自言自語的好處

Talking to yourself may seem a little shameful. If you’ve ever been overheard *berating yourself for a foolish mistake or practicing a tricky speech ahead of time, you’ll have felt the social *injunction against communing with yourself in words. According to the well-known saying, talking to yourself is the first sign of madness.

自言自語似乎顯得有點丟人。如果你曾經(jīng)被人聽到在斥責自己犯了一個愚蠢的錯誤，或是在預(yù)演一篇有挑戰(zhàn)的演講，你就會感受到社會對這種自言自語的行為側(cè)目而視。用人們熟知的話來說，自言自語是變瘋的第一跡象。

But there’s no need for embarrassment. Talking to ourselves, whether out loud or silently in our heads, is a valuable tool for thought. Far from being a sign of insanity, self-talk allows us to plan what we are going to do, manage our activities, regulate our emotions and even create a narrative of our experience.

但你不必感到尷尬。自言自語——無論是大聲說出還是在心中默念——都很有價值，是思考的一種工具。自言自語非但不代表精神失常，而且恰恰相反，它有助于我們規(guī)劃要做的事情和管控自己的各種活動和情緒，甚至還能創(chuàng)作一段關(guān)于自己經(jīng)歷的故事。

Take a trip to any preschool and watch a small child playing with her toys. You are very likely to hear her talking to herself: offering herself directions and giving voice to her *frustrations. Psychologists refer to this as private speech – language that is spoken out loud but directed at the self. We do a lot of it when we are young–perhaps one reason for our shyness about continuing with it as adults.

你可以去任何一家幼兒園，觀察一個小孩子自己玩玩具的情景。你極有可能會聽到她在自說自話：或是告訴自己要做什么，或是表達自己的沮喪之情。心理學家將這種行為稱作私下話語：大聲說出來但卻是對著自己說的語言。我們小時候經(jīng)常這樣做——或許這就是為什么我們成年后會羞于繼續(xù)這樣做的一個原因。

As children, according to the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, we use private speech to regulate our actions in the same way that we use public speech to control the behavior of others. As we grow older, we don’t abandon this system–we *internalize it.

根據(jù)俄羅斯心理學家利維•維果斯基的說法，作為孩子，我們用私下話語來規(guī)范自己的行為，就像我們用公眾話語來規(guī)范他人的行為一樣。隨著我們年齡的增長，我們并沒有放棄這個體系——我們把它內(nèi)化了。

Psychological experiments have shown that this so-called inner speech can improve our performance on tasks ranging from judging what other people are thinking to sorting images into categories. The distancing effect of our words can give us a valuable perspective on our actions. One recent study suggested that self-talk is most effective when we address ourselves in the second person: as “you” rather than “I”.

心理學實驗已經(jīng)表明，這種所謂的內(nèi)在言語可以提高我們處理一些事情的能力，比如從判斷別人在想什么，到把圖片分門別類。我們的言詞所產(chǎn)生的疏離效果能給我們提供一個審視自己行為的難得視角。最近一項研究表明，當我們用第二人稱“你”而不是“我”來稱呼自己時，自我對話會最有效。

We internalize the private speech we use as children–but we never entirely put away the out-loud version. If you want proof, turn on the sports channel. You’re bound to see an athlete or two gearing themselves up with a tart phrase or scolding themselves after a bad shot.

我們內(nèi)化了在孩童時期使用的私下話語——但我們卻從未完全放棄大聲說出的方式。如果你需要證據(jù)，那就打開體育頻道，你一定會看到有那么一兩個運動員在對自己說著鼓勁兒話，或是在沒投中球后狠狠地責備自己。

Conducting a dialogue with ourselves–asking questions of the self and providing answers–seems to be a particularly good way of solving problems and working through ideas. The to-and-fro between different points of view means our thoughts can end up in expected places, just like a regular dialogue can, and might turn out to be one of the keys to human creativity.

與自己進行對話—自問自答—似乎是一種很好的解決問題和理清想法的方式。在不同的觀點之間來來回回好幾遍可以讓我們就像同別人對話一樣讓想法著落在正確的地方，并且這可能也是促進我們?nèi)祟悇?chuàng)造力的關(guān)鍵之一。

Both kinds of self-talk–the silent and the vocal–seem to bring a range of benefits to our thinking. Those words to the self, spoken silently or aloud, are so much more than *idle chatter.

兩種自言自語的方式——默念和出聲——似乎都給我們的思考帶來很多好處。自我對話——無論是心中默念還是大聲說出——都比閑聊有意義得多。