TED演讲:老年人更快乐(3)（在线收听）

Now social scientists call this the paradox of aging.

社会学家称这种现象为老龄化悖论。

I mean, after all, aging is not a piece of cake.

老龄化可不是小事。

So we've asked all sorts of questions to see if we could undo this finding.

我们问了各种各样的问题，试图推翻这个研究结论。

We've asked whether it may be that the current generations of older people are and always have been the greatest generations.

我们提出这可能是因为现在正值老年的这一代人一直以来都是最伟大的一代人。

That is that younger people today may not typically experience these improvements as they grow older.

而现在的年青一代可能不会在成长过程中经历同样的进步。

We've asked, well, maybe older people are just trying to put a positive spin on an otherwise depressing existence.

我们也提出，也许老年人只是在发扬阿Q精神，来应对令人沮丧的事实。

But the more we've tried to disavow this finding, the more evidence we find to support it.

然而我们越是想要颠覆这个结论，反而找到越多的证据来支持这个结论。

Years ago, my colleagues and I embarked on a study where we followed the same group of people over a 10-year period.

很多年前，我和同事一起开始了一项研究，我们对同一组人进行跟踪调查长达十年。

Originally, the sample was aged 18 to 94.

这组人最开始的年龄从18岁到94岁不等。

And we studied whether and how their emotional experiences changed as they grew older.

我们研究了他们的情绪体验是否随着岁月而改变。

Our participants would carry electronic pagers for a week at a time,

研究参与者随身携带电子纸张，每次持续一周时间，

and we'd page them throughout the day and evenings at random times.

我们在早晚的任意时间呼叫他们。

And every time we paged them, we'd ask them to answer several questions

每一次我们呼叫他们，我们会问他们几个问题，

"On a one to seven scale, how happy are you right now?"

“用1到7的量表来衡量你们现在高兴的程度。”

"How sad are you right now?" "How frustrated are you right now?"

“你们现在悲伤的程度。你们现在沮丧的程度。”

so that we could get a sense of the kinds of emotions and feelings they were having in their day-to-day lives.

这样我们就能监测到他们情绪和感觉上的日常状况。