Passage 58
学霸导读 我们的道德观是不是一成不变的？让我们一起来看一个实验吧！
Social norms （ 准则 ） of right and wrong are vital to a well-functioning （ 运作良好的 ） society. However， such moral standards are changeable and the psychological mechanisms driving this change are u 1 . Now， researchers at Karolinska Institute report that our view of self ish and unself ish behaviors changes depending on how common they are.
The results are based on a c 2 of behavioral experiments, mathematical models and computer simulations. In the experiments, the participants f irst observed other people’s behavior in a so-called “public goods game”, in which players receive a sum of money and then choose e 3 to invest it to varying degrees so that it benef its everyone in the group, or to keep it for themselves. After every r 4 , the participants were asked to judge the different choices as morally right or wrong, and whether the choices ought to be punished with a reduction in how much the players gained.
Unself ish behavior was considered more morally right than self ish， but b 5 behaviors were judged to be more moral and less deserving of punishment. The commonness （ 共同性 ） of the self ish behavior also affected the participants’ willingness to pay for punishing self ishness.
“Tolerance （ 容忍度 ） of self ish behavior increased when the majority of the players kept the money for themselves， which s 6 me，” says Andreas Olsson， senior lecturer at Karolinska Institute’s Department of Clinical Neuroscience. “The fact that a behavior is common doesn’t automatically mean that it’s right—this i 7 is based on faulty logic that confuses facts with moral values.”
The study shows our view of what is morally right and wrong has strong similarities with social conformity （ 从众行为 ）， in that we tend to adapt ourselves to the people around us and how they b 8 . This means that c 9 in our social environment can quickly alter our moral compass.
This is interesting from several angles, and could e 10 why moral attitudes change over time, such as those towards public goods or legality.
1.__________2.__________3.__________4.__________5.__________
6.__________7.__________8.__________9.__________10.__________
高频词汇
vital /'vaɪtl/ adj. 必不可少的；对……极重要的
benef it /'benɪfɪt/ v. 对（某人）有用；使受益
moral /'mɒrəl/ adj. 道德的；道义上的
deserving /dɪ'zɜː vɪŋ/ adj. 值得的；应得的
majority /mə'dʒɒrəti/ n. 大部分；大多数
faulty /'fɔː lti/ adj. 有缺陷的；错误的
confuse /kən'fjuː z/ v. 将……混同；使迷惑
similarity /ˌsɪmə'lærəti/ n. 相似点；相似性