【Introduction】In the "great changes that have not occurred in a hundred years", China's diplomatic work has overcome difficulties and forged ahead, and only by not forgetting the original intention and keeping the mission in mind can we grasp the major opportunities brought by the changes to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. So what is the "heart", what is the use of the "heart", and where is the "heart"? How to talk about "mind" from the perspective of scientific psychology? Professor Peng Kaiping, Dean of the School of Social Sciences of Tsinghua University (the 41st guest of Wenhui Lecture Hall), has been committed to the research and promotion of positive psychology for more than ten years, and his research on happiness also embodies the spirit of Huitong Chinese and Western. In 2016, his masterpiece "My Heart Can Be Learned : The Surging Flow of Happiness" made a scientific new answer to the ultimate state of happiness from the perspective of positive psychology. Recently, in the lecture of "Righteousness and Happiness", Peng Kaiping proposed the ladder to happiness - zhengxin.
Delayed Gratification Experiment: The three realms of "right mind", precept, concentration, and wisdom
A scholar wrote a book called "What Kind of Talents Mankind Needs in the Future", and he calculated the future of mankind according to the Marxist theory of determining the upper consciousness of the production economy, that is, what is needed in this century is people who know, care, and care. Jobs was an example, Jobs wasn't a particularly smart engineer, he wasn't a particularly smart design guru, he knew how to design things to be likable. Americans made a movie about Ma Yun, on the point pointed out what his charm is, not that he understands technology and finance, nor does he particularly understand management, he knows how to infect people, impress people, inspire people, so the author proposed that in the 21st century human beings to cultivate what kind of talents, is to cultivate those who have ideals, at the same time have high perception ability, can observe, understand, know the hearts of others, that is, care for others is the most important ability we should have in the 21st century, not what you can do, It's about what you can make others do, and that's the talent you need in this century.
In fact, China has also put forward this concept, Zeng Guofan said that those who complete great things must know people, those who know others must know themselves, and those who know themselves must know their hearts, so if you don't care about the hearts of others at all, you don't care about the feelings of others at all, you can't know people, you can't know people, you can't achieve great things, so this is the need for such people in the 21st century, then "right mind" is also the psychological basis for our success. Confucius once said that if a person wants to become a gentleman, then at least he must realize that he must have precepts and know his heart, and if a person wants to become a gentleman, he must be polite and polite. Why do you say this, because people have a lot of primitive desires and impulses, desires and impulses you can't let him indulge arbitrarily, you must have some precepts, precepts can be fixed, concentration is wisdom, so precepts, concentration, wisdom is our Chinese have long been aware of the three realms of "right mind", precepts, and then concentration, and then wisdom, which is evidence in scientific psychology.
To introduce you to a very famous experiment (delayed gratification experiment), started by a famous psychologist in 1968, has been doing it now, has been for nearly forty years, she taught some middle-class children near Stanford University, about 600 people, about 3 to 5 years old, invited them to the psychology laboratory, there is a marshmallow on the table, you can eat it right away, but you can resist your desires and impulses, do not eat this marshmallow, aunt came back to give you two marshmallows. In the face of such a huge temptation, what kind of child can resist such an impulse, and what is the significance of such an ability to delay gratification? This experiment is now a particularly classic study of psychology, and everyone does not realize that such a simple psychological experiment has such a great significance in real life. How children face such temptations, so individual differences are quite large. This is the famous delayed gratification experiment.
Delayed Gratification Experiment: Do You Want 1 Sugar Now or 10 Sugars in the Future?
Mr. Michelle was doing this research at the time, he wanted to see if different families are not the child's ability to delay gratification is not the same, but what he did not expect was that after 20 years, to visit those children, are already 20, 30-year-old children, the result was unexpectedly found that the ability of those children to delay gratification and future career success is positively correlated, in other words, if the child delays gratification for a long time, the stronger the abstinence ability, the better his future test scores, and the degree he obtained at the age of 27 has a lot to do with it. If the delayed gratification time reaches more than 30 minutes, he can get a doctorate in the future, if it is up to three minutes, basically quit school after high school, the gap is very obvious, which he did not expect, and it is related to his psychological adaptability, that is, with his social status, personal achievements, and the evaluation of his relatives, and his spouse's evaluation of him, a person who can especially delay satisfaction must be a likable person, must be a happy person, must be a successful person.
This result shocked the psychology community, because we did not expect that such a simple psychological test could predict such a large difference in social achievement, so scientists have tracked this group of children for decades, and there are many more interesting findings. First found that these people's brain prefrontal lobes are becoming more and more developed, in other words, those who delay gratification more and more are becoming more and more intelligent, more and more intelligent, everyone knows that the prefrontal lobes of the brain are developed because his gray matter capacity and density are higher than others, which is Chinese a direct certification of Jie Dinghui. Abstinence, then concentration, and then wisdom, before we only have this truth, now there is evidence of scientific psychology, that is, you develop the habit of delayed gratification from an early age, your brain will become developed, and you will become more and more intelligent, and become more and more intelligent. Of course, there are still many details, and now psychology has found that five years old is a dividing line, and children before the age of five can basically not delay.
A child's ability to delay gratification is positively correlated with future career success
Improve self-control: Challenge yourself and train your mental strength
People may be concerned about what can be done about this, what can be done to prolong our ability to control ourselves. There is a famous psychology professor who has done a lifetime of research, that is, to study the cultivation and training of human self-control, many of which are techniques and methods, which I summarize into three major methods, of course, more than that. The first big way is to exercise, the strength of our heart, the strength of self-control and satisfaction, in fact, and the muscles can also be trained, muscle strength how to train, nothing more than to increase the muscle weight-bearing capacity, give some dumbbells, give some tablets and then continue to practice, continue to challenge yourself, your muscle strength will increase, psychological strength is also like this, add some stimulation to your heart to increase some training, let your heart continue to do what you don't want to do, keep challenging, keep trying, keep adapting, Keep making progress, and your mental strength will definitely increase.
70% of middle-class American children use chopsticks
Many children in the United States actually do not like to eat with chopsticks, everyone thinks about how fast to eat meat with a knife and fork, a knife down, a fork down, half of the meat will be eaten, but how slow to eat meat with chopsticks, first you have to cut it into small ding, and then take the chopsticks a little clip, if the craft is not high, it will fall down. So 70% of the middle-class children in the United States will use chopsticks, in some famous schools many white children will use chopsticks, I was very happy at the beginning, so I asked them if you are particularly fond of eating Chinese food at the beginning, they said you want to listen to the truth or lie, I felt that there was a problem, said I of course want to hear the truth, he said false words is that I love your Chinese culture, the truth is that our parents taught us from an early age to delay gratification, "challenge ourselves" It's a place where many middle-class American parents teach their children how to develop self-control, and we Chinese know not to spoil our children. Why can't we coddle children, we all only have reason, saying, experience, no scientific psychological knowledge, I often say that Chinese parents really should read psychology classes. In American universities, psychology must be the largest major, every year there are always 1 million high school students applying for psychology majors, 90,000 psychology degrees awarded every year, in China, psychology is always the smallest major, I am the first batch of psychology students at Peking University, since 1975 to recruit 20 students, reform and opening up for so many years, or recruit 20 students.
Education "delays gratification", and many middle-class children in the United States use chopsticks
80% of U.S. presidents write with their left hand
80% of U.S. presidents write with their left hand, but the rate of left-handed U.S. presidents is only 30%, so why do these people write with their left hand, that is, those parents challenge those children to do things they don't want to do, exercise is very important. You like to lie down and watch TV, stand up to watch TV, you like to sit and read, walk and read, in fact, can change your habits, let you form a psychological control training.
The world's richest man challenged himself and learned Chinese
Everyone knows that Zuckerberg is the boss of Facebook, is the world's richest man, he last came to Tsinghua University to make a report, as soon as he opened his mouth, he used Chinese to scare us, did not expect that the world's richest man would actually talk about Chinese, we thought he was "warming up", the result he stumbled, stumbled and talked for half an hour Chinese, the host of CCTV was particularly surprised, and the result asked him a question, why do you want to learn Chinese, and he made a joke, he said I was to please his wife, everyone applauded. Think he is a warm man, in fact, not at all, at noon dinner I asked my wife, I said your husband learned Chinese from you, his wife said "he said blindly, I can't even say a Chinese", why, because his wife is a third generation of ABC, will not say Chinese at all, and then asked him why he said Chinese, and then he said, in fact, to challenge himself, because he can drive a plane, can drive a tank, he will do anything, is not going to say Chinese, then what to do, He believes that the hardest challenge in the world is to say Chinese.
"I want to challenge myself," Zuckerberg Chinese throughout the Tsinghua speech show
The Nun's Revelation: Right mind is the secret of longevity
"Right heart" is a very important psychological basis for our personal success, some students said that I do not want to succeed, I do not want to contribute to society, I do not care about the fate and future of mankind, I just want to live a little better, I want to tell everyone that "right heart" is also a secret of longevity.
A psychology professor in the United States specializes in some special people: nuns. These nuns are particularly long-lived, living to 102 years old, we all know that the average life expectancy of Americans is about 78 years old, why these nuns can live so long, in fact, has something to do with their habits of nourishing the heart and the right mind, and their physiological habits and health habits have nothing to do with it. He scanned the brain slices of these nuns, and unexpectedly found that all the nuns were physiologically no different from other old people, and the changes were exactly the same as those of other old people, but the magic was psychological, behavioral, and life, and this physiological symptom could not be seen at all, that is, their brain had symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, but you couldn't see it at all, this is the professor's conclusion, nourishing the heart is always more important than health.
What is the cultivation of the heart, the first is that you must develop the habit of loving learning and loving to use your brain; the second point, like sports activities, even if you watch sports games, will make you live a long life; third, you must develop the habit of doing housework; fourth, you must have knowledge; fifth, girls must have positive and beautiful interpersonal relationships, must have friends; sixth, must have faith, this is the six secrets of longevity.
The professor also did a study in which he analyzed the autobiographies of 180 nuns (some deceased, some not deceased) who had written at the age of 20 to apply to the monastery, and to see how many of them were enthusiastic, positive, sunny, positive, and how many had a bland attitude towards life, and found that those nuns who particularly liked to use positive concept words, such as happiness, happiness, love, satisfaction and hope, these nuns, on average, lived at least ten years longer than the pessimistic nuns. Although their living habits, lifestyles are the same, the rules of work and rest are the same, and the things they eat are the same, because they are all in the monastery, all the environments are the same, that is, their mentality is different, it may be that their life expectancy is very different, of which the two examples given by the professor, one of the nuns live to 98 years old, one nun lives to 59 years old, the gap between them can be seen in their 20s, and the autobiography written by a nun at 20 years old is particularly positive, sunny, positive words." Thank God for the priceless virtues that I have had a very good time living in the Holy House over the past year, and I am very happy and looking forward to becoming an official member of the monastery and starting a new life with my beloved God". Another nun was unremarkable, "I was born on September 26, 1909, the eldest of seven people in the family, and during the year of my internship at the monastery, I taught chemistry and second-grade Latin dance, and I was blessed by God's grace to complete my self-cultivation." This is a gap, so I often talk about what "right mind" is, "right mind" is your health, is the most important reason for longevity.
Mother Teresa, who founded more than 50 schools, hospitals, workhouses, youth centres and orphanages in India and other countries, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979
Now there is one of the longest-lived groups in China, that is, retired professors in the Department of Philosophy of Peking University, their average age is 98 years old, four years worse than nuns, and they live more than 20 years longer than ordinary Chinese men, many of these professors I know, I asked them why you are so long-lived, these old gentlemen said we don't know why, but it must have a lot to do with our mentality. Because you think, you are always helping young people, always creating young people, always being with young people, so the energy of youth can not not have an impact on you, this influence must go deep into your bone marrow, must go deep into your blood, must go deep into your various cells, this is a very famous concept, it decides not to be an abstract symbol, he is our flesh and blood, he is our feelings, feelings and feelings, so being with young people must make you live longer.
Happiness is the goal chosen by human evolution, and "right mind" is a competitive advantage of a choice to achieve this goal. The meaning of life, the nature of the human heart, you can talk about it from a philosophical point of view, it does not matter, but our psychology is a science, scientists must talk about logic, evidence, scientists have to take a common path of falsification.
Editor: Yuan Zhenlu
Editor-in-Charge: Li Nian
Source: Synthesized from the WeChat public account "The Psychological Time of Miss Week"