真的是“三岁看小、七岁看老”吗？

祝各位大朋友、小朋友们，节日快乐。

🤔️小作业：

1. Based on the passage, why might infant temperament not fully predict adult personality?

A) Infant temperament changes significantly over time

B) Adult personality is influenced by many other factors

C) Research methods for studying temperament are flawed

D) Personality traits are not established until adolescence

A) The connection between early childhood behavior and adult personality

B) The detailed process of studying infant temperament

C) The role of genetics in shaping personality

D) The differences between temperament and personality

无注释原文：

Clues to your personality appeared before you could talk

From: BBC, 10 September 2016

Your personality has been sculpted by many hands. Your genes, your friends, the schools you attended, plus many other factors, will all have played a part in making you the person you are today. But when exactly did your own distinct character first begin to take shape? If you're a shy person now, for instance, does that mean you were a shy child?

In all likelihood, yes. In fact, research suggests there are significant links between our behavioural tendencies when we're just a few months old and our later personality. That isn't to say that our personality was set in stone that early, but that the roots of who we are can be traced all the way back to our earliest days.

Psychologists who study babies usually refer to “temperament” rather than personality and one of the first ever investigations in this area was called the New York Longitudinal Study, launched in the 1950s, for which the wife and husband team of Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas began observing 133 children from their birth up to age 30, as well as interviewing their parents. Based on their findings, these researchers proposed that there are nine different facets of infant temperament, including activity level, mood and distractibility. They also noted that scores on different facets tended to cluster and, in a sign of a less politically correct age, they described three categories: “easy children”, “difficult children” and “slow to warm up” children.

Do these childhood categories presage later personality types? The New York study found some evidence that children categorised as easy or difficult at age three also tended to be categorised the same way in early adulthood, but the research didn't examine links between child temperament and adult personality, as such.

In fact, for a long time psychologists studying infant temperament and those studying adult personality didn't have a great deal to do with each other. Increasingly over the last decade or so, however, that has begun to change and although infant temperament doesn't completely forecast later personality, the two are certainly connected.

Note that the scoring systems for infant temperament have changed over time. Today the original nine aspects of temperament are distilled into just three broad dimensions (unfortunately psychology labs often vary in the precise terms they use): “Effortful control” which describes things like the infant's self-control and ability to focus (resisting, for example, the lure of a tempting toy); “negative affectivity, which as it sounds, refers to levels of negative emotion like fear and frustration; and “extraversion” or “surgency”, which is to do with activity levels, excitement and being sociable.

Consider a Russian study published online this year in Personality and Individual Differences that involved 45 parents rating their infants' temperament on these dimensions when they were just a few months old (seven months, on average) and then rating their children's personalities again an average of eight years later, based on the main traits of adult personality such as extraversion and neuroticism.

Comparing the measures at the two time points revealed a number of consistencies, such as that infants who scored higher on the extraversion/surgency domain (they did things like smiled more) tended to score lower, at age eight, on the adult personality trait of Neuroticism (that is, they were more emotionally stable); and those infants who scored higher on this study's equivalent of effortful control went on to score higher on aspects of the adult trait of conscientiousness when they were children. If your baby seems to have a decent attention span – good news, this probably means they'll keep their room tidy when they're older.

Not everything matched up in this study – for example, smiley, more outgoing babies didn't score higher on extraversion as children – which is a reminder that our infant temperaments are not always destiny. But the results do add to what the researchers described as the “growing consensus that temperamental characteristics that appear in the first years of life form a basis for later personality.”

Amazingly, some links may even stretch across four decades. In another study, published in 2007, researchers in the Czech Republic took measures of infancy temperament a little later, between the ages of 12 and 30 months, and found an association, albeit very specific, with personality traits in the same individuals when they were tested again 40 years later.

The two traits in question were toddler disinhibition (similar to the more widely used extraversion/surgency rating) and adult extraversion. That is, the more active and assertive the participants had been as toddlers, the more likely they were to score highly on extraversion as adults, and on self-efficacy (our belief in our own abilities).

It's worth remembering when reading about these findings that our personalities, although they show consistency through life, are also constantly evolving and it would be impossible to pinpoint any one moment when a person's personality in their youth had taken on its adult form (apart from anything, this would depend on which version of their maturing adult personality you had in mind). However, as an infant grows into a small child, their personality is gradually crystallising. Wait until a child is aged three, for example, and now their behaviour will even more strongly foretell the adult personality.

Take the findings from a paper published in 2003, in which researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry in London compared the behavioural scores of over a thousand three-year-olds taken in 1975-1976 (based on which they classified the children as either “well-adjusted”, “under-controlled”, “confident”, “inhibited” or “reserved”) with the same individuals' personality scores recorded when they were 26. This time many striking consistencies emerged through the nearly three-decade period of study – to take just one example, the “confident” children became the most extraverted adults, and the inhibited children became the least extraverted.

Anyone who has young children of their own, or spends time with them, knows that it's tempting to look for signs of emerging personality traits in a baby's giggle or frown. The latest psychology research suggests such speculation might not be entirely in vain.

But there's also a serious side to this field. Increasingly, researchers are realising that the roots of adult psychological problems may lie in behavioural tendencies that first appear in early childhood. By learning to recognise these signs, it might be possible to intervene carefully at an early age and to help steer children on the path to a healthier future.

- ◆ -

注：完整题目见本文开头；中文文本为BBC官方译文，仅供参考

含注释全文：

Clues to your personality appeared before you could talk

From: BBC, 10 September 2016

Your personality has been sculpted by many hands. Your genes, your friends, the schools you attended, plus many other factors, will all have played a part in making you the person you are today. But when exactly did your own distinct character first begin to take shape? If you're a shy person now, for instance, does that mean you were a shy child?

人的个性是多方面因素塑造而成的：基因、朋友、学校以及其他因素。是它们让你变成了今天的你。那么一个人的个性究竟是从什么时候开始定型的呢？比如，如果你现在是一个害羞的人，那这是否意味着你小时候就很害羞？

personality /ˌpɜː.sənˈæl.ə.ti/ 除了表示“性格，个性”，还可以表示“名人，名流”，英文解释为“a famous person”举个🌰：The show is hosted by a popular TV personality. 该节目由一位广受欢迎的电视名人主持。

sculpt /skʌlpt/ 1）表示“雕塑；雕刻”，英文解释为“to create solid objects that represent a thing, person, idea, etc. out of a material such as wood, clay, metal, or stone”举个🌰：He sculpted an old man's head out of wood. 他用木头刻出了一个老人的头。

2）表示“使具有…形状”，英文解释为“to form into a particular shape”举个🌰：The dripping water had sculpted strange shapes out of the rocks/sculpted the rocks into strange shapes. 滴水把石头变成了各种奇怪的形状。

hand /hænd/ 熟词僻义，表示“参与，卷入；影响；角色；作用”，英文解释为“involvement in or influence over an event；the part or role that sb/sth plays in a particular situation; sb's influence in a situation”举个🌰：Several of her colleagues had a hand in her downfall. 她的几个同事对她的垮台负有责任。

gene /dʒiːn/ 表示“基因”，英文解释为“a part of the DNA in a cell that controls the physical development, behaviour, etc. of an individual plant or animal and is passed on from its parents”举个🌰：The illness is believed to be caused by a defective gene. 据信，这种疾病是由基因缺陷引起的。

In all likelihood, yes. In fact, research suggests there are significant links between our behavioural tendencies when we're just a few months old and our later personality. That isn't to say that our personality was set in stone that early, but that the roots of who we are can be traced all the way back to our earliest days.

差不多是这样。事实上，有研究表明人在几个月大时的行为特征与长大后的个性之间存在重要的联系。但这并不是说我们的个性早就已经不可动摇，只是说我们可以追根溯源到幼年时期。

tendency /ˈten.dən.si/ 1）表示“（思想、行为等的）倾向”，英文解释为“If someone has a tendency to do or like something, they will probably do it or like it.”举个🌰：His tendency to exaggerate is well known. 他喜欢夸张是出了名的。

2）表示“（某事发展的）倾向”，英文解释为“If there is a tendency to do something, it starts to happen more often or starts to increase.”举个🌰：There is a growing tendency to regard money more highly than quality of life. 越来越多的人倾向于把金钱看得重于生活质量。

英式 not be set/carved in stone 美式 not be carved/etched in stone 表示“还未确定；未成定局”，英文解释为“to be able to be changed”举个🌰：These are just a few ideas - nothing is set in stone yet. 这还只是一些想法——什么都还没定下来。

trace /treɪs/ 作动词，1）表示“找到，查出，发现”，英文解释为“to find someone or something that was lost”举个🌰：The police are trying to trace the mother of a newborn baby found abandoned outside a hospital. 警察试图查出那位把新生婴儿抛弃在医院外面的母亲。

2）表示“（根据事物的发展方式）查明…的起因（或源头），追溯”，英文解释为“to discover the causes or origins of something by examining the way in which it has developed”举个🌰：The practice of giving eggs at Easter can be traced back to (= first happened in) festivals in ancient China. 复活节送彩蛋的习俗可追溯至中国古代的节庆活动。

作名词，1）表示“痕迹，踪迹”，英文解释为“a sign that something has happened or existed”举个🌰：He attempted to cover up all the traces of his crime. 他试图掩盖他犯罪的蛛丝马迹。

2）表示“微量，少许”，英文解释为“a very slight amount”举个🌰：Traces of drugs were found in his blood. 在他的血液中发现了少许毒品。

Psychologists who study babies usually refer to “temperament” rather than personality and one of the first ever investigations in this area was called the New York Longitudinal Study, launched in the 1950s, for which the wife and husband team of Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas began observing 133 children from their birth up to age 30, as well as interviewing their parents. Based on their findings, these researchers proposed that there are nine different facets of infant temperament, including activity level, mood and distractibility. They also noted that scores on different facets tended to cluster and, in a sign of a less politically correct age, they described three categories: “easy children”, “difficult children” and “slow to warm up” children.

研究婴儿的心理学家通常所用的术语是“气质”（temperament）而非“个性” （personality）。在这一领域的最早的一项调查是在20世纪50年代开始的纽约纵向研究（New York Longitudinal Study）。亚历山大·托马斯（Alexander Thomas）和斯特拉·切斯（Stella Chess）夫妇观察了133名儿童从出生到30岁之间的生活，同时还和他们的父母进行访谈。基于这些观察和研究，他们提出婴儿气质的九种不同维度，包括活跃水平、心情和关注力。他们还认为不同维度的分数有趋同倾向。他们以政治不太正确的方式把儿童分为三类：“简单的儿童”、“麻烦的儿童”和“慢热型”儿童。

temperament /ˈtem.pər.ə.mənt/ 1）表示“气质；性情；性格”，英文解释为“the part of your character that affects your moods and the way you behave”，如：a fiery temperament 暴躁的性情；

2）也有“易冲动；（性情）暴躁；喜怒无常”的含义，英文解释为“the tendency to get emotional and excited very easily and behave in an unreasonable way”

longitudinal /ˌlɒŋ.ɡɪˈtʃuː.dɪ.nəl/ 1）表示“经线的”，英文解释为“used to refer to lines or distances east or west of an imaginary line between the North Pole and the South Pole ”举个🌰：Longitudinal lines run from north to south. 经线的方向是由北至南。

2）表示“纵向研究，纵贯研究”，英文解释为“Longitudinal research is done on people or groups over a long period of time.”如：longitudinal analysis/studies 纵向分析/研究。

propose /prəˈpəʊz/ 作动词，除了表示“提议，建议，提出”，英文解释为“to offer or suggest a possible plan or action for other people to consider”，还可以表示向某人“求婚”，英文解释为“to ask someone to marry you, especially in a formal way”举个🌰：KangKang proposed to Jane three years after they met. 他们相识三年后，康康就向简求婚了。

📍名词形式proposal：an act of formally asking sb to marry you 求婚，也可以说make a proposal.

facet /ˈfæs.ɪt/ 表示“（问题、形势等的）方面，部分”，英文解释为“one part of a subject, situation, etc. that has many parts”举个🌰：She has so many facets to her personality. 她的性格具有多面性。

infant /ˈɪn.fənt/ 表示“婴儿”，英文解释为“a baby or a very young child”如：a newborn infant 新生儿。

cluster /ˈklʌs.tər/ 作动词，表示“群集，丛生；聚集”，英文解释为“be ore come into a cluster or close group; congregate”举个🌰：The children clustered together in the corner of the room. 孩子们聚集在房间的角落里。

作名词，1）表示“（人或动物的）群，团，组”，英文解释为“a group of people, animals or things close together”如：a cluster of spectators 一群旁观者；

2）表示“（同类物丛生或聚集的）簇，团，束，串”，英文解释为“a group of things of the same type that grow or appear close together”

Do these childhood categories presage later personality types? The New York study found some evidence that children categorised as easy or difficult at age three also tended to be categorised the same way in early adulthood, but the research didn't examine links between child temperament and adult personality, as such.

这样的儿童分类是否预示着他们未来的人格类型？纽约的研究发现证据表明在三岁时被归为简单或麻烦的儿童在青年时期仍然表现出相同的个性，但是他们并未研究儿童气质与成人个性之间的联系。

presage /ˈpres.ɪdʒ/ 表示“预示，预兆（尤指不祥之事）”，英文解释为“to show or suggest that something, often something unpleasant, will happen”

英式 categorise 美式 categorize /ˈkæt.ə.ɡər.aɪz/ 表示“将…分类；把…加以归类”，英文解释为“to put people or things into groups according to what type they are”举个🌰：Participants were categorised according to age. 参加者按年龄分组。

📍单词“categorise”由词根“-ise”（表示动词化）和前缀“categor-”（来自希腊语“kategoria”，表示“类别”）组成。想象你正在将数据进行分类，这就是“categorise”。

In fact, for a long time psychologists studying infant temperament and those studying adult personality didn't have a great deal to do with each other. Increasingly over the last decade or so, however, that has begun to change and although infant temperament doesn't completely forecast later personality, the two are certainly connected.

事实上，在很长时间里，研究婴儿气质的心理学家与研究成人个性的心理学家之间是不打交道的。不过，在过去十年左右，情况开始发生变化。尽管婴儿气质并不完全能预测人长大后的个性，但是两者之间一定存在关联。

forecast /ˈfɔː.kɑːst/ 可以作名词，也可作动词，表示“预测；预报”，英文解释为“to say what you expect to happen in the future”举个🌰：Snow has been forecast for tonight. 预报今晚有雪。

📍这个词由“fore-”（前面的）和“cast”（投，抛）组成，表示“向前投掷”的意思，引申为“预测”。近义词：prediction（预言），同根词：forecaster（预报员），常用短语：weather forecast（天气预报）

Note that the scoring systems for infant temperament have changed over time. Today the original nine aspects of temperament are distilled into just three broad dimensions (unfortunately psychology labs often vary in the precise terms they use): “Effortful control” which describes things like the infant's self-control and ability to focus (resisting, for example, the lure of a tempting toy); “negative affectivity, which as it sounds, refers to levels of negative emotion like fear and frustration; and “extraversion” or “surgency”, which is to do with activity levels, excitement and being sociable.

还要注意，婴儿气质的打分系统随着时间的推移也发生了变化。如今，原来的九个维度被化归为三个大维度（不幸的是，心理学实验室常常使用不同的术语来描述这几个维度）：“努力控制”是指儿童的自控力和关注力（比如，抵抗玩具的诱惑）；“负面情绪”正如其字面意义，是指恐惧、挫败等负面情绪；而“外向”或“精力充沛”与活跃度、兴奋和社交能力有关。

英式 distil 美式 distill /dɪˈstɪl/ 1）表示“蒸馏”，英文解释为“to make a liquid stronger or purer by heating it until it changes to a gas and then cooling it so that it changes back into a liquid”举个🌰：Some strong alcoholic drinks such as whisky are made by distilling. 威士忌等烈酒是用蒸馏法制成的。

2）表示“提炼，浓缩”，英文解释为“to get or show only the most important part of something”举个🌰：Over 80 hours of footage have been distilled into these 40 minutes. 80多个小时的片子被提炼压缩成了40分钟。

dimension /ˌdaɪˈmen.ʃən/ 表示“层面，维度；特点”，英文解释为“a part or feature or way of considering something”举个🌰：His personality has several dimensions. 他是个有多重性格的人。

resist /rɪˈzɪst/ 1）表示“抵制；阻挡；抗拒”，英文解释为“to refuse to accept or be changed by something”举个🌰：She resisted demands for her resignation. 她拒不答应她辞职的要求。

2）表示“按捺；忍住；拒受…的影响”，英文解释为“to stop yourself from doing something that you want to do”举个🌰：I can never resist temptation/chocolate/the urge to laugh. 我向来无法抗拒诱惑/我永远不可能抵挡巧克力的诱惑/我要是想笑，怎么也忍不住。

tempting /ˈtemp.tɪŋ/ 表示“诱人的，吸引人的；使人禁不住想尝试（或拥有）的”，英文解释为“If something is tempting, it makes you want to do it or have it.”举个🌰：In the end, I turned down her tempting offer of the trip. 最后，我拒绝了她去旅行的诱人提议。

extraversion /ˌekstrəˈvɜːʃən/ 表示“（性格）外向性”，英文解释为“the quality of being energetic and not shy, and enjoying being with other people”

“Surgency” 是心理学中的一个术语，通常用来描述一种活跃、充满能量和社交性的行为倾向。这包括高水平的活动、兴奋、冲动以及对社交互动的积极态度。英文解释为“Surgency is a trait aspect of emotional reactivity in which a person tends towards high levels of positive affect. A personality factor characterized by quickness and cleverness.”

Consider a Russian study published online this year in Personality and Individual Differences that involved 45 parents rating their infants' temperament on these dimensions when they were just a few months old (seven months, on average) and then rating their children's personalities again an average of eight years later, based on the main traits of adult personality such as extraversion and neuroticism.

今年，有一个来自俄罗斯的关于个性和个体差异的研究在网上发表。该研究让45个家长评价他们平均七个月大的孩子的气质，并在八年后再次评价孩子的个性。评价标准是成人个性的主要特点，比如外向和神经质。

trait /treɪt/ 表示“（个人的）特征，特性，品质”，英文解释为“a particular characteristic that can produce a particular type of behaviour”举个🌰：His sense of humour is one of his better traits. 具有幽默感是他更讨人喜欢的特点之一。

neuroticism /njʊəˈrɒt.ɪ.sɪ.zəm/ 表示“神经过敏，神经质”，英文解释为“the condition of often feeling worried and nervous, often because of a mental illness”举个🌰：Researchers found that high levels of neuroticism were linked to lower life expectancy. 研究者发现高度神经过敏症与低预期寿命有相关性。

Comparing the measures at the two time points revealed a number of consistencies, such as that infants who scored higher on the extraversion/surgency domain (they did things like smiled more) tended to score lower, at age eight, on the adult personality trait of Neuroticism (that is, they were more emotionally stable); and those infants who scored higher on this study's equivalent of effortful control went on to score higher on aspects of the adult trait of conscientiousness when they were children. If your baby seems to have a decent attention span – good news, this probably means they'll keep their room tidy when they're older.

比较两个时间点的评价揭示出一些规律，比如在外向方面得分较高的孩子（笑的更多）在八岁时的神经质评价中得分较低（这意味着他们的情绪比较稳定）；而在努力控制方面得分较高的孩子在后来的自律性评价中得分较高。如果婴儿的注意力时间很长——那么就是好消息了，这很可能意味着他们在长大后会保持房间整洁。

consistency /kənˈsɪs.tən.si/ 1）表示“连贯性；一致性”，英文解释为“the quality of always behaving or performing in a similar way, or of always happening in a similar way”举个🌰：They've won a few games this season but they lack consistency. 这个赛季他们赢过几场比赛，可是表现不稳定。

2）表示“（尤指黏稠液体的）黏稠度，黏稠性”，英文解释为“the physical nature of a substance, especially a thick liquid, for example by being thick or thin, smooth or lumpy, etc.”

equivalent /ɪˈkwɪv.əl.ənt/ 1）作形容词，表示“（价值、数量、意义、重要性等）相等的，相同的”，英文解释为“equal in value, amount, meaning, importance, etc.”举个🌰：Eight kilometres is roughly equivalent to five miles. 八公里约等于五英里。

2）作名词，表示“相等的东西；等量；对应词”，英文解释为“a thing, amount, word, etc. that is equivalent to sth else”。

比如，提到Weibo时候会介绍为中国版的Twitter，常见的有几种说法：

🧣Weibo, China's Twitter-like service (SCMP)

🧣Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter (NPR NEWS)

🧣Twitter-like Weibo (Reuters)

🧣Weibo, a Twitter-like platform (NYT)

conscientiousness /ˌkɒn.ʃiˈen.ʃəs.nəs/ 表示“认真；尽心尽责；一丝不苟”，英文解释为“the quality of working hard and being careful”举个🌰：His conscientiousness and maturity impressed faculty members. 他的认真和成熟给教职员工留下了深刻的印象。

Not everything matched up in this study – for example, smiley, more outgoing babies didn't score higher on extraversion as children – which is a reminder that our infant temperaments are not always destiny. But the results do add to what the researchers described as the “growing consensus that temperamental characteristics that appear in the first years of life form a basis for later personality.”

这个研究中，不是一切都可以互相匹配——比如爱笑的、外向的婴儿在长大一些后，并没有在外向评价中得到高分——这提醒我们婴儿的气质并不是由命运决定。但是研究者的结论是“越来越多的研究达成一项共识，即一个人早年显现出的气质会构成他长大后个性的基础。”

destiny /ˈdes.tɪ.ni/ 表示“前途；命运”，英文解释为“the things that will happen in the future”举个🌰：She felt that her destiny had been shaped by her gender. 她觉得自己的性别已经决定了自己的命运。

consensus /kənˈsen.səs/ 表示“一致的意见；共识”，英文解释为“a generally accepted opinion or decision among a group of people”举个🌰：The general consensus in the office is that he can't do his job. 办公室成员一致认为他无法胜任工作。

📍这个词来自拉丁语“consensus”，意味着“共同感觉”或“一致同意”。近义词：agreement（协议），同根词：consent（同意），常用短语：build consensus（建立共识）

Amazingly, some links may even stretch across four decades. In another study, published in 2007, researchers in the Czech Republic took measures of infancy temperament a little later, between the ages of 12 and 30 months, and found an association, albeit very specific, with personality traits in the same individuals when they were tested again 40 years later.

惊人的是，一些联系甚至可以跨越四十年之久。2007年的一个研究中，来自捷克的研究者把评价婴儿气质的时间点推后，孩子的年纪从30个月到12岁不等。40年后再次测试时，他们发现个性的关联度非常高。

stretch /stretʃ/ 作名词，1）表示“（连续的）一段时间”，英文解释为“a continuous period of time”举个🌰：The elderly generally need far less rest than the young, and tend to sleep in several short stretches. 年长者一般需要的休息时间比年轻人要少得多，而且往往会分成几个小段时间睡觉。

2）表示“（土地或水域的）一片，一段”，英文解释为“a continuous area of land or water”举个🌰：This particular stretch of coast is especially popular with hikers. 在这一段海岸散步的人特别多。

作动词，1）表示“到…的限度；超过…的限度；竭尽”，英文解释为“to go as far as or past the usual limit of something”举个🌰：Many families' budgets are already stretched to breaking point. 许多家庭的预算已经撑到了极限。

2）表示“伸出；伸长；拉伸”，英文解释为“to cause something to reach, often as far as possible, in a particular direction”举个🌰：She stretched out her hand and helped him from his chair. 她伸手将他从椅子上扶起来。

3）表示“展开，铺开；延伸”，英文解释为“to spread over a large area or distance”举个🌰：A huge cloud of dense smoke stretched across the horizon. 一大团浓烟在地平线上蔓延开来。

4）表示“延续”，英文解释为“to spread over a long period of time”举个🌰：The dispute stretches back over many years. 这场争论可追溯到许多年以前。

albeit /ɔːlˈbiː.ɪt/ 表示“尽管；虽然”，相当于“although”举个🌰：He finally agreed, albeit reluctantly, to help us. 尽管勉强，他最后还是同意帮助我们。

The two traits in question were toddler disinhibition (similar to the more widely used extraversion/surgency rating) and adult extraversion. That is, the more active and assertive the participants had been as toddlers, the more likely they were to score highly on extraversion as adults, and on self-efficacy (our belief in our own abilities).

研究关注的两个特征是婴儿的脱抑制（disinhibition，类似于使用更为广泛的外向/精力充沛评分）和成人的外向人格。也就是说，婴儿期越是活跃和坚定的人，长大后在外向性和自我效能（相信自己的能力）方面得高分的可能性更大。

toddler /ˈtɒdlə/ 表示“学步的儿童”，英文解释为“A toddler is a young child who has only just learned to walk or who still walks unsteadily with small, quick steps.”举个🌰：I had a toddler at home and two other children at school. 我有一个刚学步的孩子在家中，另外两个孩子在学校。

🎬电影《相助》（The Help）中的台词提到：She's trying to blame it on a toddler. 她想把错赖在小孩子身上。

“Disinhibition” 在心理学中指的是缺乏抑制，表现为行为冲动、缺乏约束和自我控制。对于幼儿来说，disinhibition通常表现为更高的活动水平、冒险行为和更强的外向性倾向。英文解释为“a temporary loss of inhibition, caused by an outside stimulus such as alcohol or a drug”

assertive /əˈsɜː.tɪv/ 表示“坚定自信的；果敢的”，英文解释为“Someone who is assertive behaves confidently and is not frightened to say what they want or believe.”举个🌰：If you really want the promotion, you'll have to be more assertive. 如果你真想得到晋升，就必须更加坚定自信地说出来。

self-efficacy /ˌselfˈef.ɪ.kə.si/ 表示“自我效能感，自我胜任感”，英文解释为“a person's belief that they can be successful when carrying out a particular task ”举个🌰：Perceived self-efficacy refers to people's beliefs about their capabilities to exercise control over their own activities. 自我效能感是指人们对自己控制自己活动能力的信念。

It's worth remembering when reading about these findings that our personalities, although they show consistency through life, are also constantly evolving and it would be impossible to pinpoint any one moment when a person's personality in their youth had taken on its adult form (apart from anything, this would depend on which version of their maturing adult personality you had in mind). However, as an infant grows into a small child, their personality is gradually crystallising. Wait until a child is aged three, for example, and now their behaviour will even more strongly foretell the adult personality.

当我们在阅读这些关于个性的研究时，值得记住的是尽管个性在人的一生中表现出一贯性，然而它始终处于变化中，不可能在年轻时期的某个时刻确定一个人的个性在他长大后会成为某种个性（而且这还要取决于你所使用的是哪一套成人个性）。不过，婴儿长大的过程中，其个性也会逐渐定型。比如当孩子满三岁时，他们的行为会更加强烈的预示他们成年后的性格。

evolve /ɪˈvɒlv/ 表示“（使）逐渐形成，逐步发展，逐渐演变，进化”，英文解释为“to develop gradually, especially from a simple to a more complicated form; to develop sth in this way”举个🌰：The company has evolved into a major chemical manufacturer. 这家公司已逐步发展成一个主要的化工厂。

pinpoint /ˈpɪn.pɔɪnt/ 作动词，表示“查明，准确地说出，描述（事实真相）”，英文解释为“to discover or explain exactly the real facts about something or the cause of a problem”举个🌰：It’s difficult to pinpoint the cause of the accident. 事故原因很难查明。

作形容词，表示“确切的，精确的”，英文解释为“very exact”举个🌰：The computer will calculate your position with pinpoint accuracy. 计算机能够精确地计算出你的位置。

英式 crystallise 美式 crystallize /ˈkrɪs.təl.aɪz/ 1）表示“结晶，形成晶体”，英文解释为“If a liquid crystallizes, it turns into crystals.”

2）表示“使（想法或观点）成形;使变得明朗具体”，英文解释为“If something crystallizes your thoughts or opinions, it makes them clear and fixed.”举个🌰：The event helped to crystallize my thoughts. 这一事件使我理清了思绪。

foretell /fɔːˈtel/ 表示“预言”，英文解释为“to say what is going to happen in the future”举个🌰：He was a 16th-century prophet who foretold how the world would end. 他是16世纪的一位先知，预言过世界将如何走向末日。

Take the findings from a paper published in 2003, in which researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry in London compared the behavioural scores of over a thousand three-year-olds taken in 1975-1976 (based on which they classified the children as either “well-adjusted”, “under-controlled”, “confident”, “inhibited” or “reserved”) with the same individuals' personality scores recorded when they were 26. This time many striking consistencies emerged through the nearly three-decade period of study – to take just one example, the “confident” children became the most extraverted adults, and the inhibited children became the least extraverted.

以伦敦心理咨询研究所的研究者2003年发表的一篇论文为例。他们在1975到1976年对超过一千名三岁儿童进行行为评分（分类标准为“适应力强”、“接受控制”、“自信”、“拘谨”、“谨慎”），然后在他们26岁时再进行评分并进行比较。这个跨度近30年的研究得到了惊人的一致结果。比如“自信的”儿童在长大后变得外向，而“压抑”的儿童变得非常内向。

psychiatry /saɪˈkaɪətrɪ/ 表示“精神病学”，英文解释为“Psychiatry is the branch of medicine concerned with the treatment of mental illness.”

📍词根“-iatry”表示“医学”，前缀“psych-”表示“精神”。

inhibited /ɪnˈhɪb.ɪ.tɪd/ 表示“拘谨的；受约束的”，英文解释为“not confident enough to say or do what you want”举个🌰：The presence of strangers made her feel inhibited. 陌生人在场使她感到拘谨。

reserved /rɪˈzɜːvd/ 表示“拘谨；矜持；内向”，英文解释为“Reserved people do not often talk about or show their feelings or thoughts.”如：a quiet, reserved woman 一位安静、矜持的女子。

striking /ˈstraɪ.kɪŋ/ 1）表示“异乎寻常的，惊人的；引人注目的；显著的；不同寻常的”，英文解释为“Something that is striking is very noticeable or unusual.”举个🌰：The most striking feature of those statistics is the high proportion of suicides. 那些统计数据最显著的特征是高自杀率。

2）表示“俊秀的；妩媚动人的；很有魅力的”，英文解释为“Someone who is striking is very attractive, in a noticeable way.”举个🌰：She was a striking woman with long blonde hair. 她曾是一个留着金色长发的俊秀女子。

Anyone who has young children of their own, or spends time with them, knows that it's tempting to look for signs of emerging personality traits in a baby's giggle or frown. The latest psychology research suggests such speculation might not be entirely in vain.

任何生育小孩或与小孩共度时光的人都知道人会忍不住在婴儿的一笑一颦中寻找他正在出现的个性的迹象。最新的心理学研究表明，这种猜度的行为可能并不完全是徒劳。

giggle /ˈɡɪɡ.əl/ 可以作动词，也可以作名词，表示“（因为感到有趣、窘迫或紧张而）咯咯地笑，傻笑”，英文解释为“to laugh repeatedly in a quiet but uncontrolled way, often at something silly or rude or when you are nervous”举个🌰：（动词）The girls giggled at the joke. 女孩子们让这笑话逗得咯咯笑。（名词）There were a few nervous giggles from people in the audience. 观众中有人发出几声紧张的笑声。

frown /fraʊn/ 表示“皱眉，蹙额”，英文解释为“to bring your eyebrows together so that there are lines on your face above your eyes to show that you are annoyed or worried”举个🌰：She frowned at me, clearly annoyed. 她皱着眉头看着我，显然是生气了。

speculation /ˌspek.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/ 1）表示“推测；猜测；推断”，英文解释为“the act of forming opinions about what has happened or what might happen without knowing all the facts”举个🌰：There was widespread speculation that she was going to resign. 人们纷纷推测她将辞职。

2）表示“投机，投机买卖”，英文解释为“the act of speculating in order to make a profit”

表示“徒劳地；枉然地；无用地”，相当于“unsuccessfully”举个🌰：I tried in vain to start a conversation. 我极力想挑起话头，但没有成功。

But there's also a serious side to this field. Increasingly, researchers are realising that the roots of adult psychological problems may lie in behavioural tendencies that first appear in early childhood. By learning to recognise these signs, it might be possible to intervene carefully at an early age and to help steer children on the path to a healthier future.

但是这个领域也有严肃的另一面。越来越多的研究者意识到成年人的心理问题可能植根于幼年时的行为倾向。找出这些标志就有可能在幼年期小心干预，引导孩子获得更为健康的未来。

intervene /ˌɪn.təˈviːn/ 1）表示“干预，介入”，英文解释为“If you intervene in a situation, you become involved in it and try to change it.”举个🌰：She might have been killed if the neighbours hadn't intervened. 要不是邻居介入，她可能会没命了。

2）表示“插话”，英文解释为“If you intervene, you interrupt a conversation in order to add something to it.”举个🌰：He intervened and told me to stop it. 他插话，不让我再说下去。

3）表示“干扰”，英文解释为“If an event intervenes, it happens suddenly in a way that stops, delays, or prevents something from happening.”举个🌰：The boat arrived on Friday mornings unless bad weather intervened. 除非受到恶劣天气的干扰，船于星期五上午到达。

steer /stɪər/ 1）表示“引导，带领”，英文解释为“to take someone or something or make someone or something go in the direction in which you want him, her, or it”举个🌰：She steered her guests into the dining room. 她把客人们领到餐厅。

2）表示“驾驶”，英文解释为“When you steer a car, boat, or plane, you control it so that it goes in the direction that you want.”举个🌰：He steered the boat into the harbour. 他把船开进港。

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