2026年06月四级第2套仔细阅读 Passage 1 原文翻译及答案解析

People who systematically underestimate themselves and their own performance suffer from the so-called Impostor Phenomenon. They think that any success is due to external circumstances or just luck and chance. Those people live in constant fear that their "deception" will be exposed.

系统性地低估自己及自身表现的人，患有所谓的"冒名顶替现象"。他们认为任何成功都归因于外部环境或纯属运气和偶然。这些人时刻生活在恐惧之中，害怕自己的"欺骗"被揭穿。

It is common for people to question their abilities now and again. A healthy amount of reflection and self-doubt can protect a person from acting impulsively. However, there are people who are permanently plagued by a massive amount of self-doubt despite delivering a good performance. They think that all of their successes are not a product of their skill or hard work, instead they attribute their own successes to external circumstances, for example, to luck and chance, or believe that their performance is massively overestimated by others. Failures, on the other hand, are always internalised as the result of their own shortcomings.

人们时不时地质疑自己的能力是很常见的。适度的反思和自我怀疑能够使人免于冲动行事。然而，有些人尽管表现良好，却长期饱受大量自我怀疑的困扰。他们认为自己所有的成功都不是自身技能或努力的产物，反而把成功归因于外部环境，比如运气和偶然，或者认为自己的表现被他人极大地高估了。而失败则总是被内化为自身缺点的结果。

Psychologists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg examined the topic for the first time under real-life conditions. Seventy-six participants completed a range of intelligence tests and received positive feedback on them, regardless of their actual performance. They were then asked why they think they did so well.

哈勒-维滕贝格马丁·路德大学的心理学家首次在现实条件下研究了这一课题。76名参与者完成了一系列智力测试，并且无论实际表现如何，都收到了正面反馈。随后他们被问及为什么认为自己表现得如此出色。

The study showed two things: First, the self-reported degree of Impostor Phenomenon is not related to actual measured intelligence or performance. Secondly, the test supported the assumption that people with a tendency to exhibit the Impostor Phenomenon devalue their objectively measured performance and attribute positive results to external causes such as luck and chance, but not to their own abilities. These results are also completely unrelated to age and gender.

该研究表明了两点：首先，自我报告的冒名顶替现象程度与实际测量的智力或表现无关。其次，测试支持了这样一个假设：具有冒名顶替现象倾向的人会贬低自己客观测得的表现，并把正面结果归因于运气和偶然等外部因素，而不是归因于自身能力。这些结果也与年龄和性别完全无关。

A permanent underestimation of one's own abilities is often accompanied by the fear that this supposed intellectual deception will be exposed sooner or later and that they will pay the price for this. The Impostor Phenomenon was first described in 1978 by US psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. They observed that there is a particularly high number of successful women who do not think they are very intelligent. The Impostor Phenomenon is not defined as a mental illness. However, people who suffer from it show a higher vulnerability to depression.

长期低估自身能力往往伴随着这样一种恐惧：这种所谓的智力欺骗迟早会被揭穿，而他们将为此付出代价。冒名顶替现象最早由美国心理学家 Pauline Clance 和 Suzanne Imes 于1978年描述。她们观察到，有相当多的成功女性并不认为自己很聪明。冒名顶替现象并未被界定为一种精神疾病。然而，受其困扰的人表现出更高的抑郁易感性。