研究：對男性來說，成績比不上父母痛苦堪比離婚

父母經常說，別人家的孩子又考了多麼高的分，來激勵自己的孩子努力學習。但他們可能沒有想到，自己的學業成績也可能導致孩子承擔心理的壓力和痛苦。這種影響在男性身上體現得較爲明顯。

Failing to match the academic achievements of your parents can be as distressing for men as a divorce, a study suggests.

研究顯示，對男性來說，學業成績比不上爸媽痛苦程度堪比離婚。

Researchers divided educational attainment into three categories – the top level equated to a degree, the middle to A-levels and the bottom to GCSEs or lower.

研究人員將受教育程度分爲三類，第一類等同於獲得學位，第二類相當於修完高中A-level課程，最後一類相當於拿到普通初級中學畢業文憑或者更低。

The levels reached by parents and their children were then compared with their psychological state.

研究人員隨後將父母和子女的受教育程度與其心理狀態進行對比。

The Oxford University researchers found that exceeding parents’ educational attainment was linked to decreased psychological distress in men – but falling short was linked to an increase.

牛津大學的研究人員發現，超過父母的受教育程度能減少男性的心理痛苦，但不及父母的受教育程度則會增加心理痛苦。

However women did not appear to be affected by failing to keep up with their parents. The survey analysed results from more than 50,000 people in Britain and 27 other European countries.

然而女性似乎不會受到學業趕不上父母的影響。這項研究分析了來自英國和27個其他歐洲國家的超過5萬人的調查結果。

Men whose educational status was at the bottom level and whose parents were at the top level were more than twice as likely to be among the 10 percent of most psychologically distressed people than those whose educational level matched their parents’.

自己的受教育程度墊底，而父母的受教育程度最高的男性成爲心理最痛苦人羣的可能性是與父母的受教育程度持平的男性的兩倍多。心理最痛苦人羣佔總人口的10%。

study co-author Dr Alexi Gugushvili said the effect was comparable to the gap between those who were divorced and those who were not.

研究合著者之一亞力克西-古古什維利博士說，這堪比離異與否帶給男性的心理差異。

But men whose educational status was at the top level and whose parents were at the bottom level were 50 percent less likely to be psychologically distressed than men whose level was the same as their parents’.

而自己的受教育程度最高，父母的受教育程度墊底的男性心理痛苦的可能性是與父母的受教育程度持平的男性的一半。

Dr Gugushvili said: ‘For men, parents’ educational achievement and intergenerational mobility retain an important influence on their psychological health after accounting for individuals’ social class and other explanations of distress, but no effect is observed for women’s distress.

古古什維利博士說：“對男性來說，父母的受教育程度和代際流動對其心理健康有重要影響，我們已經考慮到了個人的社會階層和其他可能導致心理痛苦的因素。但在女性身上沒有發現這種影響。”

‘The reason for this could be that men are more likely than women to attribute success and failure by pointing to their own merits, abilities and effort, rather than factors they have no control over.’

“原因可能是，男性比女性更容易把成敗歸因於個人的優點、能力和付出，而不是他們無法掌控的因素。”

Dr Gugushvili is due to present the findings at the British Sociological Association’s annual conference.

古古什維利博士將在英國社會學協會年度會議上公佈他的這一發現。