If you want to impress a date, win over a large group of people or charm a colleague, don't worry about saying something smart, just say something quickly.
如果你想在約會中給對方留下完美的印象或者在眾人中脫穎而出，魅力十足，不用擔心自己表現的不夠聰明， 只要反應快就足夠了。

Psychologists from Australia have found that people who are quicker at answering general knowledge questions come across as more charismatic.
澳大利亞的心理學家研究發現，在普通的知識問答中反應較快的人看上去更有魅力。

Other factors, such as IQ and emotional intelligence, are not as important as the ability to think and respond swiftly.
其他因素，如智商、情商也沒有快速思考，敏捷作答的能力重要。

The researchers set out to unveil the psychological bases of charisma, and whether this quality depends on specific traits.
研究人員想要揭開這種神奇魅力的神秘面紗，探究其背后的心理基礎，研究這種特質是否需要某些具體品質做支撐。

One thing they noticed was that celebrities and other public figures deemed very charismatic were all typically sharp-witted.
他們發現很多名人和公眾人物都頗具魅力的一個典型的共同特征就是反應敏捷。

In order to test how mental speed contributes to charisma, they carried out a study involving 417 subjects. All the subjects underwent personality and intelligence tests.
為了測驗反應速度與這種魅力的關系，研究人員進行了一項涉及417個主題的研究。所有主題都包含人格測驗和智力測驗。

The researchers asked the participants' friends to rate how 'charismatic,' 'funny,' and 'quick-witted' they were.
研究人員請參與者的朋友們來對他們的 “魅力”、“有趣” 及 “反應敏捷” 程度做出評價。

All of the subjects were then quizzed with 30 simple general knowledge questions, such as 'Name a precious gem', which they had to answer as quickly as they could.
所有研究主題都會包含一次30題的普通知識問答小測，會問諸如 “說出一種珍稀寶石的名字” 的問題， 參與測驗者必須盡快作答。

The subjects also completed another mental speed test based on visual tasks, including spotting a dot on a screen as quickly as possible.
每個研究主題還會完成一項反應速度測試，這是一項視覺任務，測驗者需要以最快速度定位到屏幕上的點。

By cross-referencing the tests' results with the friends' answers, the team found that people who were faster in the mental speed tasks were also rated as more charismatic by their peers.
通過交叉對比測驗結果，并結合參與者朋友們的評價，研究團隊發現反應速度越快的人，在朋友們眼中越有魅力。

Intelligence and personality turned out to play a smaller role than sheer speed.
與反應速度相比，智力和人格對個人魅力的影響并沒有那么大。

Also, against the researchers' predictions, mental speed was not associated with social skills such as conflict management or understanding other people's feelings.
同樣，與研究人員預測的相反， 反應速度與社會技能無關，如矛盾處理能力和善解人意能力和反應速度并無關系。

'Although we expected mental speed to predict charisma, we thought it would be less important than IQ,' researcher William von Hippel said.
“盡管我們預料到反應速度與個人魅力有關系， 但我們沒想到反應速度竟然比智力起的作用還要大。” 研究員威廉·馮希佩爾說。

'Instead, we found that how smart people were was less important than how quick they were. “相反，我們發現反應快比聰明更重要。因此在短時間內能考慮到廣泛的社會反響比答對一個很難的問題更重要。”

In their study, published in Psychological Science, the researchers also hypothesised that people who think more quickly could be better at masking a fudged reply by ad-libbing humorous associations.
這項研究被刊登在《心理科學》雜志上。 研究人員還假設能夠快速思考的人或許也善于用即興幽默的方式掩蓋不實的回答。

'Our findings show that social intelligence is more than just knowing the right thing to do,' von Hippel added.
“我們的研究發現表明社交智力并不是只需要知道正確的事情。 ” 威廉·馮希佩爾補充說。

'Social intelligence also requires an ability to execute, and the quickness of our mind is an important component of that ability.'
“社交智力同樣需要執行力，而反應速度快正是這種能力所需的關鍵一環。”

Vocabulary

hypothesise: 假設
fudge: 捏造
ad-lib: 隨口說出（俏皮話）；即興創作

英文來源：每日郵報
譯者：劉麗麗
審校&編輯：丹妮