There is you, and then there is work-you. Work-you is, depending on your job, perhaps a little more outgoing and maybe a little more organized than regular-you. In short bursts, this is fine. But what happens when your job requires you to act against your natural personality for an extended period of time?
一个是你，一个是工作的你。由于职业，工作的你也许比日常的你显得更外向，做事更有条理。短期内没什么问题。但是如果当工作需要你持续地违背你的性格，那会怎么样呢？
This is the question Sanna Balsari-Palsule, a Ph.D. candidate in social psychology at the University of Cambridge, is currently investigating. Although much of the research suggests that personality seems to be at least somewhat genetic — and therefore, potentially, fixed — people are also able to act against their natures when the situation calls for it. It’s a concept called free traits, a term coined by University of Cambridge psychologist Brian Little, with whom Balsari-Palsule is collaborating on this new project. But it comes with a price, according to Little: Suppress your true self for too long, and you risk stress, burnout and perhaps even physical health consequences.
桑娜是剑桥大学社会心理学在读博士，她现在正在研究这个问题。尽管许多研究表明至少人的性格是有先天性倾向的，即有可能不会变。但若不得已人们也能反性格行事。这部分性格特征称之为“可变性格”。这个概念是由剑桥心理学家布莱恩·利特尔提出来的。正是他和桑娜合作研究这个新项目。利特尔说长时间压抑真我是有代价的，随之而来的压力会让你精疲力竭，甚至会影响生理健康。
Balsari-Palsule was curious how this concept might play out in the workplace, given the obvious pressures to act differently in the office than you do elsewhere. So she rounded up about 300 employees at a marketing firm in the U.K., asking them to complete a personality test, plus survey questions about their work life. The human relations department of the marketing firm also handed over data on these employees’ performance reviews and promotions over the years (with the employees’ permission, of course).
桑娜对于“可变性格”在工作场合如何发生很感兴趣，鉴于办公室里压抑本我的压力显而易见，所以她调查了一家英国营销公司的约300名员工。请这些员工来完成她的性格测试及工作期间的一些问题调查。公司人事部也将这些员工多年的绩效考核和晋升潜力等数据交给她。（当然经由员工允许）
The results of the study are preliminary, as Balsari-Palsule is still analyzing her data. But so far, she said, it seems like extroverts suffer when they pretend to be introverts at work, and more so than introverts who pretend to be extroverts. When naturally talkative and social people had to be quiet and solitary for long periods of time at their desks, they reported less job satisfaction and more stress than the extroverts whose jobs allowed them to act like themselves. This was especially true for the younger employees at the organization. (Though the standard “correlation does not equal causation” caveat may apply here; there could be other reasons for these statistical relationships.)
数据初步显示（桑娜尚未全部完成分析）：内向的人假装外向比外向的人假装内向受到的伤害更大。健谈合群但必须长期安静独自办公的人与工作符合性格特征的外向的人相比较来说，他们工作满意度更低，他们的压力也更大。这个公司里的年轻雇员便是明证。（“相关性不等于因果性”可以用在这里，也许有别的原因）
Beyond job satisfaction, research has suggested that suppression of one’s natural behavior is linked with poorer health — specifically, a decrease in immune-system functioning. Your heart may start to pound and your muscles may tense, both indicators of autonomic arousal, the physiological manifestation of stress or anxiety, Little said.
除了工作满意度外，研究还表明压抑性格与糟糕的健康状况也有联系，特别是免疫系统功能。利特尔说可能会导致心慌和身体僵硬。这两项正是焦虑症和压力过大的生理表现。
Balsari-Palsule and other researchers think this doesn’t just apply to introversion and extroversion, but to the rest of the so-called “big five” personality traits; the other four are openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism. Take conscientiousness, for example. “It is highly plausible that people regularly exhibit pseudo-conscientiousness at work, given that it is both socially desirable and a major driver of success in the workplace,” Balsari-Palsule said, adding that research has consistently shown that conscientiousness is the strongest predictor of job performance and success. So if her theory is right, then even though conscientiousness is clearly a useful thing for the non-conscientious to fake, doing so for an extended period could lead to stress or health problems.
桑娜和其他的研究人员认为这不仅仅适用于内向和外向，而是适用于所谓的“大五”人格。“大五”人格其他的四项分别是：开放性，谨慎性，宜人性和神经质。拿谨慎性为例来说，“人们在工作中展示自己不具备的谨慎性是非常合情理的，因为谨慎性既是社会需要也是工作成功的驱动力之一。” 桑娜补充说，研究一再表明谨慎性是工作表现和成功的最好预测器。如果她的理论是对的，虽然严谨性对不严谨的人来说明显是有利的但是长时间伪装严谨也可能导致压力或者健康问题。
转载请注明出处。
相关推荐