Why teenagers copy each other's risk-taking青少年相互模仿冒險的心理探尋

湖北黃石有色第一中學 劉菊珍

青少年正處于樂于冒險的年齡階段，最近一項新的研究發現了青少年樂于冒險的原因。青少年應該意識到自己的冒險行為可能帶來的一系列風險，避免不必要的冒險行為。

題材心理體裁說明文文章詞數 難度 建議用時321 ★★★ 6 分鐘

難詞探意

1. gambling /?ɡ?mbl??/ n. 賭博

2. stereotype /?steri?ta?p/ n. 刻板印象

3. fake /fe?k/ adj. 假的；冒充的；偽造的

From excessive drinking to careless driving,our teenage years are known to be a time of risk-taking. Now we are starting to understand why such behaviours spread between friends.

Many previous studies have shown that teens are more likely to start smoking or drinking if their friends do, but it is hard to study how such behaviours spread through social groups. While working at the Dresden University of Technology in Germany, Andrea Reiter and her colleagues used a simple gambling game to dig into the appeal of risk-taking for teenagers,and its social effects.

The task involved choosing between a definite payout of5 and a known, small chance of winning up to50. The game was played over a series of rounds by 86 male volunteers, half of whom were between 12 and 15, while the rest were adults. Previous work suggested boys and girls have different levels of risk-taking, so the team focused on males.

When the volunteers played the game alone, the boys were less likely than the men to take the risky gamble of trying for a larger pay out. “There is this stereotype, but teens were not more risk-seeking when tested alone,”says Reiter.

However, this changed when the participants no longer thought they were alone. In a second run of the experiment, the volunteers met a “partner” face-to-face before playing the game,and were told they could see each other's actions on a computer. In reality, the researchers were in control of all the “partner's” decisions.

If the fake partner took the risky gamble more often, the boys' own play became riskier—but only if their partner was another teen, not an adult. The boys' behaviour changed more than twice as much as that of the adults.

A questionnaire showed that the boys who changed their behaviour the most also reported having more friends and a higher social confidence.

Reading Check

1. What do we know from the previous studies on teens' risk-taking?

A. They usually ignore the present risks.

B. They are willing to be in a dangerous situation.

C. They encourage each other to start risktaking.

D. They prefer to copy their friends' behaviour.

2. How many adults were involved in the task?

A. 86.

B. 59.

C. 43.

D. 27.

3. What conclusion can we draw from the gambling game?

A. A boy's behaviour changes more if he has a teen partner.

B. A boy who owns lots of friends has great chance to win.

C. A boy with a lower social confidence has no chance to win.

D. Boys and girls have the same levels of risk-taking.

Language Study

Difficult sentence

The game was played over a series of rounds by 86 male volunteers, half of whom were between 12 and 15, while the rest were adults.

【翻譯】______________________________

【點石成金】本句為一個主從復合句，含有一個非限制性定語從句，該從句結構為“名詞+介詞+關系代詞……”，while連接前后兩個并列句。