朋友越少越聪明

I used to have a lot of friends. In fact, one of my friends recently commented on how easy it is for me to make friends. This may have been true once, but I'm not so sure of my friend-making abilities these days.

曾经，我有过很多朋友。事实上，最近我的一位朋友说他/她觉得我交朋友太容易了。曾经的确如此，但近来我却对交朋友的能力不那么确定了。

I'm not very confident in my friend-keeping abilities. If you compared the number of good friends I have now to the amount I had five years ago, there would be a huge difference. I have fewer friendships than I used to.

我对自己交朋友的能力没那么自信。如果你将我现在的朋友数量与五年前相比，那差距就太大了。现在的朋友比以前少得多。

Lead researchers, Satoshi Kanazawa and Norman Li, evolutionary psychologists in England, found that, while most people's happiness increased in relation to a decrease in population density (as well has a high percentage of interactions with loved ones), people who are extremely intelligent are actually happier when they're not hanging out with friends.

首席研究员、英格兰的进化心理学家Satoshi Kanazawa和Norman Li发现：虽然随着人口密度的降低，人们的幸福度上升（以及与心爱的人互动更频繁），但对于那些超聪明的人而言，不和朋友出去玩才是他们更开心的时候。

"More intelligent individuals experience lower life satisfaction with more frequent socialization with friends," the study said.

"更聪明的人如果与朋友频繁社交就会对生活不怎么满意，"研究说道。

In an article on The Washington Post, Carol Graham, a Brookings Institute researcher who studies the economics of happiness, said, "The findings suggest (and it is no surprise) that those with more intelligence and the capacity to use it ... are less likely to spend so much time socializing because they are focused on some other longer term objective."

在《华盛顿邮报》的一篇文章中，布鲁金斯研究所的一名研究员卡罗尔·格雷厄姆研究幸福经济学，他说道："研究结果表明（毫无意外），那些更聪明、有能力运用自己智慧的人不太可能花很长时间社交，因为他们更关注其它一些更长远的目标。"

It makes sense. Super-smart people usually have exciting new theories they want to prove, or inventions they're working on that will change the world. The highly intelligent don't want to spend their time socializing - they want to pursue their goals. They've got more important things to do than listen to their friends talk about their vacations in Italy over dinner.

这是说得通的。超聪明的人通常要证明令人兴奋的新理论、或者要发明改变世界的东西。超聪明的人不想把时间花在社交上面--他们想要追求自己的目标。他们有更重要的事情去做，而不是在晚餐的时候听自己的朋友叨叨自己的意大利之旅。

The study suggests that the brains of our hunter-gatherer ancestors were perfectly adapted to life on the African savannah, where the population would have been scattered, with people living in groups of around 150. Social interaction would have been extremely important in order to survive, especially in terms of co-operation and finding a mate, but space would have been crucial as well.

这一研究表明我们狩猎祖先的大脑完全适应了非洲大草原的生活，那里的人群分散，大约150个人生活在一个群体中。为了生存，社交至关重要，尤其是在合作和寻找配偶方面，但空间也同样重要。