研究生英语精读教程第三版上unit one原文

2021年1月25日发(作者：思绪)
Unit One
Text:
You Are What You Think
And if you change your mind-from pessimism to optimism
-you can change your life
Claipe Safran

[1] Do you see the glass as half full rather than half empty? Do
you
keep
your
eye
upon
the
doughnut,
not
upon
the
hole?
Suddenly
these
cliché
s
are
scientific
questions,
as
researchers
scrutinize the power of positive thinking.

[2]
A
fast-growing
body
of
research
—
104
studies
so
far,
involving
some
15,000
people
—
is
proving
that
optimism
can
help
you
to
be
happier,
healthier
and
more
successful.
Pessimism
leads,
by
contrast,
to
hopelessness,
sickness
and
failure,
and
is
linked
to
depression,
loneliness
and
painful
shyness.

we
could
teach
people
to
think
more
positively,
says
psychologist
Craig
A.
Anderson
of
Rice
University
①

in
Houston
②，

would
be
like
inoculating
them
against
these
mental ills.
[3]

abilities
count,
explains
psychologist
Michael
F.
Scheier
of
Carnegie
Mellon
University
③

in
Pittsburgh
④
,

the belief that you can succeed affects whether or not you will.
In
part
,
that's
because
optimists
and
pessimists
deal
with
the
same challenges and disappointments in very different ways.
[4] Take, for example, your job. In a major study, psychologist
Martin E. P. Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania
⑤
and
colleague Peter Schulman surveyed sales representatives at the
Metropolitan
Life
Insurance
Co.
They
found
that
the
positive-thinkers
among
longtime
representatives
sold
37-percent
more
insurance
than
did
the
negative-thinkers.
Of
newly hired representatives, optimists sold 20-percent more.
[5] Impressed, the company hired 100 people who had failed the
standard industry test
⑥
but had scored high on optimism. These
people, who might never have been hired, sold 10 percent more
insurance than did the average representative.


[ 6 ]

How did they do it? The secret to an optimist's success,
according
to
Seligman,
is
in
his

style
When
things go wrong the pessimist tends to blame himself.
no
good
at
this,

he
says,

always
fail.
The
optimist
looks
for
loopholes.
He
blames
the
weather,
the
phone
connection,
even
the other person. That customer was in a bad mood, he thinks.
When
things
go
right,
the
optimist
takes
credit
while
the
pessimist sees success as a fluke.
[ 7 ]

Craig Anderson had a group of students phone strangers
and
ask
them
to
donate
blood
to
the
Red
Cross
⑦
.
When
they
failed on the first call or two, pessimists said,
Optimists told themselves,








[ 8 ]

Negative or positive, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
people
feel
hopeless,

Anderson,

don't
bother
to
acquire the skills they need to succeed.
[9]
A
sense
of
control,
according
to
Anderson,
is
the
litmus
test
⑧
for success. The optimist feels in control of his own life.
If things are going badly, he acts quickly, looking for solutions,
forming a new plan of action, and reaching out for advice. The
pessimist
feels
like
fate's
plaything
and
moves
slowly.
He
doesn't seek advice, since he assumes nothing can be done.
[ 10 ]

Optimists may think they are better than the facts would
justify
—
and sometimes that's what keeps them alive. Dr. Sandra
Levy
of
the
Pittsburgh
Cancer
Institute
studied
women
with
advanced
breast
cancer.
For
the
women
who
were
generally
optimistic,
there
was
a
longer
disease- free
interval,
the
best
predictor
of
survival.
In
a
pilot
study
of
women
in
the
early
stages
of
breast
cancer,
Dr.
Levy
found
the
disease
recurred
sooner among the pessimists.
[ 11 ]

Optimism won't cure the incurable, but it
may prevent