来源：《自然》
原文刊登日期：2023年6月7日
Adam Mastroianni was always bothered by anecdotal claims that people are becoming less kind, respectful and trustworthy over time. So he took a deep dive into such claims: he wrote a PhD dissertation.
亚当·马斯楚安尼总是被这样的传闻所困扰，即随着时间的推移，人们变得越来越不友善、不尊重和不值得信赖。他深入研究了这些说法：为此，他写了一篇博士论文。
Now Mastroianni and a collaborator have drawn on decades’ worth of survey results and other data to find that people around the world have perceived a general moral decline for at least the past 70 years. But the data also show that individuals’ evaluation of their contemporaries’ morality has remained largely unchanged during that time. Mastroianni, a psychologist at Columbia University, and his co-author Daniel Gilbert, a psychologist at Harvard University, conclude that the perception of moral decline is an illusion.
现在马斯楚安尼和他的合作者根据几十年的调查结果和其他数据发现，至少在过去的70年里，世界各地的人们都感觉到道德水平普遍下降。但数据也显示，在这段时间里，个人对同时代人道德的评价基本没有变化。哥伦比亚大学的心理学家马斯特罗安尼和他的合著者、哈佛大学的心理学家丹尼尔·吉尔伯特得出结论，道德衰退的看法是一种错觉。
To examine the common idea that morality is waning, Mastroianni and Gilbert analysed US surveys about moral values conducted between 1949 and 2019. Most participants reported that morality had declined. Similar results were seen in surveys done in 59 other countries.
为了检验人们普遍认为道德正在衰落的观点，马斯楚安尼和吉尔伯特分析了1949年至2019年美国进行的关于道德价值观的调查。大多数参与者报告说，道德水平下降了。在其他59个国家进行的调查中也看到了类似的结果。
The authors also conducted their own series of surveys in 2020 and found that US participants said that people were less “kind, honest and nice” than they had been in times past, such as the year the participant was born. The perception of moral decline was shared by people of various political ideologies, races, genders, ages and educational levels.
作者还在2020年进行了自己的一系列调查，发现美国参与者普遍认为，与过去(比如参与者出生的年份)相比，人们不那么“善良、诚实和友善”了。不同政治意识形态、种族、性别、年龄和教育水平的人都有道德衰退的感觉。
The researchers also examined surveys that asked people to report on the current state of their own morality and that of their contemporaries. The authors chose surveys that had been administered at least twice, with a minimal interval of ten years, so that answers could be compared across time. These included questions such as “How would you rate the overall state of moral values in this country today?”
研究人员还研究了一些调查，这些调查要求人们报告自己和同时代人的道德现状。作者选择了至少进行过两次的调查，间隔时间最少为十年，这样就可以对不同时期的答案进行比较。问题包括“你如何评价当今国家道德价值观的整体状况？”
If morality had actually declined over time, people would be expected to rate their peers more negatively than had those who took the same survey earlier. But the data revealed that participants’ assessments of their contemporaries’ morality have not changed over time. For Mastroianni, this means that the perception of moral decline is erroneous or that “it’s at least very difficult to find any evidence that this moral decline has happened”.
如果道德确实随着时间的推移而下降，那么人们会比之前接受同样调查的人对同代人的评价更负面。但数据显示，参与者对同时代人的道德评价并没有随着时间的推移而改变。对马斯楚安尼来说，这意味着道德衰退的看法是错误的，或者“至少很难找到任何证据证明这种道德衰退已经发生了”。
The fact that US residents of all types perceived declining morality surprised psychologist Liane Young, head of the Morality Lab at Boston College. “That pessimism about human nature is pretty common when people are making judgements about those who are not on their side, on their team.”
波士顿学院道德实验室主任、心理学家莉安·杨惊讶地发现，美国所有类型的居民都感到道德水平在下降。“当人们对那些不站在自己一边、不站在自己队伍里的人做出判断时，这种对人性的悲观情绪非常普遍。”
So why do people think there is this decay? The authors speculate that it has to do with factors such as biased memory; negative memories tend to fade faster than positive ones.
那么，为什么人们认为存在这种衰退呢？作者推测，这与偏见记忆等因素有关；消极记忆往往比积极记忆消退得更快。
Mastroianni says that the illusion of moral decline might have important societal and even political consequences. For example, a 2015 survey cited in his paper found that 76% of people in the United States agreed that “‘addressing the moral breakdown of the country’ should be a high priority for their government” — a view that could affect voting choices.
马斯楚安尼说，道德衰落的错觉可能会产生重要的社会甚至政治后果。例如，他在论文中引用的一项2015年的调查发现，76%的美国人认为“‘解决国家道德崩溃’应该是政府的首要任务”——这一观点可能会影响投票选择。