1 . When Eugenie George first heard that her friend passed an exam, her heart sank. She’d failed that test weeks earlier, and needed more work to advance her own career. But instead of anxiety, she called her friend. “I congratulated her and told her she inspired me,” she says. She was surprised when it changed her attitude, so she could share her friend’s happiness and experience her own, in turn.
Finding pleasure in another person’s good fortune is what social scientists call freudenfreude, a term that describes the joy we feel when someone else succeeds, even if it isn’t directly connected with us. Freudenfreude is like social glue, says Catherine Chambliss, a professor of psychology at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania. It makes relationships “closer and more enjoyable”. Sharing in someone else’s joy can also improve life satisfaction and resilience(适应力) and help people cooperate during a disagreement.
While the benefits of freudenfreude are plentiful, it doesn’t always come easily. Sometimes, your loss might last, making freudenfreude feel out of reach. If you were raised in a family that paired winning with self-worth, Chambliss says, you might misread someone else’s victory as your own personal shortcoming. And factors such as mental health and overall wellbeing(幸福) can also affect your ability to participate in someone else’s joy. Still, freudenfreude is worthwhile and there are ways to encourage the feeling.
Instead of an automatic response, freudenfreude is often an active process. To help people strengthen joy-sharing muscles, Chambliss and her colleagues developed a programme called FreudenfreudeEnhancement Training (FET). They found that depressed people who used the practices for two weeks had an easier time expressing freudenfreude, which built up their relationships and improved their mood.
Jean Grae, an artist, supports friends in this mindset. When someone gets a new opportunity or reaches a milestone, she makes sure to celebrate. Grae says she’s especially moved when anyone considered ‘other’ succeeds. “It’s truly inspirational,” she says, “because it lifts us all up and makes us shine.”
1. What do we know about Eugenie George?| A．She took pride in passing her exam. | B．She shared her success with her friend. |
| C．She was pleased with her friend’s success. | D．She was annoyed at her failure in an exam. |
| A．Its great benefits. | B．Its disadvantages. |
| C．Reasons for its absence. | D．Ways of improving it. |
| A．To test the effect of freudenfreude. | B．To help people apply freudenfreude. |
| C．To get people to know freudenfreude. | D．To show the advantages of freudenfreude. |
| A．How to experience freudenfreude? |
| B．Let’s share what leads to freudenfreude. |
| C．Freudenfreude: View others’ success as our own. |
| D．A win-win: Freudenfreude brings our own pleasure. |
2 . Having a good sense of humor makes you more enjoyable to be around.
●Surround Yourself with Humor
You learn more effectively when you fully expose yourself to a subject. Similarly, you can improve your sense of humor by surrounding yourself with humor. Watch stand-up comedians. Listen to programs that amuse you.Read humorous books.
●Learn What Amuses You
●Think About Timing and Audience
You don’t have to be funny all the time, so don’t expect that of yourself. When you catch yourself trying to be funny, slow down. Simply speak slower so you’re not as likely to stop and repeat yourself. Try speaking at 60-70 % of your usual rate.
●
You don’t need to seize every single opportunity to be funny. If you’re in the middle of a bad joke, just end it. “You know what, now that I’m telling it, it’s not as funny as it sounded in my head,” can be a bit of an awkward end and hurt your pride a little bit, but it saves everyone time and patience. In the long run, they’ll respect your taste.
| A．Be Creative, Not Silly |
| B．Pause in between sentences |
| C．There’s a lot of fun out there |
| D．You might also do better at work |
| E．Know When to Pull the Plug on Yourself |
| F．You can also try your hand in the real world |
| G．A lot of times, we say things purely to please others |
3 . People are taught how to speak, but good sentence structure and a wide range of vocabulary words won’t always lead to being understood or understanding others.
The good news is that it’s never too late to learn how to communicate more effectively. The first step is to realize you’ re having communication issues.
You have the same fights over and over.
Your fights are about the same topic again and again. If this is happening, it means you don’t yet have the skills to resolve conflicts.
You don’t want to fight so you try not to bring up subjects that lead only to pain and disconnection. The problem is that avoiding them leads to pain and disconnection anyway. Unless you learn how to have hard conversations productively, you will get more and more disconnected until your relationship is in danger of ending.
You regularly feel misunderstood or unheard.
No matter how hard you try, you don’t feel understood. Perhaps your partner has expressed the same feeling.Over time the disconnected feeling does damage to your relationship. It’s important to learn how to communicate in a better way, so that both you and the other person feel heard and understood.
| A．You avoid discussing certain topics. |
| B．You argue with your partners about some issues. |
| C．If you can’t resolve issues, they will continue to show up. |
| D．This requires more than just speaking to your partner or vice versa. |
| E．Then, you can learn how to communicate in a more productive way. |
| F．If you leave conflicts unsettled, you will feel disconnected and lonely. |
| G．Effective communication requires much more than being able to speak. |
4 . How to Be a Good Friend
It’s important to have friends at different times of our lives. They may serve a different purpose as we get older, but they are still important to us.
Honesty
When things come up in life that may not have been the best choice, you have to be able to tell your friends about it. They should offer the same in return. If you were supposed to go out with a friend and something comes up that you would prefer doing, be honest and tell your friend. A good friend will understand and want you to take advantage of the opportunity (机会).
Support
Sometimes we don’t need to hear advice or stories. We need someone who will listen to us. An active listener who is there to listen can be the best medicine. As we talk through feelings, we may come to our own realizations about what has been said. We don’t always need to hear someone else’s talk on what has happened.
| A．A good listener |
| B．Following a friend’s advice |
| C．Then try your best to achieve your dream |
| D．It may be harder to make and keep friends over time |
| E．We need a close friend who is willing to listen with his heart |
| F．When you are at a loss, it’s important to have someone to turn to |
| G．If you lie to the friend and he later finds out about it, it may hurt the friendship |
5 . When romantic partners argue over things like finances, jealousy, or other interpersonal issues, they tend to employ their current feelings as fuel for a heated argument. But thinking about the future helps overcome relationship conflicts, according to a University of Waterloo study just published online in Social Psychological and Personality Science. Alex Huynh, a doctoral candidate in psychology is the lead author of the study, which he published with Igor Grossmann from the University of Waterloo, and Daniel Yang from Yale University.
Previous research has shown that third-perspective reasoning can be a positive strategy for reconciliation (调解) of interpersonal struggles. Huynh and his collaborators investigated whether similar benefit can be induced by simply thinking about the future. Study participants were instructed to reflect on a recent conflict with a romantic partner or a close friend. One group of participants were then asked to describe how they would feel about the conflict one year in the future, while another group was asked to describe how they feel in the present.
The team examined participants’ written responses through a text-analysis program for their use of pronouns — such as I, me, she, he. These choices of pronouns were used to capture participants’ focus on the feelings and behaviour of those involved in the conflict. Written responses were also examined for forgiveness and reinterpreting the conflict more positively, both of which implied the participants’ use of reasoning strategies.
The researchers found that envisioning future relationship affected both participants’ focus on their feelings, and their reasoning strategies. As a result, participants reported more positivity about their relationship altogether, especially when study participants extended their thinking about the relationship a year into the future.
“Our study demonstrates that adopting a future-oriented perspective in the context of a relationship conflict — reflecting on how one might feel a year from now — may be a valuable coping tool for one’s psychological happiness and relationship well-being,” said Huynh.
1. What do romantic partners do in face of most disagreements?| A．They lose faith in their future. | B．They focus on their present feelings. |
| C．They look forward to a fierce conflict. | D．They care more about financial problems. |
| A．Caused. | B．Explained. |
| C．Reduced. | D．Improved. |
| A．All the study participants described how they felt both in the present and in the future. |
| B．Study participants described their recent relationship with their romantic partners or friends. |
| C．A text-analysis program was employed to examine participants’ use of negative words. |
| D．The reasoning strategies in participants’ written responses were well worthy of note. |
| A．You have a year to solve your interpersonal problems! |
| B．Thinking about future is essential for relationship maintenance! |
| C．Your current feelings are the real cause of your heated arguments! |
| D．Beneficial reasoning is a positive strategy for reconciliation! |
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