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Atheists Turn to Science During Times of Stress

无神论者在面对压力时会求助于科学

It's well known that religious faith can help believerscope with stress and anxiety, by providing themwith a sense of meaning and control at times ofuncertainty. It now seems that a "belief" in scienceand a rationalistic outlook might do the same for thenon-religious.

众所周知，宗教信仰可以给信徒提供一种意义感和对不确定事物的控制感，帮助信徒应对压力和焦虑。现在，从科学和理性的角度上来说，一种“信念”也同样能帮助到那些不信教者。教育学考研参考书

A team of psychologists led by Miguel Farias at the University of Oxford asked 52 rowers to fillin a "belief in science" questionnaire just before taking part in a competitive regatta. Theygave the same test—in which participants had to score statements such as "science is the mostvaluable part of human culture" —to a similar number of rowers at a training session. Thequestionnaire also assessed self-reported stress levels and degree of religious belief.

在牛津大学米格尔·法里亚斯领导下的心理学家团队让52名桨手在竞争激烈的帆船赛开始前填写了一份调查问卷。他们同时也让参与培训课程的52名桨手填写了相同的问卷。在问卷中，参与者必须对例如“科学是人类文化中最有价值的部分”的陈述给予评分。问卷还会对自评的压力水平和宗教信仰的程度进行评估。

Farias and colleagues discovered that those about to race were both more stressed, and ratedtheir belief in science 14 per cent higher than those who were simply training. The findingsreflect a growing body of psychological evidence that people find comfort in times ofthreat by moving closer to certain aspects of their world view—conservatives become moreconservative, for example, liberals more liberal, religious believers more devout.

法里亚斯和他的同伴发现，那些将要参加比赛的人的压力更大，同时他们对科学的相信程度比那些仅仅参加培训课程的桨手高出14%。调查结果反映出越来越多的心理证据表明，人们通过更加接近某一特定的世界观以便在面对生命威胁的时候找到舒适的感觉，例如保守派变得更加保守，自由派变得更加自由，宗教信徒变得更加虔诚。

Farias speculates that a rationalist outlook would provide similar relief. "Any kind of beliefsystem helps you structure your perception of reality," he says. "It allows you to think of theuniverse in a particular meaningful way." The researchers have begun a similar study usingscientists who are religious to see how the two belief systems interact in response to stress.

法里亚斯推测，理性主义者的观点也会有类似的感觉。他说:“任何一种信仰体系都可以帮助你构建对现实的看法，它可以让你用一个具有特定意义的方式来思考这个宇宙。”研究者已经开始了类似的研究，他们使用拥有宗教信仰的科学家作为研究对象，试图找出两种信仰体系在面对压力时存在的交互影响。