好英语网人生重大决定何时做才是最佳时间？
When we’re trying to make a big decision, many of us think (and over-think) about the choice itself. If we’re really analytical, we might also think about our decision-making process: should we write up a list of pro’s and cons, or make a weighted spreadsheet? Research endlessly, or cut ourselves off from accumulating too much data?
当我们试着去做一个重大的决定，很多人会对选择本身进行思考（或过度思考）。如果我们真的很有分析能力，可能还会思考决策的过程：我们是否应该列出优缺点的对比，或者制作一张加权电子表格？无休止的研究，还是避免自己累计太多的数据？
But as well as thinking about how to make a choice, we may also want to think about when to make it.
但是，正如考虑如何做决定一样，我们可能也想知道何时做决定才是最佳的时间。
Whether it’s changing careers or buying a house, January always feels like a prime time for a reset – or, at least, to decide on a reset. And many of us are returning from holiday, where free time and conversations with loved ones can make us think about our life choices.
无论是换工作还是买房，1月总感觉像是重新设定人生的黄金时间，或者至少是考虑重新设定。很多人刚度完假，在那里，空闲的时间以及和爱人的对话可以让我们思考未来人生的选择。
But is January really the best time to make a big decision?
但是一月真的是做出重大决定的最佳时间吗？这个答案取决于我们的心情。
Many of us find that we feel a little lower in winter. For some people, it can be extreme. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD), marked by having depressive episodes in the winter months, is especially common in northern latitudes. One review found that up to almost 10% of people in the north, including North America, are affected by the disorder, while a recent study in Switzerland following participants over more than 20 years found that 7.5% of the population experienced seasonal depression.
大多数人在冬季都会感觉有点低落。对一些人来说，甚至可能更极端。季节性情感障碍（Seasonal affective disorder），以冬季抑郁发作为特征，在北纬地区尤为常见。一项调查发现，包括北美在内的北方人口中有近10%的人受到这种疾病的影响。瑞士一项研究追踪参与者超过20年，最近发现有7.5%的人经历了季节性抑郁。
Symptoms also can last for longer than you might expect: one study found that in the US, those affected by SAD struggle with symptoms for an average 40% of the year.
症状持续的时间可能比你能预期的还要长：一项美国的研究发现，受季节性情感障碍影响的患者，平均一年中有40%的时间都在和病症斗争。
But even those who don’t meet the diagnostic criteria for SAD often feel that their mood is lower in the winter. Back in the 1980s, a telephone survey of Maryland residents found 92% of people noticed seasonal mood changes to some degree – mainly that their mood became lower in winter.
但是，即使是那些不符合季节性情感障碍诊断标准的人，也常常感到情绪在冬季会更低落一点。早在20世纪80年代，一项针对马里兰州居民的电话调查发现，92%的人在某种程度上，都会注意到季节性的情绪变化——主要是因为他们的情绪在冬季变得更低落。
即使是那些不符合季节性情感障碍诊断标准的人，也常常感到他们的情绪在冬天会更低落一点
Your mood doesn’t just affect how you feel. It can affect your decision-making abilities. But to make matters more complex, having a low mood doesn’t mean you’ll always be worse at making a choice.
你的心情不仅影响你的感受，也会影响你的决策能力。但是更复杂的是，心情低落并不意味着你总是会做出更糟的选择。
Reward risk
奖励风险
A depressed mood tends to make us more risk-averse. Researchers think this may stem from a curtailed ability to experience pleasure, meaning a depressed person doesn’t have the same potent (and optimistic) emotional response to the possibility of a gain or a reward as a non-depressed person.
情绪低落往往会让我们更厌恶风险。研究人员认为这可能是因为体验快乐的能力被削弱。也就是说，相对于一般人，抑郁的人对于风险背后可能存在的回报和奖励提不起兴趣。
When given a card-playing task designed to assess risk-taking, for example, depressed participants had a harder time remembering which options were more likely to yield rewards, making them worse at the game than non-depressed participants. Participants with depressive symptoms also were more conservative in their risk-taking than non-depressed participants – sticking with safe choices that had low chances of reward, instead of adopting higher-risk strategies with potentially larger payoffs.
例如，抑郁者参与一个评估冒险行为的扑克牌游戏，他们不容易记住哪些选择更有可能产生回报，使他们在游戏中比正常参与者表现更糟糕。患有抑郁症状的参与者在冒风险方面也比正常人更加保守——他们会坚持选择奖励机会较低的安全选项，而不是具有潜在较大收益的高风险策略。
These are laboratory studies, but there is some good evidence that the same effects play out in the real world. People with SAD are more likely to be conservative in their financial decisions in the winter than people who didn’t have SAD, for instance.
这些是实验室研究，但有一些很好的证据表明在现实世界中也会产生同样的效果。例如，季节性情感障碍患者在冬季的财务决策中比正常人更保守。
And when it comes to making decisions, being more risk-averse isn’t always a bad thing.
在制定决策时，更规避风险并不总是一件坏事。
This is especially true because most healthy individuals have the opposite problem: ‘optimism bias’. Most of us believe we’re less likely to experience a negative event (like getting cancer or being in a car crash) than the statistics would warrant, and that our future is likelier to be rosier (whether in terms of getting more job offers or having a great holiday) than actually turns out to be the case. We also tend to think that we’re more in control than we really are – particularly if we’re involved in the event ourselves.
这尤其正确，因为大多数健康人会面临相反的问题：“乐观偏见”。大多数人都认为，与统计数据相比，自己不太可能经历负面事件（如患癌症或车祸），而且未来更有可能变得更乐观（无论是获得更多工作机会还是度过一个愉快的假期），但事实并非如此。我们也通常认为自己比实际上更有控制力——特别是涉及到自己的事情。
As you might expect, depressed people, who have a more pessimistic view of the world, don’t fall into this trap. This ‘depressive realism’ means they are better at accurately assessing time intervals and at predicting how other people's decisions will affect them than their more optimistic peers. They also learn to avoid risky responses faster than non-depressed people.
正如所料，对世界有更悲观看法的抑郁人士不会陷入这个陷阱。这种“抑郁的现实主义”意味着他们更擅长准确评估时间间隔。相比乐观者，他们更能预测到其他人的决定将如何影响自己。他们还会比正常人士能更快地避免采取有风险的行动。
But that doesn’t mean they’re accurate with forecasting in general – depressed people are worse than healthy people at predicting football World Cup match results for example.
但这并不意味着他们的预测总体上是准确的——例如，在预测世界杯足球比赛结果时，抑郁人士比健康人士要更糟糕。
There is another twist, too. Optimists may see the future with rose-coloured glasses – but they’re also better at making that future come true. Greater optimism is associated with more career success, better relationships and better health. Long-running studies also have found that the effect seems to go beyond correlation (‘I’m optimistic because I’m in good health’) and perhaps be causation (‘My optimism helps me have good health’). One study, for example, looked at 97,000 women, all of whom had no cancer or cardiovascular disease when the study began. Eight years later, the optimists were less likely than pessimists to have developed coronary heart disease or have died of any cause.
还有另一种扭曲。乐观主义者可能会带着玫瑰色眼镜来看待未来，过于乐观——但他们也更擅长将未来变为现实。乐观主义往往联系着更多的事业成功，更好的关系，以及更健康的身体。长期研究发现，这种影响似乎超出了“我很乐观，因为我很健康”，而可能是“我很乐观，所以我很健康”。例如，一项研究调查了97,000名女性，在研究开始时，她们都没有患癌症或心血管疾病。八年后，乐观主义者比悲观主义者患上冠心病或者死于任何原因的可能性要低。
And if you’re struggling to make a life choice, it may also be worth waiting until longer days bring a lighter mood: depressive symptoms can interfere with the decision making process that that it is harder to make any decision at all, with people with depression feeling more conflicted and indecisive than non-depressed people.
如果你正在努力做一个人生的选择，也可能再等一等是值得的，时间长一点，心情更轻松一点。抑郁症状可能干扰决策过程，以至于完全做不了任何决定，感觉抑郁的人比正常人感到更多矛盾和优柔寡断。
So the relationship between mood and decision-making is not a simple one – which means that if you’re considering when to make a big decision, you may want to think about what kind it is. Does it involve potentially catastrophic losses – something that may require caution and a realistic outlook? Then winter may be better. Or is it a decision where there’s everything to play for, if you can accept a certain amount of uncertainty about the outcome? Then perhaps you should take advantage of your more elevated mood in summer.
所以情绪和做决策之间的关系并不简单。这意味着，如果你在思考做出重大决定的最佳时机是什么时候，那么你可能要先问问自己，那究竟是个什么类型的决定。这个决定是否涉及潜在的灾难性损失——可能需要更加谨慎和符合现实的观点？那么在冬天做决定可能会更好。或者，如果这是个值得冒险的决定，而且你能接受较为不确定的结果，那么你也许应该在夏天做决定。
And if you feel stymied from making a choice at all, you might want to wait a bit until sunshine returns. Who knows – it may help clear up not only your mood, but your indecision.
如果这样子你还是不知道该在什么时候做决定，那你最好先等一等，等到阳光回来再说。谁知道呢——这可能让你摆脱不好的心情，还能克服你的犹豫不决。