Happy people tend to talk more than unhappy people, but when they do, it tends to be less small talk and more substance.
　　快樂的人比不快樂的人更易于說更多話，而且當他們開口時，更多的是有實質內容的交談，而不是閑聊。
　　A group of psychologists from the University of Arizona and Washington University in St. Louis set out to find whether happy and unhappy people differ in the types of conversations they tend to have. For their study, volunteers wore an unobtrusive recording device called the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) over four days. The device periodically records snippets of sounds as participants go about their lives.
　　 來自亞利桑那大學和華盛頓大學圣路易斯分校的一隊心理學家開始著手研究快樂的人和不快樂的人各自可能發(fā)生的談話種類是否會有所不同。研究中，志愿者在四天里都要戴上一件叫做電子激活錄音器（EAR）的不易被發(fā)現(xiàn)的錄音設備，它可以在被測者日常活動時定期錄下聲音片段。
　　The EAR sampled 30 seconds of sounds every 12.5 minutes yielding a total of more than 20,000 recordings. Researchers then listened to the recordings and identified the conversations as trivial small talk or substantive discussions. In addition, the volunteers completed personality and well-being assessments.
　　EAR 每12.5 分鐘便會錄下一段 30 秒長的聲音，總共會產生2 萬段以上的錄音。然后研究員會聽這些錄音，并分辨出這些談話是屬于平常的閑聊還是屬于實質性的討論。另外，志愿者還要完成個人性格及安逸度的評估。
　　 Here’s what the researchers found:
　　研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)：
　　The happiest participants spent 25 percent less time alone and 70 percent more time talking than the unhappiest participants. The happiest participants also had twice as many substantive conversations and one-third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants.
　　最快樂的參與者比最不快樂的獨處時間少25%，與他人說話的時間多70%。同時，前者有實質內容的交談是后者的兩倍，閑聊數量是后者的 1/3。
　　The findings suggest that happy lives are social and conversationally deep, rather than solitary and superficial. The researchers think that deep conversations may have the potential to make people happier, though the findings from this study don’t identify cause-andeffect between the two.
　　結論顯示，快樂的生活具有社會層面的意義并與日常交談有關，而并不僅僅是個體差異和表面現(xiàn)象。雖然這項研究的結論并沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)談話種類與快樂度之間的因果聯(lián)系，但研究人員認為，有深度的交談也許更可能讓人快樂。