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.

    这是一个鲜为人知的事实：如果人生一生都没有敌人将是一件非常乏味的事情。其中一个人非常理解这种状况，他就是19世纪英国的散文家威廉。黑兹利特，他的着作《论仇恨的快感》事实上是一本写的很优雅的歌颂仇恨这种被诽谤的社会情感的书："没有仇恨，"黑兹利特写道，"我们将失去思维和行动的源泉。如果不是冲突利益和不受控制的激情刺激，人们的生活将变成一潭死水。"突然间，乌托邦式的社会--在那里人人都满足、人人都善良和平等--现在听起来那会是个非常乏味和荒谬的地方。按照这种观点，天堂将是一个特别友善的地狱，是一个充满了微笑灵魂的地方，人们躺着沉迷在无尽的爱、善解人意和愉悦的伴侣里边。（而且特别是无休止广袤的无聊，因为人甚至不能通过死亡来逃避无聊）.

    或酌情考虑，如果没有"自由左翼"如此激怒他，Bill O'Reilly将会变成什么样子；如果道金斯不是坚持自己的信念"顽固不化",信徒们就不会成为他的存在的祸根，或如果这世界上没有让检察脱口秀主持人南希格雷斯强烈痛恨的"败类"们，又会变成什么样子？（在法国的监狱系统作为警察工作了前半生的Jean Gene写道，在一个社会上，罪犯们与鄙视他们的人同样重要，毕竟，整个业界的人们--律师、法官、监狱工作员、职员、警卫、立法者、心理治疗师、咨询人员等等--只有当罪犯存在时，他们才可能通过与罪犯相关的工作保住饭碗，支付税收、抚养孩子、装饰家庭）.没有憎恨的人，那些权威专家们将会变得极其贫乏，毫无疑问，如果没有一个临时舞台作为支持，任何一种社会功能都会变得极其空洞。

    然而问题是，尽管我当然可以理解这一战略性建议背后的逻辑，我也很高兴将其归结于人类这个物种对于自以为是的敌意的自然品味，遗憾的是（而且我必须说，尴尬地）我继承了一种相当"敏感"的性情。对大多数人来说，仇恨是相对容易的--甚至，正如黑兹利特所推导的，人们会从仇恨这种感情中获得隐秘的快乐。但是，除非你是一个真正反社会的人，从作为一个对别人暴怒的主体这一角色上获得快乐是一种真正的技巧。当然，这也是黑兹利特那闪闪发光的仇恨论硬币丑陋的一面。

    根据杜克大学的心理学家马克瑞，被讨厌、被排斥、被拒绝，这些情感都是由进化特别设计的从而人类可以感受到伤害。主观地说，被别人负面的评价甚至比身体伤害会感觉更糟。马克瑞认为对别人的负面评价这么深刻的影响我们的感觉与我们作为灵长类的过往相关。

    与几乎其他任何一个物种不同，猿类不能够依靠速度、飞行、力量、爬树、掘洞或者是残忍的躲避捕食者等等这些能力。很多心理学、人类学和生物学方面的理论家们都注意到人们和他们的猿类祖先作为物种生存和繁衍下来仅仅因为他们以合作群体的方式生存。鉴于集体生活的重要性，自然选择更偏好那些不仅仅寻求别人陪伴同时行为表现也可以让别人接受、支持和帮助他们的那些个体。

    换句话说，作为一个人类，只有死亡本身才能比污染或者驱逐更加速基因的死亡。为了确保我们的祖先曾经所担心的脆弱的依赖他人的状况，瑞认为，他们形成了一种主观的心理测量模式，能够不断监测不稳定波动的"关系价值",这是一个的关于在其他群体内成员的眼中自我的位置这样一个情感指数。

    为了测试这种社会性测量假设的核心价值，瑞和他的同事们历经十年利用精心设计的实验进行检测，他们的实验几乎完全揭穿了流行的"别人说什么无所谓",自尊来自于我这样一种观点。也就是说，如果你倾向于吹嘘说你并不关心其他人如何看待你，那么你可能只是为了给你自己充分的信心来提供给自己更多的自尊--或者你确实有人格紊乱症。当然，在这个领域确实存在个体差异。比如："高自我监控"的人是那些不会受到他们留给别人印象困扰的人。这样的人--在现实生活中我比较像是这种人--是一些过于容易相处的变色龙，他们很容易接受流行的社会环境中所呈现出来的观点和态度（至少在表面上如此）.但当我们深入自我监控范围，我们每个人几乎都有一个内在的社会性测量量表不断提供情感反馈同时鼓励我们增加我们的关系价值。

    当然，问题在于我们每一个人同时也很容易破坏某些社会规范。如果我们是那种完美的天使般的物种，我们一开始就不会需要社会性测量量表。相反，社会性测量量表既是先发制人解除我们的自私欲望和防止降低我们的关系价值的装置，同时它也一个纠正性的促使我们修复已经造成的声誉损害的设备。

    比如，在一项实验中，本科生们被告知他们将同其他三个学生一起参加一个在线的小组讨论，同是一个实验者会向他们提出从政治到大学期间的调整等一系列问题。Risen和Gilovich写道，"实验者告诉被试们这种多产式富有成效的讨论是开放性、真实性、和富有洞见的，尽管是讨论稍微敏感的话题，但他们应该尽可能提供自己的观点从而更有利于这种多产式富有成效的讨论。"至少，这真是学生们单独坐在实验室小房间中所认为的情况。而事实上，在线的讨论只有其他两个人一起进行--实验者，他们承担的角色是两个假装的参与者（在被迫道歉的条件下，他们分别称为"损害者"和"被迫者"）,另外一个真正的参与者在社会冒犯事件中担任"旁观者"的角色。这主要事件在向目标被试提出的第四个问题时固定发生。

    第四个问题设计为鼓励被试进行否定回答，实验者问目标学生"你是否认为美国正在全力以赴为他们的同性恋居民争取平等的权利？是或者否？"（49个学生中7个回答是的学生被排除）,等目标学生回答"否"之后，实验者就开始履行社会冒犯事件中"损害者"的角色，他们会说"你应该到澳大利亚或者加拿大去或者其他一些事情--如果你不是这样一个不知感激的小孩，这个讨论的问题会更加多产……你该意识到你很幸运住在这里，不要只把焦点放在一些负面情况。"

    尽管所有的被试都被暴露于这种社会冒犯的情况之下，不管是目标被试或者是旁观者，他们被随机地安排在三种条件下。在自发条件下，"损害者"立即写下一个道歉"你知道吗--我那样太莽撞了，对不起。"在被迫条件下，实验者会发出指导语"我真不敢相信你那样说，这真是很不恰当。你必须道歉。",然后"损害者"写下一个与自发条件下完全相同的道歉。最后，对于那些没有任何道歉的被试们，他们在"损害者"没有进行道歉的条件下继续进行讨论。对于所有的情况，在讨论结束之前会再问三个问题，中间不会再安排其他意外事件，被试们都被要求在几个维度来评价其他参与者

    最后排列的结果表明，尽管被试们都原谅了不管是自发或者是被迫条件下的道歉者们，旁观者只原谅自发的道歉者们。换句话说，参与讨论的被试们认为两种类型的道歉者们同样让人喜爱、自私、友善、傲慢、粗鲁、具有同情心。但旁观者对于那些在被迫之后才进行道歉的个体表达了一种明显的鄙视。而且，旁观者们都表示不愿与那些被迫道歉者们有任何的联系，但被试们却表示不介意与那些被迫道歉者们再次进行合作。旁观者们还认为那些被迫道歉者们应该获得比自发道歉者们更少的报酬，而被试们却认为两种类型的道歉者们应当获得同样的报酬。为什么被试和旁观者来说对被迫道歉的"损害者"的原谅会如此不同？Risen 与Gilovich认为，尽管被冒犯的团体被鼓励原谅冒犯者们而不是怀恨在心，旁观者（中立团体）却希望公平，并区分别人的意图。对于那些完全没有道歉者的被试们，你可以想象，那些人是最不被喜欢的--被试和旁观者们对于那些被试比对任何一种道歉者表示出更多的怒火。

    然而，这里对于这项发现有一个重要的警告，那就是当涉及从一个人已经沉没的关系价值恢复一些利润，即便不真诚的道歉都比没有道歉效果要好的多。在另一个实验中，Risen 和Gilovich发现当损害者们的责任显得比较模糊时，提供一个被迫的道歉可能会适得其反，旁观者们的对于被迫道歉者们的评价会比没有道歉的人表现得更不喜欢。在这另一个实验中，被试们被告知他们将要同其他游戏者在一个游戏中竞争"沟通技巧".每一个本科生都与另一个游戏者背对背坐着（事实上另一个游戏者是秘密的实验者）当另一个人将一套K'nex玩具碎片拼起来的时候然后告诉被试如何将一套相同的玩具碎片同样拼起来。被试被要求按照指示去做而不能够提问或者发表任何评论。对于每一个在5分钟内组合起来的碎片，这一组都可以获得25美分的收入。另外一个被试（旁观者）只需旁观发生的事情，然后默默地进行判评。

    与前一个实验相似，一个看起来意外的社会冒犯时间被穿插在试验过程中。这里，秘密的实验者还是给出一些不清晰的指示，在游戏中间接听自己的手机，聊天浪费1分30秒时间（"什么？……不是？……我不相信他会那么做……真的吗？"）然后继续回来给被试一些很混淆的指示。与实验设计的计谋不同的是，被试们都被随机安排在几种不同的道歉条件下，在自发条件下，"损害者"对被试说"对不起，我真的搞砸了。"在强迫条件下，损害者在秘密观察者的严厉批评"真是可怕，我不相信你居然接电话。你真的害了他。你必须向他道歉"下才进行道歉。最后，在没有道歉的条件下，损害者只是叹口气然后继续计算完成碎片匹配的数目。

    因为自己亲历实验，被试原谅了两种道歉者，但对没有道歉的被试会表达一些延迟的火气。然而对于那些沉默的旁观者，他们认为那些被迫道歉者们甚至比不道歉者们更加鲁莽。Risen 和Gilovich指出，这项有趣的发现"与法律领域的发现是一致的，意味着如果责任是清楚的，那么损害者进行道歉对自己是有害的。当责任是明确的，道歉会增加原告和被告达成一致的解决的机率。然而，如果责任是模糊的，道歉对被告来意味着接纳了责任，这种代价是昂贵的。"作者认为，在目前案例中，实际上观察员由于责任的疑问可以使得损害者受益。在损害者道歉之前，旁观者可能会认为也许电话确实是一个紧急情况，或者一些观察家指责参与者未能根据含糊不清的指示完成猜谜游戏。

    说到道歉最好还是不要说出来，我可能最近提供给自己一两次这样的机会。