经济学人下载:面相学 面对真相

Science and Technology Physiognomy Facing the truth
科技 面相学 面对真相

Why a man's face can lie but still produce orgasms
为什么男人那张会骗人的脸还能引起性高潮？

THESE days, physiognomy is an unfashionable science.
过去，面相学是一门冷门科学。

The idea that character is etched into an individual's face is so much at variance with modern notions of free will that research in the area dwindled long ago.
"相由心生"的观点严重违背了"自由意志"的现代观念，因此有关于面相与性格关系的研究少之又少。

But it is making a tentative comeback.
但现在，这种观点却有卷土重来之势。

Two recent studies of faces suggest that their features do matter, biologically speaking: they can predict dishonesty and they can provoke orgasm.
最近，两份研究表明：个性和面相有关系，即从生物学角度上讲，面相不但可以暴露一个人的不可信度，还可以引发性高潮。

The study on dishonesty was done by Michael Haselhuhn and Elaine Wong of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
关于不可信度的研究有威斯康辛大学密尔沃基分校的麦克?哈塞尔胡恩教授和伊莱恩?黄教授共同完成，实验结果发表在《英国皇家学会会报》上。

Dr Haselhuhn and Dr Wong wondered if a feature already known to reflect aggressiveness in men (but not women) might also predict a tendency to lie and cheat.
哈塞尔胡恩教授与黄教授研究攻击性强的男性，认为他们更喜欢撒谎骗人。

That feature is the ratio of a face's width to its length. The wider a man's face, the more likely he will hit you.
而具有攻击性男性的特点表现在其面部长宽比上，脸宽的男性爱打人。

Honest signals of aggressiveness make sense.
坦率显露进攻性是明显有利的。

Potential victims avoid starting fights they cannot win, while the aggressive get their way without risking injury.
实力虚弱者会避免引发一场不能取胜的争斗，攻击性强者在没有受伤风险的情况下可以因此而取胜。

It does not, however, obviously make sense to give away in advance of a negotiation that you are likely to lie or cheat in it.
但在一场很可能需要说谎的谈判之前，表现进攻性不见得有明显的好处。

Yet Dr Haselhuhn and Dr Wong found this was the case.
两位教授发现事实还真就是这样。

In both a staged negotiation using MBA students and a separate experiment in which ordinary undergraduates were given an opportunity to earn more money if they misreported the results of a series of die rolls,
他们设计的是两组实验：一组是MBA学生谈判，另一组是普通大学生，给予他们说谎有利的机会，如果误报一系列模棒实验的数据，就有机会赚更多的钱。

the two researchers found that the wider a man's face was, compared with its height, the more likely he was to lie about his intentions (in the case of the negotiations) or cheat (in the case of the die rolls).
研究者发现，男性面部长宽比越小，就越容易在谈判中欺瞒自己的目的，在实验中瞒报数据。

That did not, however, apply to women.
但这一实验结果不适用于女性。

The probable explanation is that the advantage of being seen, reliably, as aggressive outweighs the disadvantage of being, predictably, a cheat and a liar.
这大概可以解释为：一个人被看做具有攻击性的"利"要大于被认为有作假嫌疑的"弊"。

Also, the fear of retaliation provoked by aggressiveness means victims of cheating and lying might not want to push the point anyway, and might thus be willing to concede a certain amount of slippage in their negotiating position, knowing full well what is going on.
而且，在谈判中，骗局或者谎言的受害者也许不会刻意坚持自己的主张，他们害怕攻击性强的人会报复自己，于是在清楚事态的前提下，他们会做出让步。

Since women rarely use violence to get their way, they do not evolve such signals.
而女性几乎不会用暴力来处理问题，所以在此实验中，测不出她们的诚实数据。

The likelihood of a link between men's faces and women's orgasms is more obvious than that between faces and cheating, but is nevertheless significant.
相比于面相与骗局之间的关系，男性面相与女性性高潮的联系就明显的多，也有意义的多。

In a study to be published in Evolution and Human Behavior, David Puts and his colleagues at Pennsylvania State University found what you might expect—that sex with a good-looking man is more likely to result in orgasm than sex with a minger.
宾夕法尼亚州立大学的大卫?普斯和他的同事们做了一项研究，结果发表在《进化与人类行为》杂志上。

What this means is that good-looking men are even more likely to conceive children than was previously believed. Obviously, the handsome have more mating opportunities than the ugly.
研究内容你可能已经猜到了-------与英俊帅气的男性做爱比和相貌平平的男性做爱更容易达到性高潮。也就是说英俊的男性更容易得到孩子。

But if they more often bring a woman to orgasm, as well, each of those opportunities is more likely to result in conception,
显然，英俊的男性比丑男约会机会更多，而且，如果他们经常使女性产生性高潮，每次高潮时，女性受孕概率也会增大。

because contractions of the cervix and vagina during orgasm transport semen deeper into the reproductive tract.
这是因为，在高潮期间，宫颈和阴道的收缩会将精液运送到生殖道更深处。

And that is what Dr Puts found.
这就是普斯教授的发现。

He and his team recruited 70 couples and asked the women how they rated their men's masculinity and attractiveness, and how often and when they orgasmed.
他们召集了70对伴侣，询问女性怎样评价男性的男子气概和魅力，以及她们产生性高潮的时间和频率。

They also asked independent observers to rate the men's faces, and found broad agreement with the ratings from partners.
研究人员还让每位女性独立的观察和评价男性面相，而评价结果则大体相仿。

As they predicted, women whose menfolk had attractive, masculine faces orgasmed more often during intercourse.
正如所预测的那样，那些拥有英俊迷人面庞的男性，其伴侣在性交过程中更容易达到性高潮。

They did not, by contrast, orgasm more frequently during masturbation or other sexual activity.
而在手淫等其他性行为中，相比之下，他们的高潮就来的不那么频繁了。

The extra orgasms also came at the same time as the man's climax—just when they would do the most good for conception.
而且，英俊的男子与其伴侣更容易双方同时高潮-------这为怀孕创造出了极好的条件。

Women are thus choosing which men father their children not only in whom they take to bed, but in how they react to them, sexually.
因此，女性选择未来孩子的父亲，不仅仅是看她和谁睡觉，更是看她和谁做爱时有有何反应。

The consequence, since looks are inherited, is that their sons, too, will be sexy.
结果呢，由于相貌会遗传，他们的儿子也会长的很性感。

Whether they will be cheats and liars is another matter.
至于会不会被人骗，那就是另一回事了。