環(huán)球英語—968:Quick Decisions

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Hello and welcome to Spotlight. I'm Liz Waid.
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And I'm Joshua Leo. Spotlight uses a special method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
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Most people have experienced an immediate reaction. They might react with a strong emotion when they smell something good. They might have an immediate reaction to a sound or picture. These emotions are what writer Malcolm Gladwell calls snap, or quick decisions. Gladwell has studied Today's Spotlight program is on these immediate reactions and how they affect our everyday lives.
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Here is an example of how our brains create these immediate reactions. Answer these questions in your head as quickly as possible.
What colour are clouds?
What colour is snow?
What do cows drink?
Most people answer the first two questions with white. If you answered that cows drink milk, you are not alone. The correct answer is water. It was the colour white that made you have a snap decision that cows drink milk.
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In his book "Blink", Malcolm Gladwell tells a story about this kind of snap decision. In 1983, the J. Paul Getty Museum received a statue. They were told it was a marble statue from the sixth century B.C. They believed it was this old. Scientists at the museum did some basic tests to make sure the statue was real. The tests seemed to show that the statue was very old. But Federico Zeri and Evelyn Harris did not agree with the scientists. They are art experts. When they saw the statue, they had a feeling that it was not real. That feeling came from years of experience working with art.
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Thomas Hoving is another art manager. He also had the chance to look at the statue. Hoving always remembers the first word to come into his mind when he looks at a new piece of work.
When Hoving sees an old large marble statue, he expects his first word to be 'old', 'beautiful', 'ancient', or even 'heavy'. Hoving has been around art for many years. His experience makes it easier for him to choose between real art and copies of real art. And when he looked at the statue, the first word he thought of was 'fresh'. The snap judgements of the experts agreed - the statue was not thousands of years old. It was new.
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Because the experts believed it was not real, scientists decided to do more tests. These further test results showed that the statue was not real. It was a copy of a statue that was popular more than two thousand years ago. The person that made the statue put a lot of hard work and time into making the statue seem older than what it was. The museum was not happy when they learned they would not be able to put this statue in their museum. But the experts' snap decisions helped save the museum from years of shame and regret.
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This is just one of many examples of the effects of snap, quick decisions. Snap decisions can also help save or even improve our lives.
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Imagine you are walking down a street on a sidewalk. You are thinking about something that is very interesting. You are not thinking about walking down the street. You decide to turn right. You do not see that you have just stepped out on to a busy street. You look up and see that there is a car driving towards you. Without thinking, you jump back up on to the sidewalk. You do this to avoid being hit. It was your own snap decision to jump back, away from the street, that saved you from being hurt.
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In an emergency, snap decisions also help. For example, doctors use snap decisions to treat injuries. They react based on past experiences. These past experiences help doctors know, without thinking, what they must do. If doctors take too long to make a decision, it can be too late to save a person's life. Their quick thinking can help keep everyone safe.
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Snap judgements are very important in many different situations. But why do we make them? How do we make them? Malcolm Gladwell says that people make quick decisions because they have to. Sometimes people have to make quick decisions to survive. Other times, people have to because it is natural. Our past experiences help to form our decisions. This is what helps to make them natural. Snap decisions come from the unconscious part of our brain. This means we do not know we make snap decisions until after we make them. We often do this when we meet people.
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There is a popular saying in the English language "Do not judge a book by its cover." This means that we should not make an opinion about something or somebody based on the way they look. But people do this every single day. And, sadly, these snap decisions can easily be wrong.
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Snap decisions come from experience. But our experiences of people can be limited. Most of us do not know people of a different ethnicity or race. We mostly know people who are like us. So, when we see someone who looks different, our snap judgements are NOT based on experience. They are based on ideas from other people, or stories in radio and television. These are prejudices. And snap decisions based on prejudice are often wrong. Often, a person's appearance does not tell us much about who they are or what they are like.
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However, this is not always true. For example, imagine that you see a police officer. You can identify him as a police officer because of his uniform. This is a natural thing to do. But you may have more thoughts - harmful thoughts like, "he thinks he is above the law" or "he is mean". These are not good snap decisions. Thoughts like these are judgements about a person's character and personality.
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Some times, we need to make a snap decision about a person to protect our own lives. If we see someone carrying a weapon, it would be right to make the snap decision to hide or run away.
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People make snap decisions every single day. It is up to us how we let the snap decisions affect our lives. It is important to be careful not to let these snap decisions change the way we think of a person. Think of how your snap decisions affect your everyday life. You could surprise yourself.
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The writer of today's programme was Erin Layman. The producer was Joshua Leo. The voices you heard were from the United States. Computer users can read our scripts, hear our programs and see our word list on our website at www.radio.english.net. This programme is called "Quick Decisions".
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We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye!