探索發現:姓名竟能影響人的重大決策
What's in a name? Letters that offer clues to one's future decisions. Previous studies have suggested that a person's monogram may influence his life choices - where he works, whom he marries or where he lives - because of "implicit egotism". For instance, a person named Fred might be attracted to the notion of living in Fresno, working for Forever 21 or driving a Ford.
名字裏有什麼？名字能預示一個人在未來做什麼決定。此前種種研究表明，一個人的姓名可影響他生命中的重大決策——在哪裏工作、和誰結婚或者住在哪裏，而這種影響源於“內隱自大”。舉個例子，一個名爲“弗雷德”的人有可能傾向於居住在“弗雷斯諾”，到Forever 21公司工作，或者開一輛福特轎車。
Now a new study by professor Uri Simonsohn takes another look at the so-called name-letter effect and offers other explanations for the phenomenon. Uri found that the name of a person's workplace more closely correlated with the first three letters of a person's name. But Uri suggests that the reason for the association isn't implicit egotism.
而如今烏里教授的一項新研究爲這種“姓名字母效應”提供了新視角，併爲該現象提供了多種解釋。烏里發現，一個人工作單位的名字和此人姓名的前三個字母關係最爲密切。但烏里指出，這種聯繫並非源於“內隱自大”。
One alternative explanation to implicit egotism for these findings is reverse causality: Rather than employees seeking out companies with similar names, people starting new companies may name them after themselves.
他表示，有一種解釋可以替代“內隱自大”理論，即“反向因果關係”：即並非人們願意到有與自己姓名相似名稱的公司工作，事實上是，創業者更願意用自己的姓名來命名公司。
A second alternative explanation is an ethnic/language confound: VanBoven works for VanDyke Associates while LeBoeuf for LeBlanc Associates because the former lives in Dutch speaking Flanders and the latter in French speaking Wallonia; Van is a common Dutch prefix, Le a French one.
另外一種可行的解釋便是“民族/語言混淆”：VanBoven在VanDyke Associates公司工作，而LeBoeuf在LeBlanc Associates公司工作，原因僅僅又由於前者家住荷蘭，說着佛蘭德斯方言，而後者住在法國，操一口瓦隆尼亞語；畢竟Van在荷蘭語中通常是個前綴，而Le常在法語中起到前綴作用。
Whatever the explanation for the name-letter effect, no one really disputes that egotism is involved on some level. But the true importance of the effect is up for debate. "I can't imagine people don't like their own letter more than other letters," says Uri, "but the differences it makes in really big decisions are probably slim."
不管人們對“姓名字母效應”作何解釋，沒有人懷疑“自大”理論在某種程度上起到了一定作用。但是這種效應的真正價值有待商榷。“我無法想象人們會不喜歡自己姓名中的那些字母，”烏里說道，“但是姓名在人們做重大決策時所起的作用很有可能微乎其微。”
