来源：《哈佛商业评论》2023年1月2月双月刊
When a hot-button political or moral issue arises, it’s tempting to stay out of it for fear of offending the other party. But new research shows that attempted neutrality can be even more damaging.
当一个敏感的政治或道德问题出现时，人们很容易因为害怕冒犯对方而置身事外。但新的研究表明，试图保持中立可能更具破坏性。
In one experiment, participants read about a political candidate who was asked whether NFL players should be required to stand during the national anthem. The researchers divided participants into two groups according to whether they were liberal or conservative. In the account read by some in each group, the candidate opposed the group’s prevailing position. In the account read by the others, he declined to take a stand. Participants in both political groups were more likely to trust him when he sided against them than when he was neutral and were no less likely to consider voting for him. In another experiment, participants who were asked to choose a partner for a game were far more likely to opt for someone who opposed their views on gun control outright than for someone who ducked the issue. “When actors choose not to take sides,” the researchers write, “observers often ascribe concealed opposition...which provokes distrust and undermines real-stakes cooperation.” That effect occurred, however, only when silence seemed to be a strategic choice, not when people appeared to truly hold a middle-of-the-road position or to lack incentives to manage how they were viewed.
在一项实验中，参与者阅读一篇关于一位政治候选人的文章，在文章中，候选人被问及是否应该要求NFL球员在奏国歌时起立。研究人员根据参与者是自由派还是保守派将他们分为两组。在每组中，部分参与者阅读到，候选人反对该小组的主流立场。每组中的其余参与者阅读到，候选人拒绝表明立场。两个政治组别的参与者在候选人站在自己的对立面时比在候选人保持中立时更有可能信任他，并且考虑投票给他的可能性也不低。在另一项实验中，参与者被要求选择一个游戏伙伴，他们更有可能选择完全反对其枪支管制观点的人，而不是选择回避这个问题的人。“当行动者选择不偏袒任何一方时，”研究人员写道，“观察者通常认为他们隐藏着反对……这引发了不信任，破坏了真正利害攸关的合作。”然而，只有当沉默似乎是一种战略选择时，这种效应才会发生，而当人们似乎真正持中间立场或没有控制别人如何看待自己的动机时，这种效应就不会发生。
A follow-up study showed that most people misunderstand the costs of withholding their opinions. When presented with a workplace scenario in which trust building is important and a sensitive issue arises on which they disagree with their colleagues, 63% of participants said, “I prefer to keep my political opinions to myself,” “I just do not like to talk politics,” and so on. “In other words,” the researchers write, “participants put on the spot to take sides often generated just the sorts of not-taking-sides responses we have previously demonstrated backfire.”
一项后续研究表明，大多数人都误解了隐瞒自己观点的代价。当被问及在一个建立信任很重要的工作场景，他们与同事对一个敏感问题意见相左时，63%的参与者说，“我更喜欢把自己的政治观点藏在心里”，“我只是不喜欢谈论政治”，等等。“换句话说，”研究人员写道，“当场选边站队的参与者往往会产生我们之前证明适得其反的那种不选边站队的效果。”