2012年考研英语一阅读 Text 1 原文翻译及答案解析

Come on - Everybody's doing it. That whispered message, half invitation and half forcing, is what most of us think of when we hear the words peer pressure. It usually leads to no good - drinking, drugs and casual sex. But in her new book Join the Club, Tina Rosenberg contends that peer pressure can also be a positive force through what she calls the social cure, in which organizations and officials use the power of group dynamics to help individuals improve their lives and possibly the world.

来吧 - 大家都在做。那种低声的耳语，半是邀请半是强迫，是我们大多数人听到'同伴压力'这个词时想到的。它通常导致不好的结果——饮酒、毒品和随意的性行为。但在她的新书《加入俱乐部》中，蒂娜·罗森伯格认为，通过她所谓的社会疗法，同伴压力也可以成为一种积极力量，在这种疗法中，组织和官员利用群体动态的力量来帮助个人改善生活，甚至可能改变世界。

Rosenberg, the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, offers a host of examples of the social cure in action: In South Carolina, a state-sponsored antismoking program called Rage Against the Haze sets out to make cigarettes uncool. In South Africa, an HIV-prevention initiative known as loveLife recruits young people to promote safe sex among their peers.

普利策奖得主罗森伯格提供了许多社会疗法在行动中的例子：在南卡罗来纳州，一个名为'对烟雾愤怒'的国家资助反吸烟项目旨在让香烟变得不酷。在南非，一个名为loveLife的艾滋病预防倡议招募年轻人来推广安全性行为。

The idea seems promising, and Rosenberg is a perceptive observer. Her critique of the lameness of many public-health campaigns is spot-on: they fail to mobilize peer pressure for healthy habits, and they demonstrate a seriously flawed understanding of psychology. "Dare to be different, please don't smoke!" pleads one billboard campaign aimed at reducing smoking among teenagers - teenagers, who desire nothing more than fitting in. Rosenberg argues convincingly that public-health advocates ought to take a page from advertisers, so skilled at applying peer pressure.

这个想法似乎很有前景，罗森伯格是一位敏锐的观察者。她对许多公共卫生运动软弱无力的批评是切中要害的：它们未能动员同伴压力来养成健康习惯，并且展示了对心理学严重误解。'敢于与众不同，请勿吸烟！'一个旨在减少青少年吸烟的广告牌运动恳求道——而青少年最渴望的恰恰是融入群体。罗森伯格令人信服地论证，公共卫生倡导者应该借鉴广告商的经验，他们如此擅长运用同伴压力。

But on the general effectiveness of the social cure, Rosenberg is less persuasive. Join the Club is filled with too much irrelevant detail and not enough exploration of the social and biological factors that make peer pressure so powerful. The most glaring flaw of the social cure as it's presented here is that it doesn't work very well for very long. Rage Against the Haze failed once state funding was cut. Evidence that the loveLife program produces lasting changes is limited and mixed.

但在社会疗法的总体有效性上，罗森伯格的说服力较弱。《加入俱乐部》充满了太多无关细节，对使同伴压力如此强大的社会和生物因素探索不足。这里所呈现的社会疗法最明显的缺陷是它不能长期有效。'对烟雾愤怒'项目在国家资助被削减后失败了。loveLife项目产生持久变化的证据有限且好坏参半。

There's no doubt that our peer groups exert enormous influence on our behavior. An emerging body of research shows that positive health habits - as well as negative ones - spread through networks of friends via social communication. This is a subtle form of peer pressure: we unconsciously imitate the behavior we see every day.

毫无疑问，我们的同伴群体对我们的行为施加了巨大影响。一项新兴的研究表明，积极健康习惯——以及消极习惯——通过社交沟通在朋友网络中传播。这是一种微妙的同伴压力形式：我们无意识地模仿每天看到的行为。

Far less certain, however, is how successfully experts and bureaucrats can select our peer groups and steer their activities in virtuous directions. It's like the teacher who breaks up the troublemakers in the back row by pairing them with better-behaved classmates. The tactic never really works. And that's the problem with a social cure engineered from the outside: in the real world, as in school, we insist on choosing our own friends.

然而，远不那么确定的是，专家和官僚们能多成功地选择我们的同伴群体并引导他们的活动向积极方向发展。这就像老师通过将后排的捣乱学生与行为更好的同学配对来拆散他们。这种策略从未真正奏效。这就是外部设计的社会疗法的问题所在：在现实世界中，就像在学校一样，我们坚持选择自己的朋友。

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