It might seem obvious that, for most people, happiness is positively² correlated with friendships. But a paper published last month in the British Journal of Psychology³ found one notable exception: Extremely intelligent people become less happy when they spend more time with their friends.

对大部分人来说，友情可能是一种正能量，可以带给我们快乐。然而英国心理学杂志上个月刊登的文章中提到一种引起关注的例外：对于非常聪明的人，与朋友相见的时间越长，幸福感越低。

Researchers, led by psychology professor Norman Li from Singapore Management University, used evolutionary⁴ psychology to explain why some people are happier than others. They theorized that situations that led to positive consequences for our ancestors would also boost happiness today.

由来自新加坡管理大学的心理学专家Norman Li领导的研究者团队用进化心理学解释了为什么有些人比其他人快乐。他们推测能够对我们祖先产生积极影响的因素在今天同样可以增加我们的幸福感。

People who live in rural areas tend to be happier than those in urban areas, they argue, because our ancestors lived in groups of 150 people and struggled to maintain cooperation and reciprocity in larger groups. Meanwhile, friendships could be key to happiness because our ancestors relied on such relationships to overcome hunting challenges and share childrearing duties.

他们指出，在乡村地区生活的人往往比生活在都市的人快乐，因为我们的祖先生活在150人的集体里，并力争在这个大集体里实现合作和互惠。同时，友情成了快乐的关键，因为我们的祖先依靠这种关系来克服狩猎的挑战，分享育儿的责任。

But, the researchers posit¹, these rules would not hold for extremely intelligent people, who would have less difficulty living in high population areas and not associating with friends. In fact, they wrote, "intelligent individuals even appeared to become more satisfied with life when their frequency of socialization with friends was lower."

但是研究者断定这并不适用于那些生活在人口密度大的地区、和朋友交往没有那么困难的地区的极度聪明的人。他们写道：“事实上当聪明的人和朋友见面的频率较低时，他们甚至对生活感到更满足。”

Of course, we're no longer living in the same circumstances as our ancestors, thanks to the wonders of technological⁵ advancement⁶. And the researchers argue that more intelligent people simply have less trouble adapting to our new reality.

当然，多亏了奇迹般的科技发展，我们现在的生活环境和我们的祖先大不一样。研究者们认为，比较聪明的人只是更容易适应我们新的现实环境。

But the researchers' theory is not the only explanation for such findings. Carol Graham, a Brookings Institution researcher who studies the economics of happiness, told the Washington Post that she had a slightly different interpretation⁷. More intelligent people "are less likely to spend so much time socializing because they are focused on some other longer term objective," she said. In other words, work is so important to them that they don't have time to waste with friendships.

但是能解释该发现的并不只有研究者们的这个理论。布鲁金斯学会研究幸福经济学的研究员Carol Graham告诉华盛顿邮报的记者，她有稍微不同的解释。她认为，比较聪明的人“不太可能花很多时间社交，因为他们专注于一些较长期的目标。”也就是说，对于他们而言，工作更重要，所以他们没有可以浪费在友情上的时间。