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If you've ever watched an apocalyptic movie, you might think disasters cause mass hysteria.
如果你看过末日电影，你可能会认为灾难会引起集体歇斯底里。
Suddenly, everyone does what they have to do to survive, no matter who it hurts.
突然间，每个人为了生存都会不惜一切代价，不管会伤害到谁。
But in real life, people are more likely to spring into action, take care of each other, and help rebuild.
但在现实生活中，人们更有可能采取行动，互相照顾，并帮助重建家园。
That's because we're a really cooperative species. And disasters can pique our empathy, which motivates us to help others.
那是因为我们是非常善于合作的生物群体。灾难会激发我们的同理心，激励我们去帮助他人。
It should go without saying that everyone deals with tragedy differently, and disasters can certainly stir up a lot of negative feelings.
不用说，每个人对待灾难的态度都不一样，灾难势必会激起很多负面情绪。
Studies find that up to 40% of disaster survivors experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress.
研究发现，多达40%的灾难幸存者经历过抑郁、焦虑或创伤后应激障碍的症状。
And because of all the awfulness people experience, you might also think that, by and large, people would switch to survival mode.
由于人们经历了各种可怕的事情，你可能也会认为，人们大体上会转向求生模式。
So, you might expect big disasters to be followed by an outbreak of selfish behavior.
因此，你可能会认为在大灾难之后会爆出各种利己主义的行为。
In fact, leaders often try to control the flow of upsetting information, because they're worried people will panic, and that panic will result in chaos in the streets.
事实上，因为担心引起恐慌进而导致街头的混乱，领导人经常试图控制令人不安的信息。
But, studies have found that's not actually what happens.
但是，研究发现事实并非如此。
Though people report being afraid, that kind of “me-first” mentality doesn't dominate. Instead, people tend to help one another.
虽说人们会害怕，但这种“以我为先”的心态并不占主导地位。反而，人们倾向于互相帮助。
Like, after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, residents of nearby Baton Rouge invited displaced people to stay in their homes.
比如，2005年卡特里娜飓风袭击新奥尔良后，附近巴吞鲁日的居民邀请无家可归的人在自己家居住。
And when political unrest caused thousands to flee the Ivory Coast in 2010 and 2011, over 80% of people in nearby Liberian villages hosted refugees.
2010年和2011年，当政治动荡导致数千人逃离科特迪瓦时，附近利比里亚村庄超过80%的人接纳了难民。
It's kind of tough to study why this happens, since getting good data on actions and attitudes before and after a disaster generally requires a bit of luck.
要研究为何出现这种情况有点困难，因为要获得有关灾难前后行动及态度的可靠数据通常需要些许运气。
After all, no one knows ahead of time when and where a disaster is going to hit.
毕竟，没有人能提前知道灾难会何时何地发生。
But sometimes, researchers start an unrelated study on altruistic behavior in an area that just so happens to be struck by a disaster, allowing them to run the tests again and see how things changed.
但有时，研究人员会恰好在遭受灾难的地区开展一项不相关的利他行为研究，让他们再次进行测试，看看情况是如何变化的。
And that's exactly what happened for a study published in Psychological Science in 2019.
这正是2019年发表在《心理科学》上的一项研究的结果。
The researchers conducted a study on altruism in Vanuatu by having 242 participants play a series of games where they had to divide some money between themselves and an anonymous partner.
研究人员对瓦努阿图的242名参与者开展了一项关于利他主义的研究，让参与者们做游戏，他们必须和匿名的伴侣平分一些钱。
Then, a cyclone hit. So, the researchers invited the participants back to play the game again.
然后，飓风来袭。因此，研究人员邀请参与者再次做游戏。
And 164 of them did. On average, there wasn't much change.
其中164人做到了。平均而言，变化不大。
In fact, if the anonymous partner was said to belong to a different religious group, then the group wound up giving them a little less overall.
事实上，如果匿名的伴侣属于不同的宗教团体，那么这个团体最终会给他们一些奖励。
Except, participants who were exposed to others in distress because of the cyclone wound up giving more to their anonymous partner, as long as they weren't severely financially impacted themselves.
不过，那些暴露在他人因飓风而陷入困境的参与者，只要他们自己没有受到严重的经济影响，最终会给匿名伴侣更多的钱。
That could suggest that post-disaster increases in altruism stem from experiencing others' trauma.
这可能表明，灾后利他主义的增加源于自身经历了他人的创伤。
This might be because seeing others in pain leads us to realize that it could have been us.
这可能是因为看到别人痛苦会让我们意识到自己也可能经历痛苦。
So, we do what we'd want someone else to do if we were in need. And there's more-direct evidence for this idea.
所以，当我们需要帮助的时候，我们会做我们希望别人做的事。还有更直接的证据支持这一观点。
In a series of studies published in 2018, researchers had participants read about hypothetical disasters, answer a few questions about their thoughts, and gauge how much they'd donate to help.
在2018年发表的一系列研究中，研究人员让参与者阅读有关假想的灾难，回答一些涉及他们想法的问题，并估算他们会捐赠多少给予援助。
And the researchers found people tended to reflect more on what could have been if the disaster was closer—like, in the next town, instead of on another continent.
研究人员发现，人们倾向于更多地思考如果灾难发生在更近的地方，如相邻的城镇，而非另一个大陆时，会发生什么。
Psychologists call this kind of thinking counterfactual thoughts.
心理学家称这种思维为反事实思维。
And in those studies, not only did closer disasters lead to more of these thoughts: the more of them people had, the more money they donated to relief causes.
在这些研究中，距离灾难更近会导致更多这样的想法：人们拥有的越多，他们为救援捐赠的就越多。
Other research suggests additional factors may be at play—like feeling really connected to the people affected by the disaster.
另一项研究表明，可能还有其他因素在起作用，比如与受灾民众感同身受。
