2016年06月四级第1套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

Why do some people live to be older than others? You know the standard explanations: keeping a moderate diet, engaging in regular exercise, etc. But what effect does your personality have on your longevity (长寿)? Do some kinds of personalities lead to longer lives? A new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society looked at this question by examining the personality characteristics of 246 children of people who had lived to be at least 100.

为什么有些人比其他人活得更久？你知道标准的解释：保持适度的饮食、进行定期锻炼等。但是你的性格对你的长寿有什么影响？某些性格类型会导致更长的生命吗？《美国老年病学学会杂志》上的一项新研究通过检查246名至少活到100岁的人的子女的性格特征来探讨这个问题。

The study shows that those living the longest are more outgoing, more active and less neurotic (神经质的) than other people. Long-living women are also more likely to be sympathetic and cooperative than women with a normal life span. These findings are in agreement with what you would expect from the evolutionary theory: those who like to make friends and help others can gather enough resources to make it through tough times.

研究表明，那些最长寿的人比其他人更外向、更活跃、更少神经质。长寿的女性也比寿命正常的女性更可能富有同情心和合作精神。这些发现与进化论的预期一致：喜欢交朋友和帮助他人的人能够收集足够的资源来度过艰难时期。

Interestingly, however, other characteristics that you might consider advantageous had no impact on whether study participants were likely to live longer. Those who were more self-disciplined, for instance, were no more likely to live to be very old. Also, being open to new ideas had no relationship to long life, which might explain all those bad-tempered old people who are fixed in their ways.

然而，有趣的是，你可能认为有利的其他特征对研究参与者是否可能更长寿没有影响。例如，更自律的人并不更可能活到非常老。此外，对新想法持开放态度与长寿没有关系，这可能解释了所有那些脾气暴躁、固执己见的老人。

Whether you can successfully change your personality as an adult is the subject of a longstanding psychological debate. But the new paper suggests that if you want long life, you should strive to be as outgoing as possible.

成年后能否成功改变性格是一个长期存在的心理学辩论主题。但新论文表明，如果你想长寿，你应该努力尽可能外向。

Unfortunately, another recent study shows that your mother's personality may also help determine your longevity. That study looked at nearly 28,000 Norwegian mothers and found that those moms who were more anxious, depressed and angry were more likely to feed their kids unhealthy diets. Patterns of childhood eating can be hard to break when we're adults, which may mean that kids of depressed moms end up dying younger.

不幸的是，另一项最近的研究表明，你母亲的性格也可能有助于决定你的长寿。该研究调查了近28,000名挪威母亲，发现那些更焦虑、抑郁和愤怒的母亲更可能给孩子喂食不健康的饮食。童年时期的饮食模式在成年后可能难以打破，这意味着抑郁母亲的孩子最终可能死得更早。

Personality isn't destiny (命运), and everyone knows that individuals can learn to change. But both studies show that long life isn't just a matter of your physical health but of your mental health.

性格不是命运，每个人都知道个人可以学会改变。但两项研究都表明，长寿不仅仅是身体健康的问题，也是心理健康的问题。