Our beliefs have been imbibed, how or why we hardly know. . . . But let a question be raised as to the soundness of our notions . . . and at once we find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them; we defend them just as we would defend a punched shoulder. The problem, how reasonable they really are, does not trouble us. We refuse to learn truth from a foe.
我们的信仰是如何以及为什么被接受的我们几乎不知道。但是让我们提出一个关于我们概念的合理性问题。我们立即发现自己充满了对他们的自私的激情; 我们捍卫他们就像拳击比赛中我们会捍卫自己的身体一样。 这个问题本身有多合理，并不会困扰我们。 我们拒绝向敌人学习真理。
This observation was made by a scholar pondering the all-too-common tendency to justify beliefs rather than refine and improve them. This tendency is puzzling. People profess enthusiasm for personal growth and development and spend billions of dollars on self-help books, tapes, and seminars, yet they act as if their minds have no need of improvement.
这个观察是由一个学者思考过于常见的为信仰辩护的倾向而不是完善和改进它们。这个趋势是令人困惑的。人们声称热衷于个人成长和发展，并为此花了大量的金钱在自我帮助的书籍、磁带和研讨班。然而他们的行为却表现得好像他们的思想就不用提高似的。
This tendency is attributable to a “mine-is-better” perspective, which we all have to a greater or lesser extent. It is natural enough to like our own possessions better than other people’s.* Our possessions are extensions of ourselves. When first-graders turn to their classmates and say, “My dad is bigger than yours” or “My shoes are newer” or “My crayons color better,” they are not just speaking about their fathers or shoes or crayons. They are saying something about themselves: “Hey, look at me. I’m something special.”
这种趋势可以归因于“我的更好”的观念，因为我们都有不同程度的这种思想。人们很自然地就会认为自己所拥有的要比别人的更好。我们所拥有的东西是我们自己的延伸。比如，一年级的学生会对他的同学说，“我爸爸比你爸爸好”或“我的鞋子比你的新”或“我蜡笔的颜色更好看”。他们不仅仅会说他们的爸爸、鞋子或蜡笔。他们还会说关于他们自己，如“看我，我是很特别的”。
Several years later, those children will be saying, “My car is faster than yours” or “My football team will go all the way this year” or “My marks are higher than Olivia’s.” (That’s one of the great blessings for students—although they may have to stoop to compare, they can usually find someone with lower grades than theirs.)
若干年后，这些孩子也许又会说，“我的车比你的快”，“我的足球队今年会一直领先”，“我的分数比 Olivia 的高”。(这对学生来说是一大幸事——尽管他们可能不得不屈尊攀比，但他们通常能找到比自己成绩差的人。)
Even later, when they’ve learned that it sounds boastful to say their possessions are better, they’ll continue to think they are: “My house is more expensive, my club more exclusive, my spouse more attractive, my children better behaved, my accomplishments more numerous, and my ideas, beliefs, and values more insightful and profound than other people’s.”
甚至在后来，当他们知道说他们的财产更好时听起来很自负时，他们依然会这样认为：“我的房子更贵，我的俱乐部更高档，我的配偶更有吸引力，我的孩子更有教养，我的成就更多，我的想法，信仰，和价值观比其他人的更深刻，更有洞见”
All of this, as we have noted, is natural, though not especially noble or virtuous or, in many cases, even factual—simply natural. The tendency is probably as old as humanity. History records countless examples of it. Most wars, for example, can be traced to some form of “mine-is-better” thinking. Satirists have pointed their pens at it. Ambrose Bierce, for instance, in his Devil’s Dictionary, includes the word infidel. Technically, the word means “one who is an unbeliever in some religion.” But Bierce’s definition points up the underlying attitude in those who use the word. He defines infidel this way: “In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.”
正如我们所指出的，所有这些都是自然的，虽然不是特别高尚或者有德行，或者在许多情况下甚至不切实际，仅仅是自然的。，好像这样的趋势，是随着人类的诞生而存在的。历史记录了无数这样的例子。例如，大部分的战争都是“我的更好”思想导致的。讽刺作家早有这样的作品，比如，Ambrose Bierce 在他的《魔鬼词典》一书就包含异教徒这个词。严格来说，这个词的含义指的是在宗教里面的无宗教信仰人士。但是比尔斯的定义指出了那些使用这个词的人的基本态度。他是这样来定义 infidel 的：在纽约不信仰基督教而在君士坦丁堡又信的人。
The results of a survey of a million high school seniors illustrate the influence of “mine-is-better” thinking. The survey addressed the question of whether people considered themselves “above average.” Fully 70 percent of the respondents believed they were above average in leadership ability, and only 2 percent believed they were below average. Furthermore, 100 percent considered themselves above average in ability to get along with others, 60 percent considered themselves in the top 10 percent, and 25 percent considered themselves in the top 1 percent.3 (Perhaps this inflated view is partly responsible for the conviction of many students that if they receive a low grade, the teacher must be at fault.)
一个对100万高中生所做的调查结果说明了我的更好思想的影响。调查主要是针对于人们是否认为自己“高于平均水平”的问题。整整70％的受访者认为他们的领导能力高于平均水平，只有2％的受访者认为他们的领导能力低于平均水平。此外，100％的人认为自己与人相处的能力高于平均水平，60％的人认为自己在前10％，25％的人认为自己在前1％。（也许这种夸大的观点部分是因为许多学生的这种信念，如果他们得到低分，一定是老师的过错。）
For many people, most of the time, the “mine-is-better” tendency is balanced by the awareness that other people feel the same way about their things, that it’s an unavoidable part of being human to do so. In other words, many people realize that we all see ourselves in a special way, different from everything that is not ourselves, and that whatever we associate with ourselves becomes part of us in our minds. People who have this understanding and are reasonably secure and self-confident can control the tendency. The problem is, some people do not understand that each person has a special viewpoint. For them, “mine is better” is not an attitude that everyone has about his or her things. Rather, it is a special, higher truth about their particular situation. Psychologists classify such people as either egocentric or ethnocentric.
对很多人来说，大多数时候，“我的最好”的倾向是平衡的，因为他们意识到其他人对他们的事情也有同样的感觉，这是人类不可避免的一部分。换言之，许多人意识到我们都以一种不同于我们自己的一切的特殊的方式看待自己，我们与自己交往的任何事物都成为我们思想的一部分。有这种理解并且有相当的安全感和自信的人可以控制这种趋势。问题是，有些人不明白每个人都有自己独特的观点。对他们来说，“我的更好”不是一种每个人有他或她自己的事情的态度。相反，这是对他们特殊情况的一个特殊的、更高的真相。心理学家将这种人分为以自我为中心或以种族为中心。
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