Why are girls so girly?
绝非性别歧视(sexual/gender discrimination)，但有一个问题：为什么女孩子更喜欢交二三知心密友，而男孩子往往是酒肉朋友一大堆？一句话：天生的，注定的。最新有科学研究验证了这一说法--辞海拾贝
sexual/gender discrimination 性别歧视
opponent 反对者
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)美国国家心理健康研究所
tween在...中间
peer 同龄人
appointed指定的，约定的
monitor 监视,监听,监督
participant 参加者,参与者
interact with与...相互作用
elaborate精细的,详尽的,精心的
puberty青春期
adolescence 青春期
nucleus accumbens 伏隔核
hypothalamus 【解剖学】丘脑下部，下丘脑
hippocampus【解剖学】海马
insula【解剖学】脑岛[亦作 Island of Reil]
offspring 子孙,后代,产物
disparity 不一致
For the better part of the past half-century, feminists, their opponents and armies of academics have debated the differences between men and women. Only in the past few years have scientists been able to use imaging technology to look inside men`s and women`s heads to investigate whether those stereotypical gender differences have roots in the brain. No concrete results have emerged from these studies yet, but now a new functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of children offers at least one explanation for some common tween social behaviors: girls are hardwired to care about one-on-one relationships with their BFFs (best friends forever), while the brains of boys are more attuned to group dynamics and competition with other boys.
过去半个世纪以来，女权主义者、反对派以及大批学者就男女之间的巨大差异展开了激烈辩论。直至最近几年，科学家们得以用成像技术来研究男女大脑，看看这些千篇一律的性别差异是否源自脑部结构。虽然目前这些研究还没有得出具体结论，但最近出现了一种新的核磁共振成像的方法，科学家以儿童为研究对象，为一些常见的社交行为至少提供了一种解释：女孩天生注定更看重与好友间一对一的关系（许多会发展成终身好友），而男孩的大脑更适应拉帮结伙以及与其他同性进行竞争。
The study, conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Georgia State University, begins with a premise that every parent of a tween knows: as kids emerge into puberty, their focus changes dramatically. They care less about their families and more about their peers.
该研究由美国国家心理健康研究所与佐治亚州立大学共同主导，基于一项常识性前提下--每位家有儿女初长成的父母都知道：当孩子进入青春期后，他们的注意力会发生巨大变化。他们更关注同龄人，而非自己的家人。
So what`s actually going on inside these young brains? Scientists asked 34 healthy kids, ages 8 to 17, to look at pictures of 40 other boys and girls and judge how much they would like to interact with them online. The kids were asked to rate those in the photos on a scale from 0 ("not interested at all") to 100 ("very interested"). The NIMH scientists told the kids that their ratings would be revealed to the boys and girls in the pictures, and the scientists said they would arrange online chats between the kids and those they liked. The chats were supposed to occur two weeks later.
那么，这些年轻人的头脑中到底发生了怎样的变化？为了调查这一点，科学家请来34名身体健康的8-17岁不等的孩子进行实验，让他们看另外40个男孩女孩的照片，决定有多想和后者在网上交往，孩子们被要求在0-100（不感兴趣-非常感兴趣）的范围内评估这些照片。研究人员还告诉这些孩子，他们会将评分结果告知照片上的人，并将安排大家与喜欢的同伴在线聊天。聊天约在两周后进行。
On the appointed day, the study volunteers were once again brought into the NIMH lab. This time, researchers monitored the kids` brain activity using fMRI while showing them the same pictures. The participants were asked to guess which of the kids in the pictures (the same kids they had rated - and who, they believed, knew those ratings) would like to interact with them.
到了那天，参与研究的志愿者们再次被带到实验室。这次，研究人员不仅给孩子们展示同样的照片，同时还采用核磁共振成像技术监测他们的大脑活动，每个人要猜照片中的哪个孩子愿意与他们交往。（照片是大家之前评估过的，并且他们相信对方已获知评估结果）。
It was all an elaborate ruse: the kids in the photos were actors, and there were no chats arranged. The purpose of the deception was to look inside participants` heads when they were highly engaged in a potential social interaction. Partly because the study design was so complex - it`s difficult to study actual social interactions on fMRI - no experiment like this had ever been conducted before.
这个策划十分周密：照片中的孩子是演员，且并没有安排聊天。瞒着实验者的目的是为了研究他们的头脑反应，当他们正高度关注结交新朋友时。或许是因为这项研究的设计太过复杂，以前也从未有人进行过这样的实验（通过核磁共振成像技术来研究实际的社会交往是很困难的）。
The results suggest that as girls progress from early puberty to late adolescence, certain regions of their brains become more active when they face a potential social interaction. Specifically, when an older girl anticipates meeting someone new - someone she believes will be interested in her - her nucleus accumbens (which is associated with reward and motivation), hypothalamus (associated with hormone secretion), hippocampus (associated with social learning) and insula (associated with subjective feelings) all become more active. By contrast, boys in the same situation show no such increase in activity in these areas. In fact, the activity in their insula actually declines.
研究结果表明，女孩儿从青春期早期到晚期的发展过程中，她们脑部的某些特定区域在面对潜在的社会交往时变得更加活跃。具体来说，当一个年岁较长的女孩儿期待见到一个新朋友时--并且她相信这个人会对她感兴趣--她的伏隔核（与奖赏和动机相关联）、下丘脑（与荷尔蒙激素分泌有关）、海马（与社会学习有关）和脑岛（与主观感觉有关）的活动都会变得更加活跃。相比之下，男孩儿在同样的情况下这些大脑区域活动表现的则没有这么活跃。事实上，他们脑岛的活动处于下降趋势。
Boys, it seems, aren`t as interested in one-on-one interactions as girls are. Previous research has shown that male adolescents instead become more focused on competition within larger groups (like between sports teams). Perhaps it`s evidence that evolution has programmed boys to compete within large groups, so they can learn to eliminate rivals for women - and that girls have been programmed to judge, one-on-one, who would be the most protective father for offspring.
研究还发现，男孩似乎并不像女孩那样，对一对一的互动感兴趣。先前的研究表明，青春期的男孩更关注群体内部的竞争（如运动队之间）。或许这些证据能表明，人类进化导致了这一结果：男性更倾向于集体竞争，这样他们可以击败对手获得女性的芳心；而女性则学会一对一的评判，决定谁能成为给后代强有力保护的父亲。
The authors of the study are reluctant to draw such broad conclusions about the gender disparities. "There are many different possible explanations," says NIMH neuroscientist Daniel Pine, who suggests a much more ordinary reason for the girls` more emotional response. "It might be possible that the girls are trying to remember what they wrote earlier ," he says. "You can imagine a scenario where they say, `Oh, did I write something bad about that girl?` Boys are simply doing that less." In other words, it may be that boys are cads because they`re not wired to be any other way.
不过，该研究发起人并不乐见对性别差异得出如此这般的笼统结论。美国国家心理健康研究所神经系统科学家丹尼尔派恩认为女孩反应更为感性的原因很简单。他说："发生这种现象的原因有很多，有可能女孩儿试图想起他们之前写过的评语（对照片中孩子），你可以想象一下，女孩儿会说，'噢，我之前有没有写这个女孩儿的不好？'而男孩儿却很少这样做。"换句话说，男孩的思维比较直接，他们不像女孩，会想得比较复杂。
Boys, it seems, aren`t as interested in one-on-one interactions as girls are.
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