你的育兒書里缺一本鬼故事

In the oldest version of the Snow White story, the evil queen gets her comeuppance via a pair of molten metal shoes, which she has to wear until she dies from the pain. The Grimm version of Cinderella has doves that peck out the stepsisters’ eyes. Hans Christian Andersen’s little mermaid grows legs only after drinking a potion that puts her in permanent, excruciating pain (and the prince ends up with someone else anyway).

在最老版本的白雪公主故事中，邪惡皇后的懲罰是穿著融化的金屬鞋子，直到她死亡為止。而在格林版本的灰姑娘故事中，白鴿啄出了異母姐妹的眼睛。安徒生的小美人魚只有喝下會讓她永久痛苦的藥水之后才能長出雙腿。

Today’s Disneyfied fairy tales, in other words, have come a long way from their darker roots — in fact, as writer Alison Flood recently reported in the Guardian, roughly a third of parents will avoid a story altogether if reading it would mean exposing their kids to a scary character. Granted, the report was based on a less-than-scientific source — a small poll of around 1,000 adults in the U.K. — but it nevertheless raises an interesting question: Are those kids missing out on anything?

如今的迪士尼童話，比起它們的黑暗根源則有了長足進步。事實上，正如作家Alison Flood最近報道的那樣，幾乎有三分之一的父母會避開能引起孩子恐怖情緒的故事。當然，這一報道的根據(jù)稱不上科學來源，它依靠的是一個包含英國一千多名成年人的小調(diào)查。但它提出了一個有趣的問題：這些孩子們錯過了什么東西沒?

Some psychologists argue that the answer is yes: Scary stories, like nightmares, are a sort of dress rehearsal for real-life fear, helping kids learn to cope with the emotion in a low-stakes setting. “How can you feel safe and secure until you know what it’s like to be afraid?” psychologist Emma Kenny told the Guardian. “The world can be a scary place — children will get into situations where they’re told off by teachers, or fall out with friends. Knowing how to confront fear is a good thing.”

某些心理學家們認為孩子們確實錯過了一些東西：恐怖故事，就像噩夢一樣，是現(xiàn)實生活中恐懼的彩排，它能幫助孩子們學會處理較低級別的情緒。心理學家Emma Kenny表示：“在你知道什么是害怕之前，怎么能感覺到安全呢?世界也會是一個很可怕的地方，孩子們總會經(jīng)歷被老師斥責、和朋友們爭吵等情景。知道如何面對恐懼是一件好事。”

And sociologist Margee Kerr, a “scare specialist” who studies fear, told The Atlantic in 2012 that frightening experiences can be a helpful tool when it comes to developing confidence: “Think about the last time you made it through a scary movie, or through a haunted house. You might have thought, ‘yes! I did it! I made it all the way through!’’’ she said. “So it can be a real self-esteem boost.”

社會學家Margee Kerr，作為一名專門研究恐懼的“恐懼專家”，她曾在2012年表示在發(fā)展自信這方面，可怕的經(jīng)歷也可以成為有用的工具：“想想上次你看完恐怖電影或者穿過鬼屋的時候，你可能會想‘耶!我做到了!我成功地完成了這些!因此它能提升自信。’”

Age also isn’t a foolproof indicator for how a person will feel about scary material – some kids, like some adults, can enjoy the experience. A frightened brain will produce a cocktail of chemicals, including cortisol, the stress hormone, and adrenaline and noradrenaline, which are part of the fight-or-flight response. But it also produces dopamine, which is linked to pleasure and reward-seeking behavior — and the way our brains handle dopamine may influence how we feel about scary stories.

年齡并不是某個人會對恐怖事物有何反應的簡單指標——某些孩子，就像某些大人一樣，能夠享受這一經(jīng)歷。一個被嚇到的大腦會產(chǎn)生復雜的化學物質(zhì)，包括壓力荷爾蒙皮質(zhì)醇、腎上腺素和去甲腎上腺素，它們是戰(zhàn)或逃反應的一部分。但它也會產(chǎn)生多巴胺，它同愉悅和尋求獎勵的行為有關(guān)，我們的大腦處理多巴胺的方式也許會影響我們對恐怖故事的感覺。

As the Washington Post’s Rachel Feltman has explained, “molecules called autoreceptors that sit on our nerve cells keep track of the abundance of the chemicals and tell our bodies when to slow down their production.” And research has suggested that “folks with fewer autoreceptors were more likely to seek out thrilling situations, possibly because they … get more dopamine out of a scary situation than other people do.” This is why horror movies and haunted houses can be terrifying and pleasurable simultaneously — and why the scary versions of well-known stories can have as much to offer kids as the Disneyfied ones.

正如華盛頓郵報的Rachel Feltman解釋的那樣，位于我們神經(jīng)細胞中的分子自受體能夠追蹤這些化學物質(zhì)的含量并告訴我們的身體何時該減慢釋放這些化學物質(zhì)的速度。研究顯示體內(nèi)含有自受體更少的人更有可能尋求刺激產(chǎn)經(jīng)，這可能是因為他們從恐怖經(jīng)歷中獲得的多巴胺比其他人多。也因此恐怖電影和鬼屋既能讓人害怕又能讓人感到愉悅，家喻戶曉故事中的恐怖場景給孩子們帶來的體驗不比迪士尼童話差。