很多人不懂瞎忙的好处，试想：在机场等行李花上15分钟是很痛苦的，如果把这15分钟花在走往行李搬运处也许就没那么痛苦。Christopher Hsee的实验结论是：忙着的人比懒着的人更快乐。为什么有些人会天性懒散呢？因为没有目标的瞎忙所带来的罪恶感，会扼杀了这种快乐。所以政府有责任让人有目的地瞎忙，他们会更快乐。比如，让家庭主妇养猫，会比闲着更快乐。让闲人去修桥，即使帮不上忙。事实上，这个观点已经被一些机构利用。比如，机场往往故意把走行李处搞的很远，以减少乘客们等行李到达所需要的时间。想快乐？瞎忙呗。

Christopher Hsee说，我们忙碌时会更快乐，但不幸的是我们天性懒惰。如果不是必须，我们什么都不想做，这是一个进化留下的痕迹，我们要保存更多能量。

Hsee的第一个实验

要求98个大学生做一项选择：要么走来回15分钟去某地交问卷，要么交了之后等15分钟。之后他们会得到一个奖赏，一个巧克力棒。不过，分为2种条件，巧克力相同或是不同。

实验结果：

同样奖励的话，68%的人愿意懒着。

不同奖励的话，59%的人愿意忙着。

注意的是，不同奖励是指黑巧克力或白巧克力，他们吸引力相同，而且被试对他们的喜爱也被平衡掉了。

随后的调查发现，忙着的人比懒着的人更快乐。

这说明，人们虽然天性懒散，但是只要有个理由他们还是愿意忙起来的。

H小组解释，我们忙起来会更快乐，哪我们为什么天性懒散呢？

这是因为激励过程中的一个情况，无效努力’futile busyness’：瞎忙还不如不忙，即忙起来更快乐。因为没目标而不努力，比有建设性的努力更现实，比破坏性的努力更少罪恶感。

原文参考：

We’re happier when busy but our instinct is for idleness

Forced to wait for fifteen minutes at the airport luggage carousel leaves many of us miserable and irritated. Yet if we’d spent the same waiting time walking to the carousel we’d be far happier. That’s according to Christopher Hsee and colleagues, who say we’re happier when busy but that unfortunately our instinct is for idleness. Unless we have a reason for being active we choose to do nothing – an evolutionary vestige that ensures we conserve energy.

Consider Hsee’s first study. His team offered 98 students a choice between delivering a completed questionnaire to a location that was a 15-minute round-trip walk away, or delivering it just outside the room and then waiting 15 minutes. A twist was that either the same or different types of chocolate snack bar were offered as a reward at the two locations.

If the same snack bar was offered at both locations then the majority (68 per cent) of students chose the lazy option, delivering the questionnaire just outside the room. By contrast, if a different (black vs. white) bar was offered at each location then the majority (59 per cent) chose the far away ‘busy’ option. This was the case even though earlier research showed both snack bar options were equally appealing, and even though the location of the two snack bar types was counterbalanced across participants. In other words, Hsee said, the students’ instinct was for idleness, but when they were given a specious excuse for walking further, most of them took the busy option. Crucially, when asked afterwards, the students who’d taken the walk reported feeling significantly happier than the idle students, consistent with Hsee’s theory that we’re happier when busy (a repeat of the study in which students were allocated without choice to the idle or busy condition led to the same outcome – the busier students felt happier).

In a variant of this first study, students asked to evaluate a bracelet had the option of either spending fifteen minutes waiting time sitting idle or spending the same time disassembling the bracelet and rebuilding it. Those given the option of rebuilding it into its original configuration largely chose to sit idle – consistent with our having an instinct for idleness. By contrast, those told they could re-assemble the bracelet into a second, equally attractive and useful design tended to take up the challenge – again, an excuse, however superficial, for activity seems to be all it takes to spur us on. As before, those who spent the fifteen minutes busy subsequently reported feeling happier than those who sat idle.

Given that being busy makes us happier but that our instinct is for idleness, Hsee’s team say there is a case for encouraging what they call ‘futile busyness,’ that is: ‘busyness serving no purpose other than to prevent idleness. Such activity is more realistic than constructive busyness and less evil than destructive busyness.’

The researchers proceed to argue that, unfortunately, most people will not be tempted by futile busyness, so there’s a paternalistic case for governments and organisations tricking us into more activity: ‘housekeepers may increase the happiness of their idle housekeepers by letting in some mice and prompting the housekeepers to clean up. Governments may increase the happiness of idle citizens by having them build bridges that are actually useless.’ In fact, according to Hsee’s team, such interventions already exist, with some airports having deliberately increased the walk to the luggage carousel so as to reduce the time passengers spend waiting idly for luggage to arrive.

ResearchBlogging.orgHsee CK, Yang AX, & Wang L (2010). Idleness aversion and the need for justifiable busyness. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21 (7), 926-30 PMID: 20548057