2021年12月六级第1套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

Look at the people around you. Some are passive, others more aggressive. Some work best alone, others crave companionship. We easily recognize that there is great variation among the individuals who live near us. Yet, when we speak of people from elsewhere, we seem to inevitably characterize them based on their country of origin.

环顾你周围的人。有些人被动，有些人更积极主动。有些人独自工作最佳，有些人渴望陪伴。我们很容易认识到，生活在我们附近的人之间存在巨大差异。然而，当我们谈论来自其他地方的人时，我们似乎不可避免地根据他们的原籍国来定性他们。

Statistics specialists, when they speak of national averages, often make the same mistake.

统计专家在谈论国家平均值时，常常犯同样的错误。

Newly published research shows how erroneous such overviews are. Three researchers analyzed decades of values-based surveys and found that only between 16% and 21% of the variation in cultural values could be explained by differences between countries. In other words, the vast majority of what makes us culturally distinct from one another has nothing to do with our homeland.

新近发表的研究显示这种概述是多么错误。三位研究人员分析了数十年的价值观调查，发现只有16%到21%的文化价值观差异可以由国家间的差异来解释。换句话说，使我们在文化上彼此不同的绝大多数因素与我们的祖国无关。

To determine what factors really are associated with culture, the authors combined data from 558 prior surveys that each measured one more of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. These are traits, such as individualism and masculinity, that describe work-related cultural values. (They are not a measure of visible cultural traits, such as food or dress.) Though the validity of Hofstede's dimensions has been questioned, they have the singular benefit of having been in use for decades, which allows for historical and international comparisons.

为了确定哪些因素真正与文化相关，作者结合了558项先前调查的数据，每项调查都测量了霍夫斯泰德文化维度中的一个或多个。这些是特质，如个人主义和男性气质，描述与工作相关的文化价值观。（它们不是衡量可见文化特质的标准，如食物或服装。）尽管霍夫斯泰德维度的有效性受到质疑，但它们有一个独特的好处，即已经使用了几十年，这使得历史和国际比较成为可能。

The researchers found that both demographic factors, such as age, and environmental factors, such as long-term unemployment rates, were more correlated with cultural values than nationality. Occupation and social economic status were the most strongly correlated, suggesting that our values are more economically driven than we usually give them credit for.

研究人员发现，人口因素（如年龄）和环境因素（如长期失业率）与文化价值观的相关性比国籍更强。职业和社会经济地位的相关性最强，表明我们的价值观比我们通常认为的更受经济驱动。

The evidence implies that people with similar jobs and incomes are more culturally alike, regardless of where they live. Vas Taras, the lead author of the study, puts it this way: "Tell me how much you make and I will make a pretty accurate prediction about your cultural values. Tell me what your nationality is and I probably will make a wrong prediction."

证据表明，拥有相似工作和收入的人在文化上更相似，无论他们住在哪里。该研究的第一作者瓦斯·塔拉斯这样说：“告诉我你赚多少钱，我就能相当准确地预测你的文化价值观。告诉我你的国籍，我可能会做出错误的预测。”

Taras says our erroneous belief that countries are cultures has caused businesses to teach their employees useless or even harmful ways of interacting with their international peers. Chinese and American lawyers might be trained to interact based on the assumption that the Chinese person is less individualistic, even though their similar social economic situations make it probable they are actually quite alike in that regard.

塔拉斯说，我们错误地认为国家就是文化，这导致企业教给员工无用甚至有害的与国际同行互动的方式。中国和美国律师可能被训练基于中国人较少个人主义的假设来互动，尽管他们相似的社会经济状况使得他们在这方面实际上很可能非常相似。

The country, as the unit of authority, is often a convenient way of generalizing about a population. However, our focus on countries can mask broad variations within them. In the majority of cases we would be better off identifying people by the factors that constrain their lives, like income, rather than by the lines surrounding them on a map.

国家作为权威单位，常常是概括人口的一种便捷方式。然而，我们对国家的关注可能掩盖了国家内部的广泛差异。在大多数情况下，我们最好通过限制他们生活的因素（如收入）来识别人，而不是通过地图上围绕他们的线条。