The researchers had 55 men and women play a computerized cooperation game and demonstrated that participants who felt they had been burned would go over the experience in their heads, playing out alternative versions of how they might have behaved. “Being duped holds up this mirror to people,” Dr. Vohs said, “and may in fact show them where they are on the scale”—too trusting or too vigilant. 32)Paranoia, too, has its costs, and it can 33)sour relationships.
研究者做了这样一个实验：让55名男女尝试一个电脑辅助的游戏。实验结果表明，那些感觉自己曾受创伤的参与者会在脑海里重温经历，作出不同以往的反应。“被愚弄过的人们时刻握着这面镜子对照自己，”佛贺斯博士这样说，“这实际上也可能给他们提供了一个警觉度的参考。”——是过度信任呢，还是过度警惕。疑心偏执也是有其代价的，还可能使人际关系恶化。
Running back the tape mentally, in this case meditating on how an embarrassing event might have turned out otherwise, is known to psychologists as 34)counterfactual thinking. “The feeling of ‘I should have known better' is the sort of counterfactual that serves to highlight your own shortcomings,” said Neal Roese, a psychologist at the University of Illinois. “A good deal of research has shown that these counterfactual insights can 35)kick-start new behaviors, new self-exploration and, ultimately, self-improvement.”
在脑海里慢慢回放事件的记忆，并同时对这桩出糗事件的其他可能性结果进行假设思考，这就是心理学家们称之为“反事实思维”的一种思维活动。“那种‘我应该早就察觉到了'的感觉就是一种反事实的思考，它会突显出你的缺点。”（美国）伊利诺伊大学的心理学家尼尔·罗塞如是说，“大量研究已表明，这些反事实的自我思考会激发人们做出新的行为表现，新的自我探索，并最终使人自我改善。”
Those observations may not leap to mind if you just showed up in 36)go-go boots and an Elizabeth Taylor 37)wig to a bogus 1970s 38)cross-dressing party. Or if you fell for the e-mail message announcing you had won an award and should forward a draft of your acceptance speech to a supervisor.
然而，如果你只是脚蹬高筒长靴，头戴伊丽莎白·泰勒式假发，跑去参加一个假的20世纪70年代风格的异装派对；又或是轻信了一封通知你获奖并让你给上级交一篇获奖感言草稿的邮件，那你可能不会获得上述那种认知。
But a good prank is, in the end, a simulation of a crisis and not the real thing. And it serves as a valuable reminder that not every precious box contains precisely the treasure you might expect.
不管怎样，一个成功的恶作剧，最终也不过是一场危机的模拟演示而已，并不是真的。而且它还是一种宝贵的提醒：并非所有美丽精致的盒子里就一定装着那些我们所期待的珍贵宝藏。
