考研英语阅读翻译

2012阅读：

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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.

赶紧加入吧，每个人都在这样做呢。当听到“同侪压力”这个词时，我们大部分人想到的便是这句半是邀请半是强迫的耳语。往往地，它带来的绝非好事——酗酒、吸毒和滥交。但在蒂娜·罗森伯格的新书《加入俱乐部》中，她认为同侪压力通过她所倡导的“社会治疗”，也能够成为一种积极的力量。在这种“社会治疗”中，组织和官员使用团体动态的力量来帮助个人改善生活，甚至改进整个世界。

Rosenberg, the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, offers a host of example 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.

普立兹奖得主罗森伯格提供了很多“社会治疗”的实例：在南卡罗来纳州，一场由政府资助的称之为“怒对阴霾”的禁烟运动使得香烟变得很逊。在南非，一场名为“热爱生命”的HIV预防倡议活动运动招募年轻人在其同辈中推广安全性行为。

The idea seems promising，and Rosenberg is a perceptive observer. Her critique of the lameness of many pubic-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.

这个想法看起来大有前途，罗森伯格确实是一位有洞察力的观察者。她对公众健康运动缺陷的批评很精准：他们没能调动同侪压力对于健康习惯的养成，同时表现出对心理学认知的严重错误。一个旨在减少年轻人——最渴望融入的年轻人——吸烟运动的广告牌上写到“敢于与众不同，请勿吸烟”。罗森伯格认为，公共健康倡议者应当向善于运用同侪压力的广告人汲取经验，这一点是令人信服。

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.

但是，就社会治疗的整体效果来看，罗森伯格的说法似乎不那么有说服力。《加入俱乐部》有太多无关细节，却没有充分探索那些使得同侪压力如此强大的社会和生物因素。书中反应出了“社会治疗”最明显的缺陷：它的作用不会很长久。政府资金一旦削减，“怒对烟雾”运动立马失败了。支持‘热爱生命’运动能产生持续影响的证据有限，且毁誉参半。

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，同伴群体对于我们行为施以重大影响。目前不断涌现出研究表明，积极的健康习惯——连同消极习惯，通过朋友网络中的社交得以传播。这也是一种微妙的同侪压力：我们无意识地模仿每天所看到的行为。

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.

然而很难做出定论的是，专家们和官员们究竟能在多大程度上成功地选择我们的同伴群体并将其行为引向道德方。正如教师们把后排的捣蛋鬼们拆开，和前排的好学生搭配坐。这种策略也从未奏效过。这就是来自外部的“社会治疗”存在的问题：就像在学校里一样，在现实社会中，我们坚持选择我们真正的朋友。