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  3. Forty years ago Walter Mischel, an American psychologist, conducted a famous experiment. He left a series of four-year-olds alon

Forty years ago Walter Mischel, an American psychologist, conducted a famous experiment. He left a series of four-year-olds alon

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问题     Forty years ago Walter Mischel, an American psychologist, conducted a famous experiment. He left a series of four-year-olds alone in a room with a marshmallow on the table. He told them that they could eat the marshmallow at once, or wait until he came back and get two marshmallows. Researchers was astonished that the way that the four-year-olds’ ability to defer gratification was reflected over time in their lives. Those who waited longest scored higher in academic tests at school, were much less likely to drop out of university and earned sub stantially higher incomes than those who gobbled up the sweet straight away. Those who could not wait at all were far more likely, in later life, to have problems with drugs or alcohol.
    In his fascinating study of the unconscious mind and its impact on our lives, David Brooks, a columnist on the New York Times, uses this story to illustrate how the conscious mind learns to subdue the unconscious. This is not a question of iron will, but about developing habits and strategies that trigger helpful processes in the unconscious, rather than unproductive ones. What matters is to learn to perceive property, people or situations in ways that reduce the temptation to lie, to steal or behave in a self-destructive way.
    The author’s aim is to show how recent research has illuminated the complex processes of the brain. "We have inherited an obsolete, shallow model of human nature," he argues. Stud y after study show that people take decisions in ways that involve a complex interaction between the conscious and the unconscious mind. The most important decisions begin in the realm of the unconscious, although they are often influenced by the conscious.
    The shaping of this delicate balance begins early in life: the children who were best at leaving their marshmallow on the plate tended to come from stable, organised homes. Culture and the community in which a child is raised help to build the way the conscious and unconscious intertwine. Mr Brooks recounts a survey of diplomats who failed to pay parking fines in New York. By far the worst non-payers came from countries where corruption is endemic. "Thousands of miles away from home," Mr Brooks writes, "diplomats still carried their domestic cultural norms inside their heads. "
    What does all this mean for public policy? Mr Brooks complains that policies too frequently rely on an overly simplistic, rationalist view of human nature. That may be true, but all too many daft policies rely on the collective reluctance of the voters to leave marshmallows uneaten on the table. More to the point, how can a country curb crime, create true equality and reduce the social and economic costs of bad decisions? Education systems exist mainly to build the rational mind, and yet the decisions that are most important in making people happy are the ones in which reason plays little or no part: the development of friendships and the choice of a spouse. Public policy has largely ignored this.
We can know from paragraph 3 and 4 that______.
选项 A、the conscious mind plays a major role in making big decisions
B、the complex process of the brain is an inherited advantage of human
C、community influence is more obvious on adults’ behaviour than on kids’
D、kids from organized homes are more capable of exerting control over the unconscious
答案D
解析 第四段指出，意识和潜意识间的平衡在童年开始形成，成长环境塑造了意识、潜意识相互作用的方式，那些把棉花糖留下没吃的孩子通常来自有条理的家庭。而从上文(第三段)可知，更能抵制诱惑的孩子其意识对潜意识的控制能力更强。综合这两处信息可推知，来自有条理家庭的孩子更能用意识来控制潜意识，[D]选项正确。
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