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You may have heard that willpower is the secret to success, and there's a super simple test you can give to 5 year olds to see if they've got it.
你可能听说过意志力是成功的秘诀，有一个可以给5岁孩子做的简单测试，看看他们是否拥有意志力。
It's come to be known as The Marshmallow Test because it involves tempting them with a tasty treat like a marshmallow and seeing whether they can wait to get an even better treat.
这个测试称为棉花糖测试，因为测试是用棉花糖等美味零食来诱惑他们，看他们是否可以等待以便得到更好的零食。
If they can, they're destined for greatness!
如果他们能等待，将来必成大器！
But it turns out this widely popular psychological exam isn't as predictive as we once thought.
但事实证明，这个广受欢迎的心理测试并不像我们想象的那样具有预测性。
And while it has taught us a bit about how self control and resisting temptation work, it's probably not measuring willpower after all.
虽然它教会我们一些关于自我控制和抵制诱惑的运作方式，但它根本不是在衡量意志力。
It all began in the late 1960s, when psychologists gave 32 kids this now famous challenge.
这一切都始于20世纪60年代末，心理学家给32个孩子做这个现在很著名的挑战。
Researchers put a marshmallow in front of them and told them they had a choice — they could eat it now, or if they could wait 15 minutes, the researcher would come back with another one, and then they could have two.
研究人员在他们面前放一个棉花糖，告诉他们有两个选择。他们可以现在把糖吃掉，或是等15分钟，研究人员就会拿着另一个棉花糖回来，然后他们可以吃两个。
Right away they found some interesting things — like kids who distracted themselves with happier thoughts could wait longer than kids who focused on the marshmallow.
他们立刻发现了一些有趣的事情，比如那些用更快乐的念头分散注意力的孩子比那些专注于棉花糖的孩子等待的时间更长。
So, they had dozens more kids take the test in the early 1970s.
心理学家们在70年代初，让几十个孩子参加了测试。
Then, they checked back in on them as they grew up… which is when things got weird.
当他们长大时，又对他们重新测查，这时事情变得奇怪了。
Researchers were able to get in touch with 94 kids that participated in those early studies in the late 1980s, and it turned out those who did better at fighting the temptation of the marshmallow did better on the SAT.
研究人员联系到94位曾参加过20世纪80年代末研究的孩子，结果发现那些在抵抗棉花糖诱惑方面表现更好的孩子在SAT考试中取得的分数也更佳。
After another decade, the scientists followed up again — and found those who waited continued further in their education.
又过了十年，科学家们又做了一次追踪调查，发现那些等待更久的人仍在继续接受教育。
Another decade passed, and lo and behold, these now-adults revealed that the more patient they were as kids, the lower their body mass index was on average.
然后又十年过去了，你瞧，这些现在已经是成年人他们，小时候越耐心，他们的体重指数就越低。
This seemed to paint a pretty clear picture to psychologists: willpower is a really important trait that's pretty stable over time, and how much of it you have is set early on in life.
这似乎给心理学家描绘了一幅非常清晰的画面：意志力是一个非常重要的特征，随着时间的推移，其变化相当稳定，而且在生命的早期就已经设定好了。
Soon, parents heard all this and took it to heart.
不久，父母们听说了这件事，并把它牢记在心。
They thought if they could just get their kids to wait for that second marshmallow, they'd be setting them up for a better life.
他们想，如果他们能让孩子们等待得到第二个棉花糖，他们将来就会过上更好的生活。
The actor Tom Hiddleston even visited Sesame Street to teach cookie monster about the importance of waiting for the second cookie!
演员汤姆·希德斯顿甚至到芝麻街去教导饼干怪兽等待第二块饼干的重要性！
But continued research into the marshmallow test suggests it never really measured willpower in the first place.
但对棉花糖试验的持续研究表明，它从未真正测量过意志力。
That's partly because psychologists don't really think of "willpower" as its own thing anymore.
这在一定程度上是因为心理学家不再把“意志力”当作唯一的事物来考量。
You have to take into account what you're exerting power over — if you're exerting self-control, what's the impulse you're fighting?
你必须考虑到自己正在施加的力，如果你在运用自控力，那么你在对抗的冲动是什么？
This is what's called a reward response.
这就是所谓的奖励反应。
Basically, when you see something that serves a biological need like food, or sex, or even social acceptance, some regions of your brain get really active.
总的来说，当你看到一些能满足生理需要的东西，比如食物、性，甚至社会接受度，大脑中的某些区域就会变得非常活跃。
One such region is called the ventral striatum, in particular the part of it called the nucleus accumbens.
其中一个区域称为腹侧纹状体，特别是腹侧纹状体中称为伏隔核的一部分。
And this response varies from person to person and depending on the thing that's rewarding them.
这种反应因人而异，取决于所获得的奖励。
Like, smokers shown pictures of other people smoking while having their brains scanned show a much bigger reward response than non-smokers.
比如，吸烟者看其他人吸烟的照片时，对他们的大脑进行扫描，结果显示他们大脑中的奖励反应比不吸烟者大得多。
And the stronger the reward response you have to something, the more self-control you need to abstain.
你对某件事的奖励反应越强烈，你就越需要克制自己。
You can think of the reward response kind of like a car's gas and self-control like its brakes.
你可以把奖励反应想象成汽车的汽油，自控力有点像刹车。
You don't need your brakes to work great if your car never gets going that fast — but the more sensitive the gas pedal is, the more important your brakes are.
如果你的车从来不会开得那么快，刹车就不需要运行的特别好，但油门越灵敏，刹车就越重要
And a recent check-in with kids from the original marshmallow study found that this was part of their story, too.
最近，一项对原棉花糖研究中孩子们的回访发现，这也是符合他们的情况。
26 of them had their brains scanned while completing a go/no-go task, meaning they had to click a button when some emotional faces were presented, but exercise self-control for other faces.
其中26人在完成“去/不去”任务时，研究人员对他们的大脑进行了扫描，就是当一些情绪化的面孔出现时，他们必须点击一个按钮，但对其他面孔则进行自我控制。
And you could see a difference in their brains of the ones that waited for a second marshmallow at age 4.
结果发现，4岁时等待第二个棉花糖的那些人，其大脑有一个部位存在差异
But, that difference wasn't in regions associated with self-control like the prefrontal cortex.
但是，这种差异并不是出现在与自我控制相关的区域，比如前额叶皮层。
It was in that ventral striatum.
而是出现在腹侧纹状体。
Those who had waited had less activation compared to those who struggled.
与那些很难抉择的人相比，等待者的腹侧纹状体活动更少。
So it wasn't like they were exerting more willpower, they just had a weaker impulse to control.
所以说他们不像是在发挥更多的意志力，他们只是控制冲动较弱。
The original marshmallow test also failed to take some other really important factors into account — like, they didn't measure how much the kids trusted the experimenter to actually give them that second marshmallow.
最初的棉花糖测试也没有考虑其他一些非常重要的因素，比如，他们没有测量孩子们对于实验者会给他们第二个棉花糖的信任程度。
Studies have shown that pretty much no one waits around for some hypothetical reward if they don't believe it's actually coming.
研究表明，如果人们不相信真会有某个假设性的奖励，那么几乎没有人会等待它。
And in a study published in 2018, some researchers tried to replicate the original study, but this time, with over 900 people.
2018年发表的一项研究中，一些研究人员试图复制最初的研究，不过这次有900多人参加。
They found that, yes, there's a relationship between waiting for a second marshmallow and measures of achievement like standardized test scores — but it looks like it might be one of those classic correlation-isn't-causation things.
他们发现，没错，等待第二个棉花糖和标准化考试分数等成就的衡量指标之间存在着某种关系，但看起来这可能是一种典型的相关性，而不是因果关系。
Because after they controlled for other factors in the home environment and the family's income and socioeconomic status, the effect all but disappeared.
因为在控制家庭环境、家庭收入和社会经济地位等方面的其他因素后，所有影响几乎都消失了。
This would suggest it's not willpower that matters so much as the benefits of having wealth and being raised in a home environment where your parents can give you a lot of attention.
这表明，拥有财富和在父母可以给予很大关注的家庭环境中长大所带来的益处，比意志力更重要。
So now, it seems pretty clear that there are a lot of factors that affect willpower — and none of them are set in stone at age 4.
所以，现在看来很明显，有很多因素影响意志力，而且这些因素中没有一个是一成不变的。
In fact, current evidence suggests that you can learn how to exert more willpower as an adult.
事实上，目前的证据表明，作为一个成年人，你可以学会如何运用更多的意志力。
Like with most things, you can improve your self-control with practice.
像大多数事情一样，你可以通过练习来提高自控力。
One study randomized 69 volunteers into one of several different self-control practice conditions, or a control group.
一项研究将69名志愿者随机分到几个不同的自我控制情境中或是一个对照组中。
The volunteers who practiced spent two weeks either focusing on their posture, on staying in a positive mood, or tracking their eating.
练习的志愿者花两周时间，要么专注于他们的姿势，要么保持积极的情绪，或是记录饮食情况。
And all these different practices improved their endurance on a hand-grip task at the end of the two weeks compared to the control group.
与对照组相比，接受不同练习的所有志愿者在两周结束时，其完成抓握持久力任务的能力都得到了提升。
But when it comes to specific cases where you feel you lack willpower, what many psychologists recommend is much simpler:
但涉及到感觉自己缺乏意志力的特例情况时，许多心理学家给出的建议要简单得多：
just change your environment so you don't have to exert so much self-control in the first place.
改变你的环境，这样你就不必施加太多的自控力。
Like, if you've got a package of cookies on the counter and a healthy snack in the pantry, you should probably switch those.
比如，如果厨房操作台上有一包饼干，食品储藏室里放着健康的零食，你可能应该调换一下它们的位置。
Because if those cookies are right in front of you, you're going to want to eat them -- and no one can control that impulse forever.
因为如果这些饼干就摆在你面前，你会想吃，没有人能永远控制这种冲动。
Thanks for watching!
感谢观看！
If you liked learning the truth about self-control, you might like our episode on how you don't have as much control over things as you think.
如果你喜欢了解自我控制的真相，你可能会喜欢另一集节目，讲的是你对事情的控制力远不如自己想象的那么强。
But one thing you can control is whether you catch every episode of SciShow Psych!
但有一件事你能控制，那就是是否观看每一集心理科学秀！
All you have to do is click that subscribe button.
只需点击订阅按钮就行啦。
