金學堂英語的部落格

For the Rich, Troubling Behavioral Issues

When Thomas Gilbert Jr. was arrested in early January and charged with killing his wealthy father , the chatter began almost immediately.

Tabloid reports suggested that there had been a disagreement over the 30-year-old’s allowance before he apparently shot his father in the head.

On Twitter, people called him “trust fund kid” and “most spoiled brat.”

小湯瑪斯．吉伯特一月初被捕且被控殺害他的有錢父親時，街談巷議幾乎立刻傳開。

八卦小報暗示，這名30歲的嫌犯顯然對父親頭部開了槍，事前曾為零用錢和父親爭執。推特上人們稱他「信託基金小子」和「徹底寵壞的傢伙」。

圖片來源／ingimage

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But parents were having a more searching conversation. How is it that a 30-year-old graduate of the prestigious Princeton University in New Jersey still gets pocket money from his parents? What, if anything, went wrong in the way his parents raised him? And is there something about the environment that his mother and hedge-fundrunning father raised him in that may have been damaging?

In the last 15 years , academics have spent an increasing amount of time studying ailments of the affluent. A consensus is emerging that these children often have higher rates of depression and anxiety and elevated levels of substance abuse and some delinquent behaviors. Surprisingly, it was the study of poverty that led a psychologist, Suniya Luthar, now a professor at Arizona State University, to some of the first findings in this area . Expecting to find more troubling trends among children in lower- income families, she used data from a more affluent group as a comparison.

為人父母者的對話可就更深刻了。為何這個畢業於名校新澤西州普林斯頓大學的人，30歲了還跟父母拿零用錢？他父母的養育方式是否有錯？在他的母親與操作避險基金的父親養育他的環境中，是否有任何與環境相關的有害因素？

15年來學術界花愈來愈多的時間研究富裕族群的問題。其中一項一致的看法是，有錢人家小孩憂鬱和焦慮的比率通常較高，菸酒及藥物濫用和行為不良的情形也較多。令人驚訝的是，心理學家、現為亞利桑納州州立大學教授的桑妮亞．盧瑟，是在一項針對貧窮的研究中首度在這個領域有所發現。為了在低收入家庭孩童中找出更令人困擾的趨勢，她拿較富裕家庭的數據來對照。

What she found in 1999, and since, however, was a surprise. Using data that included families with incomes of about $150,000, she found that adolescents in higher-income families had higher rates of substance abuse than those in lower-income ones. This made a certain amount of sense, since they could afford the drugs and the vehicles to go buy them .

But the more affluent suburban youth also stole from their parents more often than youth with less money and were more likely to experience significant levels of depression, anxiety and physical ailments that seemed to stem from those mental conditions. These behaviors began emerging as early as seventh grade.

然而，她從1999年起的發現出人意表。採用包括收入約15萬美元家庭的數據後，她發現收入較高家庭的青少年，藥物濫用比率高於收入較低家庭。這有一定的道理，因為有錢人家小孩有錢、也有交通工具去買藥物。

這些市郊富裕家庭的青少年，從父母那兒偷東西的情形也比低收入家庭者多，而且更可能出現明顯的憂鬱、焦慮，以及看似源自這些心理問題的疾病。這些問題行為最早會自七年級開始浮現。

Were these results attributable to parenting? Are children left to their own devices after school? Maybe the number of hours parents needed to spend working to make above-average amounts and maintain a nice life in an upper- middle-class community was the problem. Or it could have been pressure from the parents to achieve levels of success similar to their own .

Ms. Luthar said she understood how hard it could be to resist pressuring children.

這些結果是否和父母養育有關？這些孩子離開學校後是否就該放任不管？也許，父母花時間在工作上以賺取高於平均值的薪水，並維持在中上階級社區的美好生活，是問題所在。或者，父母對子女施加壓力，希望他們和自己一樣成功也是原因。

盧瑟說，她了解要忍住不對子女施加壓力有多困難。

But was it also possible that there was something about the affluent communities that was contributing to the troubles? In 2012, Terese J. Lund and Eric Dearing published a study that found that middle-class children who lived in middle-class neighborhoods had less depression and anxiety and fewer incidences of delinquency than middle-class children who lived in more affluent neighborhoods.

Mr. Dearing allow ed that people in affluent communities were more tuned in to mental health issues and thus more likely to report them to researchers. Still, he said, that didn’t mean they were exaggerating their hurt; it just meant that health professionals also ought to help lower-income people recognize and treat symptoms of depression and anxiety .

但是，富裕社區的某種特質，是否可能是造成這些麻煩的原因？2012年，特瑞莎．朗德和艾瑞克．狄林發表研究報告，發現住在中產階級社區的中產階級家庭孩童，比起住在富裕社區的中產階級孩童，憂鬱和焦慮的情形較少，犯罪次數也較低。

狄林同意，住在富裕社區的人更容易察覺心理健康問題，也更可能通報給研究者。但他說這並非意味這些人誇大傷害，僅表示衛生官員一樣應該設法幫助低收入者察覺及治療憂鬱和焦慮症狀。

In the relatively new field, there is still much that the scholars do not know. There is not a lot of long-term data, and most subjects in the studies were white. And it isn’t completely clear how best to support wealthy parents in efforts to deal with the problems .

Still, Ms. Luthar said she was reasonably sure about what parents should avoid: “Our research consistently found if there is one thing related to problems of all kinds, it is being highly criticized by your parents . It is one of the most powerful risk factors.”

這個研究領域相當新，仍有很多研究者不知道的事。長期研究資料不多，且研究標的多為白人。如何幫助有錢父母處理這些問題才是上策也不完全清楚。

盧瑟仍表示，她合理地確信家長應該避免的事是，「我們的研究一致發現，如果有一項因素和所有問題都有關，那就是被父母重話批評(嚴責)。這是最大的風險因素之一」。