们的整体健康等因素考虑进去了。
Among other things, a lot of them also had problems with attention, impulse control, and hyperactivity, and some were aggressive.
除此之外，很多人在注意力、冲动控制和极度活跃等方面也会出现问题，有些具有攻击性。
These kids also tended to have a harder time understanding and regulating their emotions,
这些孩子也更难理解和调节自己的情绪，
and they weren't as good at identifying emotions in other people's facial expressions.
而且他们也不擅长识别别人面部表情中的情绪。
They'd gone without a consistent bond with a caregiver or any bond at all, really,
他们和照顾者没有持续的联系，或者没有任何联系，
for so long that their social and emotional skills just hadn't developed,
因为被忽视的时间太久了，以至于他们的社交和情感技能没有发展起来，
in a way that wasn't easy to reverse later in life.
在某种程度上，这在以后的生活中都很难逆转。
Even before studying the children adopted from Romanian institutions,
即使在研究从罗马尼亚孤儿院收养的儿童之前，
we'd known that neglect in early childhood could cause all kinds of developmental delays.
我们已经知道，幼儿时期的忽视会导致各种发育迟缓。
But you can't really design an experiment to study that,
但是你不能设计一个实验来研究它，
you can't subject kids to severe neglect on purpose.
你不能故意让孩子受到严重的忽视。
So trying to understand these children
所以试着去理解这些孩子，
after the fact gave researchers hard data on the effects of early neglect that they couldn't have gotten otherwise.
他们给了研究人员关于早期忽视影响的确凿数据，否则他们不可能得到。
But the findings from the orphanage studies taught us something else about brain development, too:
但是孤儿院的研究结果也教会了我们一些关于大脑发育的东西：
the restorative power of relationships and interventions, even in cases of severe deprivation.
即使是在极端贫困的情况下，我们仍有人际关系和干预的恢复能力。
The human brain is incredibly malleable, and yes, it's most flexible early in life, but you can rewire it later on, too.
人类的大脑具有不可思议的可塑性，是的，它在生命早期最灵活，但是你也可以在之后重塑它。
At least to an extent.
至少在一定程度上是这样。
The road to recovery has been far from easy,
恢复之路并非一帆风顺，
but a lot of the children who were adopted from these orphanages
但是从这些孤儿院领养的很多孩子
have recovered more than some experts would have thought possible.
其恢复的程度已经超出了一些专家的想象。
There's no denying that those first few years of life are incredibly important,
不可否认，生命的最初几年非常重要，
and abuse and neglect do a ton of damage.
虐待和忽视会造成大量伤害。
But with the right treatment and care later on, the damage isn't necessarily permanent.
但拥有之后的恰当治疗和护理，这种损害不一定是永久性的。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Psych,
感谢您收看本期的心理科学秀，
which was brought to you by our patrons on Patreon.
它是由Patron赞助的。
If you'd like to learn more about how our experiences drive our thoughts and behaviors,
如果你想了解更多关于“我们的经历如何驱动我们的思想和行为”，
you can go to youtube.com/scishowpsych and subscribe.
可以登录youtube.com/scishowpsych点击订阅。
