雙語閱讀：聰明人更喜歡大城市

Cities are more crowded, more polluted, and more stressful to live in than any other kind of man-made environment in the world. But they are also where the smartest people want to live.

一般來說，城市與其他地方相比，會更加擁擠，污染更嚴重，生活壓力也更大。但是它卻是聰明人的夢想居住地。

A new study of American mobility patterns suggests that people with higher intelligence are more likely to be moving in and out of cities. Among them, those individuals who originate from rural towns exhibit the highest forms of intelligence. The findings, now online, will be published in the September/October issue of the journal Intelligence.

一個關于美國人口遷移模式的研究表明，擁有更高智商水平的人更傾向于在遷入或遷出城市。而在這群人中，那些原本居住在農村，后來遷入城市的人智商水平最高。上述的研究結果將會發(fā)表在今年九月或十月的Intelligence雜志上。

The study, conducted by psychologist Markus Jokela from the University of Helsinki, traced the 16-year migratory patterns of 11,500 Americans between the ages of 15 and 23, starting in 1979. Jokela found that people who moved from rural and suburban areas to central cities typically had much higher intelligence scores than people who stayed put or made other kinds of movements. Those same people also tended to leave central cities for suburban environments, to a lesser degree.

這項研究由芬蘭赫爾辛基大學的心理學家Markus Jokela主持，從1979年起，研究人員追蹤了11500名年齡介于15到23歲的美國人。經(jīng)過長達16年的追逐，Jokela發(fā)現(xiàn)，與其他人群相比，那些原本居住在農村后來搬到城市的人們擁有更高的智商，而且他們離開中心城市搬往郊區(qū)的可能性也更少。

The findings themselves aren't particularly revelatory – it has long been thought that smart young people flock to the cities for better education and higher-paying jobs, and move out to the suburbs in order to raise a family. But the most striking part about Jokela's study is the numbers; most notably a 12-point intelligence gap between rural residents who stayed in their hometown and those who moved to central cities. When Jokela controlled for socioeconomic status, this gap was reduced to 4 point. While this is less stunning, it does indicate that intelligence plays a role in where Americans decide to live. “The most general message is that the selective residential mobility we observe associated with socioeconomic status has its psychological underpinnings in intelligence differences,” Jokela told CityLab.

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這樣的研究結果其實并沒有讓人覺得驚訝，因為一直以來就我們就認為：智商較高的群體會為了更好的教育和更高的薪酬而遷入城市，而后會前往郊區(qū)組織自己的家庭。但是Jokela的研究讓人驚訝的是它的具體數(shù)據(jù)：出生并一直居住在農村的人群與從農村移居至中心城市的人群比較，存在12個點的智商水平差異。當控制了社會經(jīng)濟的影響因素后，這個差異下降至4個點。雖然這個數(shù)字并沒有很大，但是它證明了智商水平確實是美國人選擇定居點的一個影響因素。Jokela說：從本次研究我們可能發(fā)現(xiàn)這么一個信息，居民選擇定居點與社會經(jīng)濟狀態(tài)有關，同時也存在以智商水平差異為基礎的心理學差異。

While the results are interesting, they should be read with caution. Jokela’s analysis illustrates that intelligence and migration are connected, but not whether intelligence actually influenced individuals’ decision to move. The dataset for the study is also cut off after 1996, and American migratory patterns may have changed a great deal in the last two decades.

不過我們在看這份研究的時候應該注意幾點，Jokela的分析稱智商水平和遷移有關，但不是說智商水平會直接影響個人的遷移決定。此外這次研究的數(shù)據(jù)調查到1996年結束，而美國人的遷移模式可能在這20年發(fā)生了巨大的變化。

The biggest takeaway, however, is that smart people are constantly anxious to keep moving around. If you live in the city, you may want to talk to your new neighbor from that rural town you've never heard of – they probably have a few things to teach you, before they leave for greener pastures.

最后一點就是，高智商的人總是渴望不停的搬遷，因此如果你住在城市，也許可以和你那個新搬來的來自農村的鄰居聊聊。也許他能教你些什么。 

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