多看萌狗可以讓婚姻更幸福

Scientists have used an unconventional technique to increase the happiness of married couples: brain washing them with pictures of cute puppies.

科學家利用一種新奇的手法來提高已婚夫婦的幸福感：用可愛的小狗照片來爲他們洗腦。

The team developed a procedure that could be used as part of marriage counselling to improve people's feelings about their partners.

該團隊開發了一套程序，可以作爲婚姻諮詢的一部分以增進人們對配偶的感情。

Keeping a marriage healthy and happy is a challenging task. Happiness is a really important metric and previous research has shown that if happiness level of males is higher than their partner it's more likely to end in divorce.

使婚姻健康幸福是一項具有挑戰性的任務。幸福是一個非常重要的度量標準，過去的研究表明，如果男性的幸福水平高於他們的配偶，這樣的夫婦最終更有可能會離婚。

The team of psychologists wanted to find out whether it was possible to improve marital satisfaction by subtly brain washing the study participants. They designed an experiment to retrain the automatic responses of married people when they think about their partner.

心理學家團隊想要查明，是否有可能通過爲研究參與者進行輕微洗腦來調高他們對婚姻的滿意度。他們設計了一個實驗來重新訓練已婚人士在想起配偶時的習慣性反應。

"One ultimate source of our feelings about our relationships can be reduced to how we associate our partners with positive affect, and those associations can come from our partners but also from unrelated things, like puppies and bunnies," said James K McNulty, lead researcher from Florida State University.

“我們感受情侶關係的一個根本來源可以歸納爲我們如何把積極的影響與我們的伴侶聯繫在一起，而且這些感覺上的聯想可能源於我們的伴侶，也可能源於不相關的事物，如幼犬和小兔子，”弗羅裏達州立大學首席研究員K·麥克納爾蒂說道。

The study included 144 married couples who were all under 40 and married for less than 5 years. At the start of the experiment, couples completed a series of tests to measure their relationship satisfaction.

這項研究的參與者有144對已婚夫婦，他們都不超過40歲，而且結婚不滿5年。在實驗之初，這些夫婦完成了一系列的測試來衡量他們對婚姻關係的滿意度。

This included measuring their immediate, automatic attitudes toward their partner. Like a scary word association game that could lead to divorce.

該測試包括衡量他們對配偶當前的習慣性態度，如可能會導致離婚的可怕的詞彙聯想遊戲。

To improve the automatic reactions to their spouse subjects were asked to watch a short, happy montage of images once every three days for six weeks.

爲了改善他們對配偶的習慣性反應，參與者被要求在六週中每三天觀看一部簡短的幸福照片剪輯。

For those in the experimental group, they were shown pictures of their spouse alongside positive stimuli, such as a puppy that makes you happy, or the word "wonderful". In the control group, the participants saw their partner's face with pictures of neutral stimuli such as a shirt button.

參與實驗的羣體在觀看配偶照片的同時接受了積極刺激，如看到使你快樂的幼犬，或聽到“好極了”這個詞。在對照組中，參與者看到配偶的面孔和中性刺激的照片，如一顆襯衫鈕釦。

Did the positive stimuli actually make them perceive their partner in a more positive light?

積極的刺激真的會使他們以更積極的視角去理解自己的配偶嗎？

To test the effect that the montage was having on the couple, every 2 weeks for 8 weeks each spouse was shown a series of faces, including their partners and were asked to indicate the emotional tone of the image as quickly as possible.

爲了測試這部照片剪輯對夫婦的影響，在八週裏每兩週向每對夫婦展示一系列面孔，包括他們的配偶，並要求他們儘可能快地指出圖像的情感基調。

Something amazing happened to the participants. The simple act of associating their partners with positive stimuli increased the marital satisfaction over the course of the study.

令人驚訝的事情發生在了參與者的身上。把積極的刺激與他們的配偶聯繫在一起的簡單舉動在研究的過程中提升了他們對婚姻的滿意度。

Of course, the research only measured one aspect of relationship happiness and the researchers were quick to point out that behaviour also plays a big part in determining happiness.

當然，該研究僅僅衡量了幸福關係的一個方面，而且研究人員很快就指出，行爲在決定幸福的過程中也發揮着巨大的作用。

Although this simple intervention focused on automatic attitudes, the researchers say it could be useful as one aspect of marriage counselling.

雖然這些簡單的調解措施針對的是習慣性態度，但研究人員表示，作爲婚姻諮詢的一方面，這也是有幫助的。

"The research was actually prompted by a grant from the Department of Defence – I was asked to conceptualise and test a brief way to help married couples cope with the stress of separation and deployment," McNulty said. "We would really like to develop a procedure that could help soldiers."

“事實上，這項研究是國防部的一份許可促成的，我被要求構思並測試一種可以幫助已婚夫婦處理分居和調度壓力的簡單方法，”麥克納爾蒂說道。“我們真的願意開發一種可以幫助戰士們的程序。”