How shapes can predict your tolerance¹ of ‘deviancy’

如何用形状来推测你的容忍度

Here’s a simple question that can tell us an awful lot about you. Is this a circle?

这是一个简单的问题，却可以让我们了解你很多信息。这是一个圆吗？

If you said: “Yeah, sure, close enough,” then you are probably politically liberal, and strongly support the idea of government aid for the homeless and unemployed². You are also likely to support same-sex marriage and legalisation of marijuana for recreational use.

如果你说：“是的，当然了，非常接近，”那么你很可能在政治上是个自由主义者，并且强烈支持政府救助无家可归者以及失业者。你还很可能支持同性恋婚姻以及大麻的娱乐消费立法。

If you said: “No, of course not,” then you are probably politically conservative, and strongly support the idea of protecting the rights of business owners and having a strong military. You are likely to take a particularly dim view of illegal immigration, and would come down strongly on even relatively³ low-level crime, such as drug use and prostitution.

如果你说：“不，当然不是了，”那么你很可能在政治上很保守，强烈支持保护企业所有者的权利，并支持拥有强大的军事实力。你很可能对于非法移民持有模糊的态度，并且强烈反对甚至相对低水平的犯罪，例如毒品和卖淫。

Although this sounds like some sort of satire⁴, these were – broadly speaking – the findings of a recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology⁵. People who are tolerant of deviance from the norm when judging a circle (or triangle, square, rectangle or ellipse) are tolerant of deviant or otherwise marginalised groups in society. In fact, they’re not just tolerant of these groups, they actively⁶ want to help them. So if you meet someone new and don’t know how to broach⁷ the subject of their political orientation⁸, just show them a “circle”.

总的来看，尽管这听起来像是嘲讽，这其实是发布在人格与社会心理学杂志上的一篇最新的研究。那些可以容忍一个圆（或三角形，方形，矩形或椭圆）偏离常态的人可以容忍不正常的人或者社会上边缘的人群。事实上，他们不仅可以容忍这些人群，他们还很积极地想要帮助他们。所以如果你遇到了不认识的人并且不知道如何确定他们的政治倾向，那就给他们看一个“圆”。