Two Kinds of Judgement
April 2007 There are two different ways people judge you.
2007 年 4 月 人们对你的评价有两种不同的方式。
Sometimes judging you correctly is the end goal.
有时正确地判断你是最终目标。
But there's a second much more common type of judgement where it isn't.
但还有第二种更常见的判断类型，但事实并非如此。
We tend to regard all judgements of us as the first type.
我们倾向于把对自己的所有判断都看成是第一种类型。
We'd probably be happier if we realized which are and which aren't.
如果我们意识到哪些是、哪些不是，我们可能会更高兴。
The first type of judgement, the type where judging you is the end goal, include court cases, grades in classes, and most competitions.
第一种判断，即以判断你为最终目标的判断，包括法庭案件、课堂成绩和大多数比赛。
Such judgements can of course be mistaken, but because the goal is to judge you correctly, there's usually some kind of appeals process.
这样的判断当然可能是错误的，但因为目标是正确地判断你，所以通常会有某种上诉程序。
If you feel you've been misjudged, you can protest that you've been treated unfairly.
如果您觉得自己受到了误判，您可以抗议自己受到了不公平的对待。
Nearly all the judgements made on children are of this type, so we get into the habit early in life of thinking that all judgements are.
几乎所有对孩子的判断都是这种类型，所以我们从小就养成了认为所有判断都是这种类型的习惯。
But in fact there is a second much larger class of judgements where
但事实上还有第二类更大的判断
judging you is only a means to something else.
评判你只是达到其他目的的一种手段。
These include college admissions, hiring and investment decisions, and of course the judgements made in dating.
其中包括大学录取、招聘和投资决策，当然还有约会时做出的判断。
This kind of judgement is not really about you.
这种判断实际上与你无关。
Put yourself in the position of someone selecting players for a national team.
把自己想象成为国家队挑选球员的人。
Suppose for the sake of simplicity that this is a game with no positions, and that you have to select 20 players.
为简单起见，假设这是一场没有位置的游戏，并且您必须选择 20 名玩家。
There will be a few stars who clearly should make the team, and
显然会有一些明星应该加入这个团队，并且
many players who clearly shouldn't.
许多玩家显然不应该这样做。
The only place your judgement makes a difference is in the borderline cases.
你的判断唯一能产生影响的地方是在边缘情况下。
Suppose you screw up and underestimate the 20th best player, causing him not to make the team, and his place to be taken by the 21st best.
假设你搞砸了，低估了第 20 名最佳球员，导致他没有进入球队，而他的位置被第 21 名最佳球员取代。
You've still picked a good team.
你还是选了一个很好的团队。
If the players have the usual distribution of ability, the 21st best player will be only slightly worse than the 20th best.
如果球员的能力分布正常，那么第 21 名的球员只会比第 20 名的球员稍差一些。
Probably the difference between them will be less than
它们之间的差异可能会小于
the measurement error.
测量误差。
The 20th best player may feel he has been misjudged.
排名第 20 的最佳球员可能会觉得自己被误判了。
But your goal here wasn't to provide a service estimating people's ability.
但您的目标不是提供评估人们能力的服务。
It was to pick a team, and if the difference between the 20th and 21st best players is less than the measurement error, you've still done that optimally.
就是选择一支球队，如果第 20 名和第 21 名最佳球员之间的差异小于测量误差，那么你仍然做得最好。
It's a false analogy even to use the word unfair to describe this kind of misjudgement.
即使用“不公平”这个词来形容这种误判，也是错误的类比。
It's not aimed at producing a correct estimate
它的目的不是产生正确的估计
of any given individual, but at selecting a reasonably optimal set.
任何给定的个体，但选择一个合理的最佳集合。
One thing that leads us astray here is that the selector seems to be in a position of power.
在这里让我们误入歧途的一件事是选择者似乎处于权力地位。
That makes him seem like a judge.
这让他看起来像个法官。
If you regard someone judging you as a customer instead of a judge, the expectation of fairness goes away.
如果你将评判你的人视为顾客而不是法官，那么公平的期望就会消失。
The author of a good novel wouldn't complain that readers were unfair for preferring a potboiler with a racy cover.
一本好小说的作者不会抱怨读者因为喜欢一本封面活泼的粗俗小说而感到不公平。
Stupid, perhaps, but not unfair.
也许很愚蠢，但并不公平。
Our early training and our self-centeredness combine to make us believe that every judgement of us is about us.
我们早期的训练和我们的自我中心结合在一起，使我们相信我们的每一个判断都是关于我们自己的。
In fact most aren't.
事实上大多数都不是。
This is a rare case where being less self-centered will make people more confident.
这是一种罕见的情况，减少自我中心会让人们更加自信。
Once you realize how little most people judging you care about judging you accurately—once you realize that because of the normal distribution of most applicant pools, it matters least
一旦你意识到大多数评价你的人是多么不关心准确地评价你——一旦你意识到由于大多数申请者群体的正态分布，它就最不重要了
to judge accurately in precisely the cases where judgement has the most effect—you won't take rejection so personally.
在判断最有效的情况下做出准确的判断——你不会把拒绝看成是针对你个人的。
And curiously enough, taking rejection less personally may help you to get rejected less often.
奇怪的是，减少对拒绝的个人考虑可能会帮助你减少被拒绝的次数。
If you think someone judging you will work hard to judge you correctly, you can afford to be passive.
如果你认为评判你的人会努力正确地评判你，那么你就可以采取被动的态度。
But the more you realize that most judgements are greatly influenced by random, extraneous factors—that most people judging you are
但你越意识到，大多数判断都受到随机、无关因素的极大影响——大多数人对你的判断都是
more like a fickle novel buyer than a wise and perceptive magistrate—the more you realize you can do things to influence the outcome.
他更像是一个善变的小说买家，而不是一个明智而有洞察力的法官——你越意识到自己可以做一些事情来影响结果。
One good place to apply this principle is in college applications.
应用这一原则的一个好地方是大学申请。
Most high school students applying to college do it with the usual child's mix of inferiority and self-centeredness: inferiority in that they assume that admissions committees must be all-seeing; self-centeredness in that they assume admissions committees care
大多数申请大学的高中生都是带着孩子一般的自卑和自我中心的心态来申请大学的：自卑是因为他们认为招生委员会必须是无所不知的；自卑是因为他们认为招生委员会必须是全知全能的；自我中心，因为他们承担招生委员会的照顾
enough about them to dig down into their application and figure out whether they're good or not.
关于他们的信息足以深入研究他们的应用程序并弄清楚他们是否好。
These combine to make applicants passive in applying and hurt when they're rejected.
这些因素结合在一起，使申请人在申请时变得被动，并在被拒绝时受到伤害。
If college applicants realized how quick and impersonal most selection processes are, they'd make more effort to sell themselves, and take the outcome less personally.
如果大学申请者意识到大多数选拔过程是多么迅速和客观，他们就会更加努力地推销自己，而不会那么个人化地对待结果。