The holiday season brings with it the usual assortment of college bowl games, from the classic Rose, Orange and Sugar, all the way to the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl and, my favorite, the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Each contest involves the migration across the country of hordes of players, coaches, alumni boosters, band members, mascots -- and, of course, cheerleaders. Remarkably, recent science suggests that if this final group weren't included, it would probably alter the quality of play.
随着假日赛季的到来，各种大学碗赛也一如既往地纷纷上演。既有“玫瑰碗”(Rose)、“橙子碗”(Orange)、“砂糖碗”(Sugar)这些经典比赛，也有“小凯撒比萨碗”(Little Caesars Pizza Bowl)、“布雷迪牛排碗”(Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl)，以及我最喜欢的“著名的爱达荷土豆碗”(Famous Idaho Potato Bowl)。每一场比赛期间，都有成群结队的球员、教练、校友助威团、军乐队、以及吉祥物在全国奔忙。当然，这当中也少不了拉拉队的身影。值得一提的是，近期科学研究表明，如果没有拉拉队，比赛的质量可能就不一样了。
All because males can be kind of pathetic.
这一切都可能是因为男人也怪可怜的。
When women are present or when men are prompted to think about women, they act differently, research shows. Well, duh. But in unexpected ways. A 2008 study in the journal Evolutionary Psychology showed that in the mere presence of women as witnesses, men become more likely to jaywalk and to wait until the last second to dash on to a bus. This reflects, no doubt, the well-known belief among men that jaywalking means you're a Roman gladiator of irrepressible virility. As I said, pathetic.
研究表明，当有女性在场、或男性被怂恿去想着女人的时候，他们会有不同的行为。嗯，就是这样。不过至于行为会怎样的不同，则是出人意料。2008年《进化心理学》(Evolutionary Psychology)杂志的一篇论文显示，只要有女性在场，男性就更有可能乱穿马路、更有可能等到最后一秒再蹿上公交车。这一点无疑折射了男人心中众所周知的一个观念：乱穿马路意味着你是一个充满蓬勃男子气概的罗马角斗士。正如我所说的，怪可怜的。
Over the past several years, the pattern has been found repeatedly in studies of male behavior published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the British Journal of Psychology and elsewhere. In some cases, a woman is present; in others, men look at pictures of a woman's face or her legs; in still others, men list what they find to be sexually arousing (versus things that make them happy). In a 2011 paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, this last technique is called, with a straight face, 'inducing mating goals.'
过去几年里《人格与社会心理学杂志》(Journal of Personality and Social Psychology)、《英国心理学杂志》(British Journal of Psychology)等刊物发表的多篇有关男性行为的论文都发现了上述现象。某些情况下是有女性在现场，另一些情况则是男性看着女人脸蛋或双腿的照片。还有一些情况，男性列出了他们觉得激发性欲的东西（而不是让他们快乐的东西）。在《人格与社会心理学公报》(Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin)2011年发表的一篇论文中，后面这种技术被正儿八经地称为“诱导交配目的”(inducing mating goals)。
Sex-related cues like these have been found to make men more prone to take risks while playing blackjack, to discount the future when making economic decisions and to spend on conspicuous luxury items (but not on mundane expenses). Typically, the effects are strongest in single men. By contrast, these studies uniformly report that cues about males have no such effects on women.
研究发现，像这些与性有关的暗示会让男性更容易在打21点扑克的时候冒险，更容易在做经济决策时不顾将来，更容易花钱购买引人注目的奢侈物品（而不是普通的花销）。一般情况下，这些效应在单身男性身上体现得最为强烈。相比之下，这些研究无一例外地显示，有关男性的暗示对女性并无此类效应。
There is also a darker side to the tendency of men to show off in the presence of women. As a 2012 study by Sarah Ainsworth and Jon Maner of Florida State University found, 'inducing mating goals' in men made them more likely in a competitive game to punish the opposing guy with loud blasts of noise. The effect was strongest in men with an 'unrestricted sociosexual orientation' -- that is, men who are perpetually on the prowl with a propensity to indiscriminate one-night stands. In another study, men who were primed by the presence of women were found to be more likely to endorse aggressive stances about war (with no change in their stances about the more humdrum issue of trade tariffs).
关于男性在有女性在场时爱显摆这件事，还有更阴暗的一面。2012年弗罗里达州立大学(Florida State University)莎拉·安斯沃思(Sarah Ainsworth)和约恩·马内尔(Jon Maner)的一篇论文发现，诱导男性的“交配目的”使他们更有可能在竞技中用大吼大叫的方式惩罚对手。这种效应在具有“不受约束的社交性性取向”(unrestricted sociosexual orientation)——即习惯于乱搞一夜情、总是在寻猎目标——的男性身上表现得最为强烈。另一篇论文则发现，当有女性在场时，男性更有可能支持在战争问题上采取进攻性立场（对于更为平淡的关税问题却没有立场变化）。
The authors of these studies have generally interpreted their findings to mean that thoughts of women subliminally prompt men to advertise their prowess and attractiveness -- displaying their tail feathers, so to speak, to attract a mate. History certainly has no shortage of men who were rewarded reproductively for their aggressiveness.
上述论文的作者总体上将他们的发现解释为：想着女人会在潜意识中鼓动男性表现他们的勇气和帅气——可以说就是通过展示尾巴上的饰毛来吸引伴侣。历史上当然不乏因为进攻性而在生殖问题上获得回报的男人。
But now comes research carried out by Mark van Vugt and Wendy Iredale and reported last year in the British Journal of Psychology. In the presence of women (but not other men), men became more generous in an economic game: They made more contributions to public goods and volunteered more time for charitable causes. In fact, the size of their charitable contributions increased in the presence of women they rated as more attractive. As usual, the presence of men had no such effects on women. As summarized in the title of the paper, this seems a case of 'Men Behaving Nicely: Public Goods as Peacock Tails.'
但现在又有了马克·范伍格特(Mark van Vugt)和温迪·艾尔代尔(Wendy Iredale)去年发表在《英国心理学杂志》上的研究。在有女性在场而无其他男性在场的情况下，男性在经济比赛中变得更加大方：他们的公益捐款将会增加，并自愿拿出更多时间投入慈善事业。事实上，如果有他们认为更加漂亮的女性在场，他们的慈善捐赠额度会变得更多。一如既往地，有男性在场并没有对女性产生这样的效应。就像论文题目总结的那样，这似乎是“男人行善：孔雀尾巴的公益”。
There's an important point here. The allure of the opposite sex makes men more violent, but only, it seems, in circumstances where violence is rewarded with higher status. When status can be achieved in a more socially desirable way, things work differently. In short, with the right social arrangements, this ludicrous tendency of men can be harnessed not only to encourage a ferocious goal-line stand but to make the world a kinder place.
这当中有一个很重要的方面。异性的诱惑使男人变得更加暴力，但似乎只是在有了暴力就会有更高地位的环境中才是这样。当地位可以通过一种更被社会接受的方式取得时，情况就不一样了。简而言之，如果社交安排得当，男性的这种荒唐倾向是可以得到驾驭的，不仅可以鼓励他们在门线处站岗时保持虎视眈眈，也能让世界变得更加友善。