囧研究：感情问题危害少女精神健康

A new study surprised researchers, finding that for adolescent girls, romantic relationship problems can have serious, negative implications for their mental health.

一项新的研究震惊了研究者。研究发现对青春期的少女来说，感情问题对她们的精神健康会产生严重的负面影响。

“I found that girls’ risk of severe depression, thoughts of suicide, and suicide attempt increase the more their relationships diverge from what they imagined,” said the study’s author Brian Soller, Ph.D., an assistant professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico.

“我发现，恋爱关系越偏离女孩的想象，她们患严重抑郁症的风险、自杀的想法和企图就会增加。”该研究的作者、新墨西哥大学的社会学助理教授布瑞恩·索勒博士说道。

“Conversely, I found no evidence that romantic relationship inauthenticity —which captures the extent to which relationships unfold in ways that are inconsistent with how adolescents think or feel they should —contributes to poor mental health among boys.”

“相反，我发现即使恋情进展不尽如人意，恋爱关系也并不会影响男孩的精神健康。”

Soller used data from more than 5,300 high school students from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. From this data set he examined the mental health consequences of mismatches between adolescents’ ideal and actual relationships.

索勒使用了来自国家青少年健康纵向研究的5300多名中学生数据。从这个数据中，他检测了现实恋情与理想恋情不一致对青少年的精神健康造成的影响。

The study appears in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

这项研究发表在《健康与社会行为》杂志上。

Soller measured relationship inauthenticity by comparing how adolescents described their ideal relationship in an initial interview with how their first relationship after the interview actually played out.

索勒通过把青少年在最初的采访中描述的理想恋爱与采访结束后的实际恋爱情况作对比，来测量恋爱关系与理想恋爱的不一致性。

“In the initial interview, researchers provided adolescents with a number of cards describing events that often occur within relationships, including everything from hand-holding and kissing to sex,” Soller said.

“在最初的测试中，研究者们给青少年提供了许多描述恋爱的卡片，这些事情从牵手、接吻到性爱，”索勒说。

Respondents kept cards describing events they would engage in within an ideal relationship, and then indicated the order in which the events would occur.

在测试中，测试者保留描述理想恋爱的卡片，并且给出事件发生的顺序。

Roughly a year later, the respondents repeated the exercise, only this time they indicated which events took place within their relationship, and then provided the order in which the events transpired.

大约一年后，测试者重新进行测试，只是这次不同的是：她们要选择那些在自己恋爱中真是发生的事情，然后提供事情发生的顺序。

During both interviews, researchers asked participants about their mental health.

在两次测试中，研究者都询问了测试者她们的精神状态。

As for why relationship inauthenticity increased the risk of mental health problems for girls, but not for boys, Soller said, “Romantic relationships are particularly important components of girls’ identities and are, therefore, strongly related to how they feel about themselves —good or bad.

为什么恋爱关系不如意会影响女孩的精神健康，而对男孩没什么影响呢？索勒说，“恋爱关系对女孩这一身份来说格外重要，所以恋爱也会影响到她们对自身的看法——要么良好要么糟糕。”

“As a result, relationships that diverge from what girls envision for themselves are especially damaging to their emotional well-being.”

“结果，如果恋爱关系不如意，就会对女孩的情感健康产生极大影响。”

On the other hand, Soller said relationships are not as important to boys’ identities.

然而，索勒说，恋爱关系对于男孩这一身份来说不是那么重要。

“Boys may be more likely to build their identities around sports or other extracurricular activities, so this could be why they are not affected by relationship inauthenticity,” he said.

“男孩更容易在运动或其他课余活动中找到自我认同感，所以这也说明了为什么他们对于恋爱不如意的反应不是那么敏感。”

In terms of the study’s policy implications, Soller said parents, educators, and policymakers should think about how to help girls construct identities that are less closely tied to romantic involvement.

基于这一研究结果，索勒说家长、老师和决策人应该多想想如何帮助女孩脱离恋爱对自身的影响。

“Helping girls build their identities around things other than romantic relationships may mitigate the effects of relationship inauthenticity on their mental health,” he said.

“帮助女孩建立自我认同感，而不是仅仅依赖于恋爱关系，这样就可以减缓恋爱不如意对她们精神健康的影响。”索勒说道。