你有没有遇到过必须对某人说不?比如有个同学约你一起吃饭，或是有个室友问你是否愿意以后继续一起住？
New research suggests that, at least socially, a rejection should not include an apology. In other words, saying you are sorry does not make the person being rejected feel any better.
新的研究表明，至少在社交方面，拒绝的时候不用夹带一句道歉。换句话说，说句对不起并不能让被拒绝的人感觉更好受点。
In fact, it might make the rejected person feel worse.
事实上这可能会使被拒绝者感觉更糟。
That is surprising. Many people consider it to be good manners to say they are sorry when they turn down a request.
这让人惊讶。很多人认为在拒绝某个请求时表示抱歉是有礼貌。
Gili Freedman is doing postdoctoral research at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. She just published her study on rejection in Frontiers in Psychology. For her research, she asked over 1,000 people to respond to different examples of social rejection.
弗雷曼在新罕布什尔州达特茅斯学院做博士后研究。她刚刚在《心理学前沿》上发表了关于拒绝的研究。她在研究中要求1千多人对不同的社交拒绝案例给出回应。
Freedman -- and other researchers -- did the research while she was completing her doctoral studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
弗雷曼在完成德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的博士学位期间同其他研究人员进行了这项研究。
In one example, the researchers asked people for their reaction after a person named Taylor asked to join a co-worker who went out to lunch every Friday.
在一起案例中，一位名为泰勒的人要求跟一位每周五出去吃午餐的同事一起用餐，研究人员调查了人们对此的反应。
In another case, they asked for people's reactions when Taylor asked a roommate whether they could continue to live with each other in the future.
在另一起案例中，他们调查了人们对泰勒询问室友以后是否可以继续同住的反应。
The participants did not know whether Taylor was a man or a woman.
参与者并不知道泰勒是男是女。
In both cases, and in other social experiments, Taylor was told "no." But in some cases, the person rejecting Taylor offered an apology, such as "I'm sorry." In other cases, the people doing the rejecting did not say they were sorry.
在这两起案例和其他社交试验中，泰勒都被拒绝了。但是在一些案例中，拒绝泰勒的人表示抱歉，例如说“对不起。”在其他案例中，拒绝者并未表示抱歉。
People were asked how they would feel if they were being turned down, just as Taylor was. Most said they would be more hurt by a rejection with an apology, than a rejection without an apology.
人们被问到，如果他们像泰勒一样被拒绝，他们会有什么感觉？大多数表示，与拒绝不道歉相比，他们会被拒绝加道歉伤得更深。
Freedman said the reason is that apologies make people feel like they need to say that the rejection was okay -- even when they felt like it was not okay. Rejection without an apology lets them express their feelings of disappointment, hurt or anger more easily.
弗雷曼表示，原因在于，道歉让人们觉得他们必须回应说被拒绝也没关系，即使他们觉得很有关系。拒绝不道歉让他们更容易表达出他们的失望、受伤或是愤怒的感觉。
"It seems like apologies actually increase hurt feelings, rather than decreasing them, which is often our goal when we want to let someone down easy."
弗雷曼表示：“似乎道歉加深了受伤感，而不是有所减轻。而减轻受伤感正是我们让某人失望时的目标。”
Freedman also said that an apology often makes the person doing the rejecting feel better -- even as it makes the person being rejected feel worse.
弗雷曼还表示，道歉通常让拒绝者感觉更好过，即使这会让被拒绝者感觉更糟。
Her research deals only with social interactions. A business situation might be very different. If a manager rejects a job candidate or a boss must tell an employee that he or she is being let go from a job, Freedman said, reactions to apologies may be different.
她的研究只涉及社交互动。商务场合可能会有很大不同。弗雷曼表示，如果一位经理拒绝一位求职者，或是一位老板必须要开除一名员工，对道歉的反应可能会有所不同。
"You can imagine, there are a lot of differences between me rejecting a friend for a coffee date, versus me firing someone. There is a different power dynamic. There are different consequences. So, we would have to do further research to see how apologies stack up in a business rejection."
弗雷曼表示：“你可以想象一下，我拒绝朋友约着喝咖啡跟我开除某人相比有很大不同。它们有着不同的权力力度，不同的后果。所以，我们必须做进一步研究来看看商务拒绝的对比情况。”
One famous line from the novel "Love Story" says "Love means never having to say you're sorry."
《爱情故事》这部小说中有句名言，“相爱就不用说抱歉。”
"Love Story" became a movie in 1970. Both the book and film were written by Erich Segal. The movie is a tragic love story between Jenny and Oliver, played by Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal.
Freedman was asked whether Love Story's writer got it right with those famous words. She said that she is a little too young to remember the 1970 movie.
《爱情故事》在1970年被拍成电影。这本书和电影都是Erick Segal写的。这部电影讲述的是珍妮和奥利弗之间的悲剧爱情故事，分别由阿里·麦格劳（Ali MacGraw）和瑞安·奥尼尔（Ryan O'Neal）扮演。
But she did say, "I think in this case -- in a social rejection at least, saying you're sorry might have some unintended consequences."
但她确实表示，“我认为在这种情况下，至少是在社交拒绝中，说抱歉可能会有一些意想不到的后果。”
I'm Bruce Alpert.
我是布鲁斯·阿尔伯特。(51VOA.COM对本文翻译保留全部权利，未经授权请勿转载，违者必究！)