Empathy and generosity are two traits (特征) that make the world go around. But a study suggests that the willingness to help collapses when people get too little-or poor-sleep.
To see how sleep affects how much humans help one another, researchers conducted three experiments designed to examine the issue from the individual to the societal scale. Their results are published in PLOS Biology.
In the first experiment, researchers performed functional MRI scans (功能性磁共振成像扫描) of the brain and asked questions to 24 adults after eight hours of sleep and after a night with no sleep. When they were well rested, the participants scored well on a helping behavior test. But after sleep loss, 78 percent had less of a desire to help others, even when it came to friends and family. The scans showed that areas of the brain associated with social cognition-our thought processes related to other people-were less active with sleep loss.
The second experiment tracked 136 healthy adults over four nights and asked them questions about helping the following day. The effect held for them, too, and those who reported worse sleep quality scored worse on the tests.
To test the effects on a societal level, the researchers then looked at a database of 3 million charitable donations given between 2001 and 2016. They found that immediately following the beginning of daylight saving time (夏令时) — a sleep disrupter — donations dropped 10 percent. The effect wasn’t found in data from Hawaii or Arizona, however; neither observe daylight saving time.
Why bother studying how helpful people are when we don’t get enough shut-eye?
“We’re starting to see more and more studies, including this one, where the effects of sleep loss don’t just stop at the individual, but spread to those around us,” said Eti Ben Simon, a scientist at the University of California who co-wrote the study, in a news release. “If you’re not getting enough sleep, it doesn’t just hurt your own well-being, it hurts the well-being of your entire social circle, including strangers.”
There’s a silver lining to all that ungenerous behavior, he writes: Unlike personality traits, sleep can be adjusted — both getting enough and helping others do the same might make for a better world.
5. What does the underlined word “collapse” probably mean in paragraph 1?
A.Disappear. | B.Vary. | C.Skyrocket. | D.Decrease. |
6. Which of the following statements is true according to the first experiment?
A.Participants who had sufficient sleep were unwilling to aid others. |
B.Those who didn’t rest well were willing to help friends and family. |
C.About three quarters of participants were unwilling to help due to lack of sleep. |
D.The MRI scans showed that generous behavior promotes social cognition. |
7. What does Eti Ben Simon mainly stress in last two paragraphs?
A.The loss of sleep poses a major danger to individuals. |
B.Bettering our sleep will benefit society as a whole. |
C.Improving sleeping quality should be given the top priority in the USA. |
D.Having enough sleep can do wonders for your constitution. |
8. What might be the best title for the text?
A.Too little sleep makes people less generous |
B.There’s a silver lining to ungenerous behavior |
C.The importance of empathy and generosity |
D.The societal impact of sleep loss |