Whether it's your sibling¹, best friend, parent or even your boss, you've called someone stupid at some point in your life. But how do we even define "stupid" behavior, and what can we do to avoid acting² stupidly?

生活中有时候你会说某个人很蠢，不管这个人是你的兄弟姐妹、最好的朋友、父母、甚至是你的老板。但是我们如何定义“愚蠢”的行为呢，我们要怎样做才能不做蠢事呢？

A new study offers a scientific answer.

一项新研究为我们提供了科学的答案。

"Although calling something stupid is a frequent everyday behavior," Balázs Aczél, a psychology³ professor at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest and a co-author of the study, told The Huffington Post in an email, "there has been no psychological study to understand why and when people use this label to describe the observed actions."

布达佩斯罗兰大学教授兼该项研究联合研究员Balázs Aczél通过一封邮件告诉《赫芬顿邮报》称：“尽管人们经常说某些东西很蠢，但历史上从未有过心理学研究表明人们为什么、在什么时候会用此标签来描述所观察到的行为。”

The researchers found that, despite the ambiguous definition of "stupid," there was a 90 percent rate of agreement between participants in which actions were seen as stupid. The researchers also noticed that there were three different types of behaviors, which were most often deemed as stupid.

研究人员发现，尽管人们对“愚蠢”的定义很模糊，研究参与对象之间就评定愚蠢行为这一方面达成了90%的一致性。研究人员还注意到有三种不同类型的行为最常被看作为是愚蠢的。

"In our statistical⁴ analysis of the data we found that people regard stupid action in three different categories: (1) violations⁵ of maintaining a balance between confidence and abilities; (2) failures of attention; and (3) lack of control,"Aczél said.

Aczél称：“通过对统计数据进行分析，我们发现人们通常认为以下三个不同类别的行为是愚蠢的：（1）、无法做到自信与能力之间的平衡；（2）、注意力不集中；（3）、自制力不强。”

Here are examples of the three categories:

以下是这三个类别的例证：

1. Overconfidence

1、自负

Aczél described it as "confident ignorance," or when someone is overconfident about their ability to do something. An example of this behavior is when a driver refuses to ask for directions, and might end up lost.

Aczél称之为“自信的无知”，或是当一个人对自己做事能力的过度自信。这一行为的一个例子就是司机开车不问路而最后却迷路了。

2. Lack of control

2、缺乏控制力

A lack of willpower or control might be when your friend is on a diet but buys cookies in the grocery store "just in case."

意志力或控制力不强可能指的是你的朋友在节食减肥，但还是在小卖部买了饼干“以防万一”。

3. Absent-mindedness

3、注意力不集中

Absent-minded behavior could be described as when someone who buys a car doesn't know how to change the oil, and thus, the vehicle breaks down on the side of the road.

心不在焉的例子可以表述为某人买了辆车却不知道怎样加油，如此一来，车子在半路上就抛锚了。