Social scientists bear glad tidings for the holiday season. After extensively observing how people respond to gifts, they have advice for shoppers: You don’t have to try so hard.

You’re not obliged to spend hours finding just the right gift for each person on your list. Most would be just as happy with something quick and easy. This may sound too good to be true, but rest assured this is not a ploy by some lazy Scrooges in academia.

社會科學家為假日季節帶來令人愉悅的消息。在廣為觀察人們對禮物的反應後，他們向購物者提出了建議：你不需要這麼辛苦。

你沒有必要花上好幾個小時，為你名單上的每個人找到適合的禮物。即使是輕鬆快速挑選的禮物，一樣能令大多數人高興。也許這聽起來好得教人難以置信，但請放心，這並不是學術界一些懶惰的小氣鬼耍弄的噱頭。

These researchers are meticulous analysts of gift-giving rituals, and this year they have more data than ever to back up their advice:

Don’t aim for the “big reveal.” Many shoppers strive to find a sensational toy or extravagant piece of jewelry that will create drama when it’s opened. But drama is not what recipients want, according to a new study by Jeff Galak of Carnegie Mellon University.

這些研究人員一絲不苟地分析送禮風俗，今年他們有了比以往更多的資料來支持他們的建言：

不要以「打開禮物時的驚喜」為目標。許多購物者努力去找令人驚奇的玩具或昂貴的珠寶，想在禮物拆封時創造戲劇效果，但根據卡內基美隆大學賈拉克的新研究，戲劇效果並不是收禮者要的。

He and his colleagues have found that gifts go wrong because the givers are focused on the moment of exchange, whereas the recipients are thinking long-term: Will I actually get any use out of this?

Don’t “over-individuate” your gifts. People too often give bad presents because they insist on buying something different for everyone.

賈拉克與研究夥伴們發現，禮物選錯是因為送禮的人專注在交換的那一刻，收禮者想的卻是長期問題：我真能用上它嗎？

不要「太過量身打造」你的禮物。人們太常因為堅持為每個人買不同的禮物而選錯禮物。

In experiments using greeting cards and gifts, psychologists found that people typically feel obliged to choose unique items for each person on their list even when the recipients wouldn’t know if they got duplicates — and even when one particularly good gift would work better for everyone.

The more gifts you select, the more likely you’ll pick some duds. If you can find one sure thing, don’t be afraid to give it more than once.

在使用禮卡和禮物的實驗中，心理學家發現，人們常常覺得非得為名單上每個人挑選不同的禮物不可，就算收禮者不會知道拿到了跟別人一樣的東西，就算某一種特別好的禮物會讓每個人更高興，也是如此。

你挑選愈多種禮物，就愈有可能挑到廢物。如果你能找到一種確定很好的禮物，不要怕重複送出。

— Don’t be ashamed to regift. Researchers have found that most people assume that someone who gave them a gift would be deeply offended if they passed it along to someone else. But these same studies show that most givers actually aren’t offended.

Once they give someone a present, they figure it’s the recipient’s right to dispose of it at will.

——不用對轉送禮物感到難為情。研究人員發現，大多數人以為如果把收到的禮物轉送他人，送禮者會深感不悅，然而，同樣的研究顯示，大多數送禮者其實不會生氣。

他們一旦把禮物送出去了，就認為收禮者有權隨意處置。

— Let your recipients do the work for you. They know what they want better than you do. If they’ve asked for something, buy it instead of surprising them.

Psychologists have found people are happier getting items listed in their gift registry than unsolicited gifts, and in some cases they’re happier still to receive cash. (But one of the researchers, Francis Flynn of Stanford University, cites an exception: Don’t try giving your spouse cash.)

——讓收禮的人為你找禮物。他們對自己想要什麼比你清楚。如果他們要求過某種東西，買就是了，不用讓他們驚喜。

心理學家發現，人們收到在心目中禮物名冊上的禮物時，會比收到從未要求過的禮物更開心，在某些情況下，收到現金更是高興。（不過，其中一名研究人員、史丹福大學的弗林提到一個例外：可別給配偶現金。）

Iceland, it seems, is full of hidden poets.

When they’re not at their day jobs, a great many of the island’s 330,000 inhabitants dabble in verse, including politicians, businessmen, horse breeders and scientists who study the genetic isolation of the island in pursuit of medical breakthroughs. Even David Oddsson, who was prime minister in 2002 (when Iceland’s banks were privatized) and central bank governor in 2008 (when they collapsed), is a poet by training.

冰島似乎到處都是隱藏的詩人。

島上的33萬居民在從事正職之餘，有很多人寄情於詩，包括政治人物、商人、養馬的人，以及研究這個島的遺傳性隔離，以尋求醫學突破的科學家。連2002年（那一年冰島銀行私有化）時擔任冰島總理，並於2008年（那一年冰島銀行破產）時擔任中央銀行總裁的大衛．奧德松，都是科班出身的詩人。

Birgitta Jonsdottir, the leader of the anarchist-leaning Pirate Party, which did well in a recent general election, describes herself rather loftily as a “poetician.” Her first published poem, “Black Roses,” written when she was 14, is about a nuclear holocaust.

Kari Stefansson, one of the world’s leading geneticists and the founder of Decode Genetics, recalled a poem he wrote in 1996, a few months after the birth of Dolly, the cloned sheep.

帶有無政府主義傾向的海盜黨在最近的選舉中表現很好，黨魁碧兒姬妲．楊斯多蒂爾頗為高傲地自稱為「詩治家」（poetician）。她發表的第一首詩、14歲時寫的「黑玫瑰」，是關於一場核子浩劫。

卡里．斯特方松是世界頂尖的遺傳學家之一，也是解碼遺傳學公司的創辦人，他回想起他在1996年複製羊「桃莉」誕生幾個月後寫的一首詩。

“I was a little bit depressed,” Stefansson said in his office, which, with its slit windows and computer screens, looked a bit like the interior of a spaceship. “One of my ways to deal with that was to write a small poem,” he said, before proceeding to recite it:「當時我有點憂鬱」，斯特方松在自己的辦公室裡這麼說，辦公室有些狹長的窗子和電腦螢幕，顯得有點像太空船的內部。他說：「我處理這種情緒的方式之一，就是寫一首小詩」，接著背誦起來：

迷失在陽光燦爛日子裡的明亮之中，我去何處尋覓，

一個不快樂男人的幸福，

還好這只是一個複製的他，

其餘一切糟透了。

Poetry is a national pastime, but not a particularly “specialist activity,” said Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson, a professor of Icelandic literature at the University of Iceland.

“It’s part of being an Icelander,” he said. “Yes, it’s charming, isn’t it?”

In earlier times, verses were an integral part of social gatherings and were often improvised, he said. Poetry contests were held, with the prizes going to the wittiest, sharpest verses. The most popular verse form, he said, is called “ferskeytla,” four rhymed lines that can be divided into two parts.

冰島大學冰島文學教授斯溫．尼格維．艾吉爾松說，詩是一種全民消遣，但不是特別的「專業活動」。

他說：「這是冰島人的一部分。是的，很迷人，不是嗎？」

他說，早年，社交聚會少不了詩，經常是即興創作。還會舉行詩賽，獎頒給最富機趣、最犀利的詩。他說，最風行的詩格是「四行詩」（ferskeytla），有四句押韻的詩句，可以分為兩部分。

Icelanders are unusually prolific readers and writers, and books of verse tend to sell well in Iceland. Poetry was the third-largest category of books published in the country in 2014, after fiction and the arts, according to figures from the national library. Far more poetry books were published in Iceland that year than books about economics or public administration. (There were apparently none at all about finance.)

The cold oceanic climate and long winter nights may also have something to do with it.

“People usually get bored, and they try to humor each other,” Egilsson said. “One of those ways is poetry.”

冰島人的閱讀量和寫作量都大得出奇，詩集在冰島通常賣得不錯。根據國家圖書館的統計，詩集是2014年出版量第三大的書類，排在小說和藝術類書籍之後。那一年冰島出版的詩集遠多於關於經濟學或公共行政的書籍（金融類書籍顯然掛零）。

這也許與這裡寒冷的海洋氣候與漫長的冬夜有關。艾吉爾松說：「人們往往會覺得無聊，想彼此取樂，詩是一種方式。」

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文／田思怡

本文提到詩時，有時用verse，有時用poem，有時用poetry，一般這三個字可以交替使用，若要細分，verse可以是一個詩節（a stanza）、一行詩（one of the lines of a poem），或是品質不太好的詩，例如，He is a writer of verse, not poetry.（他寫的詩稱不上詩。）

poem和poetry都是詩，前者可數，例如a poem（一首詩），後者是詩的總稱，不可數。

文中用了一個冰島字ferskeytla（四行詩），英文稱為quatrain（a poem consisting of four rhymed lines）。