虽然你喝醉了，但，你还是你！

研究表明，当你喝醉时，你在道德上仍然是同一个人

Many of us know that feeling of waking up, headache in tow, struggling to remember what we said and did after that extra drink the night before. And then suddenly, the memories vividly resurface.

很多人都有这样的感觉:一觉醒来，头痛欲坠，努力回忆前一天晚上喝多了酒之后说了什么，做了什么。然后，突然，记忆生动地重现。

Alcohol disinhibits us, making us say and do things that we'd otherwise keep under wraps. People will often drink to gain "Dutch courage" in a demanding situation.

酒精会抑制我们，让我们说和做一些我们不知道该怎么做的事情。人们常常在要求很高的情况下喝酒以获得“荷兰式的勇气”。

Many of us can understand the appeal of having a drink before a blind date or a social event – it can help to calm our nerves and cultivate confidence. That's because alcohol has a depressant effect which makes us feel more relaxed.

我们中的许多人都能理解在相亲或社交活动前喝一杯酒的吸引力——这有助于平静我们的神经和培养信心。这是因为酒精有抑制作用，使我们感到更放松。

Of course, alcohol's effects aren't all positive. We've all adopted nicknames for the characters that we become after a few drinks. Maybe you're the "happy drunk", or perhaps you've built a reputation for being the "aggressive drunk" who takes everything the wrong way after a pint.

当然，酒精的效果并不都是积极的。我们都给喝了几杯酒后变得不是自己的人起了绰号。也许你是“快乐的醉汉”，或者你是“好斗的醉汉”，喝了一品脱酒后，一切都往错误的方向走了。

The relationship between alcohol and antisocial behaviour is well documented – both anecdotally and in research. Plenty of arguments and fights stem from someone having had one too many.

酒精和反社会行为之间的关系是有据可查的——无论是轶事还是研究。很多争吵和打架都是因为某人喝得太多了。

Scientists believe we behave like this when drunk because we misinterpret social situations and lose our sense of empathy. In essence, once we start slurring words and stumbling, our ability to understand or share the emotions of others goes out the door, too.

科学家们认为，我们喝醉时之所以会这样做，是因为我们误解了社交场合，失去了同理心。从本质上说，一旦我们开始吞吞吐吐，结结巴巴，我们理解或分享他人情感的能力也就丧失了。

If someone has done something wrong while under the influence of alcohol, we tend to give them a "get out of jail free card", rather than hold them accountable for their actions. We also extend these excuses to ourselves.

如果有人在酒精的影响下做了错事，我们倾向于给他们一张“出狱免费卡”，而不是让他们为自己的行为负责。我们也把这些借口用到自己身上。

But in our research, we've attempted to paint a clearer picture of how drinking alcohol, empathy, and moral behaviour are related.

但在我们的研究中，我们试图描绘出一幅更清晰的画面，描述饮酒、同理心和道德行为之间的关系。

In turns out that while consuming alcohol might affect our empathy, making us respond inappropriately to other people's emotions and reactions, this doesn't necessarily change our moral standards, or the principles we use to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong.

事实证明，饮酒可能会影响我们的同理心，使我们对他人的情绪和反应做出不适当的反应，但这并不一定改变我们的道德标准，也不一定改变我们用来区分正确与错误的原则。

In a recent experiment, we gave participants shots of vodka and then measured their empathy and their moral decisions. We presented images showing various people expressing emotions to our participants.

在最近的一个实验中，我们给参与者注射伏特加，然后测量他们的同理心和道德决定。我们展示了各种各样的人向参与者表达情感的图片。

After having a higher dose of vodka, people began to respond inappropriately to these emotional displays, reporting that they felt positively about sad faces and negatively about happy faces. The more intoxicated people were, the more impaired their empathy became – having a few drinks weakened people's abilities to understand and share the emotions of others.

喝了更大剂量的伏特加后，人们开始对这些情绪化的表现做出不适当的反应，报告说他们对悲伤的脸感到积极，对快乐的脸感到消极。醉酒的人越多，他们的同理心就越受损——喝几杯酒会削弱人们理解和分享他人情感的能力。

But did this then have an effect on their morality?

但这对他们的道德有影响吗?

We had people tell us what they thought they would do in moral dilemmas and then also looked at what they actually did in a simulation of a moral dilemma in Virtual Reality. Consider what you might do in one of these situations:

我们让人们告诉我们他们在道德困境中会做些什么，然后看看他们在模拟虚拟现实中的道德困境时实际做了些什么。考虑在以下情况下您可能会做什么：

A runaway trolley is heading down some rail tracks towards five construction workers who can't hear it approaching. You're standing on a footbridge in between the approaching trolley and the workers. In front of you, is standing a very large stranger. If you push this stranger onto the tracks below, their large bulk will stop the trolley. This one person will be killed but the five construction workers will be saved. Would you do it?

一辆失控的电车正沿着铁轨向5名建筑工人驶来，而这些工人听不到它驶来的声音。你正站在一座人行桥上，在靠近的电车和工人之间。在你面前，站着一个很大的陌生人。如果你把这个陌生人推到下面的轨道上，他们的大块头会让电车停下来。这一人将被杀死，但这五名建筑工人将获救。你会这么做吗?

While alcohol might have impaired the empathy of our participants, it didn't have an effect on how they judged these moral situations or how they acted in them. If someone chose to push the person off the footbridge in order to save more lives while sober, they did the same thing when drunk.

虽然酒精可能会削弱我们参与者的同情心，但它对他们如何判断这些道德状况或他们在其中的行为没有影响。如果有人为了在清醒的时候挽救更多的生命而选择把这个人从人行天桥上推开，他们在喝醉的时候也会这样做。

If people refused to sacrifice the person's life in the same situation because they believed that killing was wrong regardless of the consequences, they also did the same when drunk.

如果人们拒绝在同样的情况下牺牲一个人的生命，因为他们认为无论后果如何杀人都是错误的，那么他们在喝醉的时候也会这么做。

It turns out that while we might believe that alcohol changes our personalities, it doesn't. You're still the same person after a drink – your existing sense of morality left intact.

事实证明，虽然我们可能认为酒精会改变我们的性格，但事实并非如此。喝过酒之后，你还是原来的那个你——你原有的道德感依然完好无损。

So while alcohol might affect how we interpret and understand the emotions of other people, we can't blame our immoral behaviours on alcohol.

因此，虽然酒精可能会影响我们如何理解他人的情绪，但我们不能把不道德的行为归咎于酒精。

Drunken you has the same moral compass. And so you are responsible for your moral and immoral actions, whether you've had a few drinks or not.

喝醉的你也有同样的道德准则。所以不管你有没有喝几杯酒，你都要为你的道德和不道德行为负责。