It is a little-known fact that a life lived without enemies would be an extraordinarily dull affair. One person who understood this very clearly was the nineteenth century British essayist William Hazlitt, whose misanthropic-sounding On the Pleasure of Hating was in fact a gracefully written ode to this much maligned social emotion: "Without something to hate," wrote Hazlitt, "we should lose the very spring of thought and action. Life would turn to a stagnant pool, were it not ruffled by the jarring interests, the unruly passions of men." Suddenly the idea of a utopian society, where everyone is satisfied, equal and good, sounds like a rather drab and stultifying place. Heaven, according to this view, would be a special kind of Hell, a land filled with the souls of smiling, slumbering idiots intoxicated by unending love, understanding and pleasant company. （And an especially interminable ocean of boredom, since one couldn't even escape through death.）

    Or consider, where would Bill O'Reilly be without the "Liberal Left" that so angers him, Richard Dawkins without the "dyed-in-the-wool" believers who've become the bane of his existence, or prosecutorial talk show host Nancy Grace without the "scum" she abhors so passionately? （Writer Jean Genet, who spent the first half of his life as a cog in the French penal system, pointed out that criminals were just as important to society as were those who despised them. After all, said Genet, an entire industry of people-lawyers, judges, jailers, clerks, guards, legislators, psychiatrists, counselors and so on-were only able to pay their taxes, feed their children and furnish their homes through the tireless labors of criminals.） Without someone to hate, these pundits would be considerably poorer, no doubt, without a soapbox to stand on and void of any unique social function. With all this in mind, I suppose it was a very wise PR person who once told me that if ever I found myself universally liked, this would be a sign that I was doing something very wrong.

    Yet the problem is that, although I can certainly appreciate the rationale behind this strategic advice and I'm all too happy to submit to our species' natural taste for self-righteous animosity, I've unfortunately （and, I must say, embarrassingly） inherited a rather "sensitive" disposition. For most people, it's relatively easy to hate-even, as Hazlitt reasoned, to find a hidden pleasure in such emotions. But, unless you're a genuine sociopath, it's a real feat to derive such pleasure from actually being the subject of others' wrath. And that, of course, is the ugly flip side of Hazlitt's glimmering coin of hatred.

    According to Duke University psychologist Mark Leary, the feeling of being disliked, ostracized or rejected was specially designed by evolution to be particularly painful; subjectively speaking, being evaluated negatively by others can feel even worse than physical trauma. The reason that others' negative evaluations affect us so deeply, Leary believes, has to do with our primate past.

    Unlike virtually every other species, the hominids could not rely on speed, flight, strength, arboreal clambering, burrowing or ferocity to evade predators. Many theorists in psychology, anthropology and biology have noted that human beings and their hominid ancestors survived and prospered as species only because they lived in cooperative groups. Given the importance of group living, natural selection favored individuals who not only sought the company of others but also behaved in ways that led others to accept, support and help them.

    In other words, for a human being, only death itself ensures a speedier genetic demise than stigma and exclusion. To ensure that our ancestors were ever wary of their tenuous dependence on others, Leary proposes that they evolved a sort of subjective, psychological gauge that served to continually monitor their fluctuating "relational value," an affective index of where the self stood in the eyes of other ingroup members. Generally speaking, the higher one's relational value, the greater one's reproductive opportunities and genetic fitness. Just as it continues to do today, this hypothetical "sociometer" generated emotional states that, collectively, were translated into what's popularly known as our "self-esteem." Assuming our sociometer isn't broken or impaired, negative self-esteem is a kind of warning, then, that one is at serious risk of social （and therefore genetic） exclusion.

    One of the most significant contributions of the sociometer hypothesis is that, over a decade of conducting carefully designed experiments meant to test its central tenets, Leary and his colleagues have almost completely debunked the popular "doesn't-matter-what-anyone-else-says" idea that self-esteem comes from the self. That is to say, if you're prone to boasting that you don't care what other people think about you, then you probably just haven't given enough thought to the source of your self-esteem-that, or you genuinely have a diagnosable personality disorder. There are, of course, individual differences in this domain. For example, "high self-monitors" are people who are unusually preoccupied with the impressions they're making on others. Such people-I tend to be one of these in real life-are overly agreeable chameleons who easily adopt the attitudes and beliefs of the prevailing social environment （at least on the surface）. But wherever we fall along the self-monitoring scale, each of us presumably has an innate sociometer providing continual emotional feedback and encouraging us to boost our relational value.

    The trouble, of course, is that each of us is also vulnerable to flubbing up the occasional social norm. If we were perfectly angelic specimens, we wouldn't need the sociometer to begin with; rather, the sociometer is as much a preemptive device for disarming our selfish desires and preventing dips in our relational value as it is a corrective one that prompts us to repair the reputation-related damage we've already done. One quick-and-dirty damage control tactic is apologizing to those we've wronged. And you might be surprised to learn just how effective a simple apology can be. In fact, a recent series of studies showed that, to a large extent, it doesn't even matter if the apology is patently insincere-at least for the target of the original wrongdoing. In this 2007 article by Cornell University psychologists Jane Risen and Thomas Gilovich and published in Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes, unsuspecting students were confronted with a surprisingly obnoxious person （ostensibly another student, but actually someone who was in on the experiment and acting out a script to test the researchers' hypotheses） during testing.

    For example, in one experiment, undergraduate students were told they were participating in an online group discussion with three other students, plus an experimenter posing to them a series of questions ranging from politics to adjustment to college. Risen and Gilovich write that, "the experimenter told participants that productive discussions are open, honest and insightful and that while discussing mildly sensitive topics, they should try to make comments that facilitate a productive discussion." At least, that's what the students thought was happening while sitting alone in their lab cubicles. In reality, there were only two other people online-the experimenter, who also assumed the roles of two sham participants （the "harmdoer" and the "coercer" in the coerced apology condition）, and one other real participant who served as the "onlooker" to the social offense event. This main event was scheduled to occur when the fourth question was posed to the target participant.

    This fourth question was written to encourage participants to simply respond "no." The experimenter asked the target student, "Do you think that the United States is doing everything it possibly can to provide equal rights for its gay citizens? Yes or no?" （Seven of forty-nine participants said "yes" and were excluded from the final analysis.） After the target student said "no," the experimenter delivered the social offense in the role of the "harmdoer" by saying, "you should just go move to Australia or Canada or something--this discussion thing would be more productive if you quit being such an ungrateful baby… realized that you're lucky to live here, and stopped focusing only on the negative."

    Although all participants were exposed to this social offense, either as the target or the observer, they were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. In the spontaneous condition, the "harmdoer" immediately wrote an apology: "You know what-that was too harsh. I'm sorry." In the coerced condition, the experimenter wrote as the "coercer": "I can't believe you said that. That was totally uncalled for. You need to apologize." The "harmdoer" then wrote an apology identical to the one in the spontaneous condition. Finally, for those in the no apology condition, the discussion continued without the "harmdoer" apologizing. For all conditions, three additional questions were posed without incident before the discussion came to an end and participants were asked to evaluate the other players on a number of dimensions.

    The results from these ratings revealed that although the targets "forgave" both the spontaneous apologist and the coerced apologist in equal measure, the observers did so only for the spontaneous apologist. In other words, the targets found both apologists equally likable, selfish, kind, arrogant, rude and compassionate, whereas the observers expressed a clear disdain for the one who apologized only after being coerced into it. Furthermore, while observers said they wanted nothing else to do with the coerced apologist, targets said they wouldn't mind working with this person again. Observers also recommended that the coerced apologist receive less payment for their participation on the task than they did for the spontaneous apologists, whereas the targets felt that the two types of apologists deserved equal amounts. Why this difference between the targets and observers in their forgiveness of the coerced harmdoer? Risen and Gilovich argue that whereas offended parties are motivated to appear forgiving rather than spiteful, observers （as neutral parties） are expected to be fair and discerning of others' intentions. As for the non-apologist, as you might expect, this person was disliked most of all-both the targets and observers expressed more anger towards this player than they did for either type of apologist.

    However, there's an important caveat to this finding that even insincere apologies are better than no apology when it comes to recovering precious dividends from one's sinking relational value. In another experiment, Risen and Gilovich found that when the responsibility for harmdoing is ambiguous, offering a coerced apology can backfire, with observers evaluating the apologist less favorably than someone who offers no apology at all. In this other experiment, participants were told that they'd be competing in a game of "communication skills" against other players. Each undergraduate participant sat back-to-back with another player （actually a confederate of the experimenters） as this other person put a set of K'nex toy pieces together and gave directions to the target about how to put an identical set of pieces together in the same way. The target was instructed to follow these directions without asking questions or making any comments. For each matching piece during this 5-minute game, the pair earned money （25 cents）. Another participant （the observer） simply watched on as this was happening, silently judging.

    Like the previous experiment, a seemingly unscripted social offense was inserted into the procedure. Here, the confederate player began by giving unclear instructions, answered his cell phone in the middle of the game, chatting idly for 1.5 minutes （"What?… No?… I can't believe he did that… Really?"）, then hung up and continued giving confusing instructions to the target. Against the backdrop of this laboratory ruse, participants were in fact randomly assigned to one of three different apology conditions. In the spontaneous condition, the "harmdoer" turned to the target and said, "I'm sorry, I really screwed that up for you." In the coerced condition, the harmdoer apologized only after a confederate observer castigated the harmdoer, "That was terrible. I can't believe you took a phone call. You totally ruined it for him [or her]. You really need to apologize." Finally, in the no apology condition, the harmdoer just sighed and began counting the number of completed pieces.

    As in the foregoing experiment, targets forgave both of the apologists equally but expressed lingering anger towards the player who didn't apologize at all. For the silent observers, however, the person who offered a coerced apology was judged even more harshly than the one who offered no apology at all. Risen and Gilovich point out that this intriguing finding "is consistent with findings from the legal arena, which suggest that apologies may only benefit harmdoers if their responsibility for the harm is clear. When the responsibility is clear, apologies increase the chance of plaintiffs and defendants reaching a settlement. If responsibility is ambiguous, however, apologies can be costly to the defendant because of the admission of responsibility." The authors suggest that, in the present case, observers may have actually given the harmdoer the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the phone call was indeed an emergency, or maybe some observers blamed the participant for not being able to follow muddled instructions on the puzzle game-until the harmdoer apologized.

    And speaking of apologies that are better left unsaid, I may have recently offered one or two myself.

    這是一個鮮為人知的事實：如果人生一生都沒有敵人將是一件非常乏味的事情。其中一個人非常理解這種狀況，他就是19世紀英國的散文家威廉。黑茲利特，他的著作《論仇恨的快感》事實上是一本寫的很優雅的歌頌仇恨這種被誹謗的社會情感的書："沒有仇恨，"黑茲利特寫道，"我們將失去思維和行動的源泉。如果不是沖突利益和不受控制的激情刺激，人們的生活將變成一潭死水。"突然間，烏托邦式的社會--在那里人人都滿足、人人都善良和平等--現在聽起來那會是個非常乏味和荒謬的地方。按照這種觀點，天堂將是一個特別友善的地獄，是一個充滿了微笑靈魂的地方，人們躺著沉迷在無盡的愛、善解人意和愉悅的伴侶里邊。（而且特別是無休止廣袤的無聊，因為人甚至不能通過死亡來逃避無聊）.

    或酌情考慮，如果沒有"自由左翼"如此激怒他，Bill O'Reilly將會變成什么樣子；如果道金斯不是堅持自己的信念"頑固不化",信徒們就不會成為他的存在的禍根，或如果這世界上沒有讓檢察脫口秀主持人南希格雷斯強烈痛恨的"敗類"們，又會變成什么樣子？（在法國的監獄系統作為警察工作了前半生的Jean Gene寫道，在一個社會上，罪犯們與鄙視他們的人同樣重要，畢竟，整個業界的人們--律師、法官、監獄工作員、職員、警衛、立法者、心理治療師、咨詢人員等等--只有當罪犯存在時，他們才可能通過與罪犯相關的工作保住飯碗，支付稅收、撫養孩子、裝飾家庭）.沒有憎恨的人，那些權威專家們將會變得極其貧乏，毫無疑問，如果沒有一個臨時舞臺作為支持，任何一種社會功能都會變得極其空洞。

    然而問題是，盡管我當然可以理解這一戰略性建議背后的邏輯，我也很高興將其歸結于人類這個物種對于自以為是的敵意的自然品味，遺憾的是（而且我必須說，尷尬地）我繼承了一種相當"敏感"的性情。對大多數人來說，仇恨是相對容易的--甚至，正如黑茲利特所推導的，人們會從仇恨這種感情中獲得隱秘的快樂。但是，除非你是一個真正反社會的人，從作為一個對別人暴怒的主體這一角色上獲得快樂是一種真正的技巧。當然，這也是黑茲利特那閃閃發光的仇恨論硬幣丑陋的一面。

    根據杜克大學的心理學家馬克瑞，被討厭、被排斥、被拒絕，這些情感都是由進化特別設計的從而人類可以感受到傷害。主觀地說，被別人負面的評價甚至比身體傷害會感覺更糟。馬克瑞認為對別人的負面評價這么深刻的影響我們的感覺與我們作為靈長類的過往相關。

    與幾乎其他任何一個物種不同，猿類不能夠依靠速度、飛行、力量、爬樹、掘洞或者是殘忍的躲避捕食者等等這些能力。很多心理學、人類學和生物學方面的理論家們都注意到人們和他們的猿類祖先作為物種生存和繁衍下來僅僅因為他們以合作群體的方式生存。鑒于集體生活的重要性，自然選擇更偏好那些不僅僅尋求別人陪伴同時行為表現也可以讓別人接受、支持和幫助他們的那些個體。

    換句話說，作為一個人類，只有死亡本身才能比污染或者驅逐更加速基因的死亡。為了確保我們的祖先曾經所擔心的脆弱的依賴他人的狀況，瑞認為，他們形成了一種主觀的心理測量模式，能夠不斷監測不穩定波動的"關系價值",這是一個的關于在其他群體內成員的眼中自我的位置這樣一個情感指數。

    為了測試這種社會性測量假設的核心價值，瑞和他的同事們歷經十年利用精心設計的實驗進行檢測，他們的實驗幾乎完全揭穿了流行的"別人說什么無所謂",自尊來自于我這樣一種觀點。也就是說，如果你傾向于吹噓說你并不關心其他人如何看待你，那么你可能只是為了給你自己充分的信心來提供給自己更多的自尊--或者你確實有人格紊亂癥。當然，在這個領域確實存在個體差異。比如："高自我監控"的人是那些不會受到他們留給別人印象困擾的人。這樣的人--在現實生活中我比較像是這種人--是一些過于容易相處的變色龍，他們很容易接受流行的社會環境中所呈現出來的觀點和態度（至少在表面上如此）.但當我們深入自我監控范圍，我們每個人幾乎都有一個內在的社會性測量量表不斷提供情感反饋同時鼓勵我們增加我們的關系價值。

    當然，問題在于我們每一個人同時也很容易破壞某些社會規范。如果我們是那種完美的天使般的物種，我們一開始就不會需要社會性測量量表。相反，社會性測量量表既是先發制人解除我們的自私欲望和防止降低我們的關系價值的裝置，同時它也一個糾正性的促使我們修復已經造成的聲譽損害的設備。

    比如，在一項實驗中，本科生們被告知他們將同其他三個學生一起參加一個在線的小組討論，同是一個實驗者會向他們提出從政治到大學期間的調整等一系列問題。Risen和Gilovich寫道，"實驗者告訴被試們這種多產式富有成效的討論是開放性、真實性、和富有洞見的，盡管是討論稍微敏感的話題，但他們應該盡可能提供自己的觀點從而更有利于這種多產式富有成效的討論。"至少，這真是學生們單獨坐在實驗室小房間中所認為的情況。而事實上，在線的討論只有其他兩個人一起進行--實驗者，他們承擔的角色是兩個假裝的參與者（在被迫道歉的條件下，他們分別稱為"損害者"和"被迫者"）,另外一個真正的參與者在社會冒犯事件中擔任"旁觀者"的角色。這主要事件在向目標被試提出的第四個問題時固定發生。

    第四個問題設計為鼓勵被試進行否定回答，實驗者問目標學生"你是否認為美國正在全力以赴為他們的同性戀居民爭取平等的權利？是或者否？"（49個學生中7個回答是的學生被排除）,等目標學生回答"否"之后，實驗者就開始履行社會冒犯事件中"損害者"的角色，他們會說"你應該到澳大利亞或者加拿大去或者其他一些事情--如果你不是這樣一個不知感激的小孩，這個討論的問題會更加多產……你該意識到你很幸運住在這里，不要只把焦點放在一些負面情況。"

    盡管所有的被試都被暴露于這種社會冒犯的情況之下，不管是目標被試或者是旁觀者，他們被隨機地安排在三種條件下。在自發條件下，"損害者"立即寫下一個道歉"你知道嗎--我那樣太莽撞了，對不起。"在被迫條件下，實驗者會發出指導語"我真不敢相信你那樣說，這真是很不恰當。你必須道歉。",然后"損害者"寫下一個與自發條件下完全相同的道歉。最后，對于那些沒有任何道歉的被試們，他們在"損害者"沒有進行道歉的條件下繼續進行討論。對于所有的情況，在討論結束之前會再問三個問題，中間不會再安排其他意外事件，被試們都被要求在幾個維度來評價其他參與者

    最后排列的結果表明，盡管被試們都原諒了不管是自發或者是被迫條件下的道歉者們，旁觀者只原諒自發的道歉者們。換句話說，參與討論的被試們認為兩種類型的道歉者們同樣讓人喜愛、自私、友善、傲慢、粗魯、具有同情心。但旁觀者對于那些在被迫之后才進行道歉的個體表達了一種明顯的鄙視。而且，旁觀者們都表示不愿與那些被迫道歉者們有任何的聯系，但被試們卻表示不介意與那些被迫道歉者們再次進行合作。旁觀者們還認為那些被迫道歉者們應該獲得比自發道歉者們更少的報酬，而被試們卻認為兩種類型的道歉者們應當獲得同樣的報酬。為什么被試和旁觀者來說對被迫道歉的"損害者"的原諒會如此不同？Risen 與Gilovich認為，盡管被冒犯的團體被鼓勵原諒冒犯者們而不是懷恨在心，旁觀者（中立團體）卻希望公平，并區分別人的意圖。對于那些完全沒有道歉者的被試們，你可以想象，那些人是最不被喜歡的--被試和旁觀者們對于那些被試比對任何一種道歉者表示出更多的怒火。

    然而，這里對于這項發現有一個重要的警告，那就是當涉及從一個人已經沉沒的關系價值恢復一些利潤，即便不真誠的道歉都比沒有道歉效果要好的多。在另一個實驗中，Risen 和Gilovich發現當損害者們的責任顯得比較模糊時，提供一個被迫的道歉可能會適得其反，旁觀者們的對于被迫道歉者們的評價會比沒有道歉的人表現得更不喜歡。在這另一個實驗中，被試們被告知他們將要同其他游戲者在一個游戲中競爭"溝通技巧".每一個本科生都與另一個游戲者背對背坐著（事實上另一個游戲者是秘密的實驗者）當另一個人將一套K'nex玩具碎片拼起來的時候然后告訴被試如何將一套相同的玩具碎片同樣拼起來。被試被要求按照指示去做而不能夠提問或者發表任何評論。對于每一個在5分鐘內組合起來的碎片，這一組都可以獲得25美分的收入。另外一個被試（旁觀者）只需旁觀發生的事情，然后默默地進行判評。

    與前一個實驗相似，一個看起來意外的社會冒犯時間被穿插在試驗過程中。這里，秘密的實驗者還是給出一些不清晰的指示，在游戲中間接聽自己的手機，聊天浪費1分30秒時間（"什么？……不是？……我不相信他會那么做……真的嗎？"）然后繼續回來給被試一些很混淆的指示。與實驗設計的計謀不同的是，被試們都被隨機安排在幾種不同的道歉條件下，在自發條件下，"損害者"對被試說"對不起，我真的搞砸了。"在強迫條件下，損害者在秘密觀察者的嚴厲批評"真是可怕，我不相信你居然接電話。你真的害了他。你必須向他道歉"下才進行道歉。最后，在沒有道歉的條件下，損害者只是嘆口氣然后繼續計算完成碎片匹配的數目。

    因為自己親歷實驗，被試原諒了兩種道歉者，但對沒有道歉的被試會表達一些延遲的火氣。然而對于那些沉默的旁觀者，他們認為那些被迫道歉者們甚至比不道歉者們更加魯莽。Risen 和Gilovich指出，這項有趣的發現"與法律領域的發現是一致的，意味著如果責任是清楚的，那么損害者進行道歉對自己是有害的。當責任是明確的，道歉會增加原告和被告達成一致的解決的機率。然而，如果責任是模糊的，道歉對被告來意味著接納了責任，這種代價是昂貴的。"作者認為，在目前案例中，實際上觀察員由于責任的疑問可以使得損害者受益。在損害者道歉之前，旁觀者可能會認為也許電話確實是一個緊急情況，或者一些觀察家指責參與者未能根據含糊不清的指示完成猜謎游戲。

    說到道歉最好還是不要說出來，我可能最近提供給自己一兩次這樣的機會。