Your name made you do it, though unconsciously, suggests new research that finds

Your name made you do it, thoughunconsciously, suggests new research that finds your name can negatively makeyou achieve less. Psychologists at Yale and the University of California, SanDiego studying the unconscious influence of names say a preference for our ownnames and initials — the “name-letter effect” — can have some negativeconsequences.

Students whose names begin with C or D getlower grades than those whose names begin with A or B; major league baseballplayers whose first or last names began with K (the strikeout-signifyingletter) are significantly more likely to strike out.

Assistant professors Leif Nelson of UCSDand Joseph Simmons of Yale have conducted five studies over five years usinginformation from thousands of individuals.

“The conscious process is baseball playerswant to get a hit and students want to get A's,” Nelson says. “So if you get achange in performance consistent with the name-letter effect, it clearly showsthere must be some unconscious desire operating in the other direction.”

The researchers' work supports a series ofstudies published since 2002 that have found the “name-letter effect” causespeople to make life choices based on names that resemble their own. Thosestudies by Brett Pelham, an associate professor at SUNY University, have foundthat people are disproportionately（不定比例地）likely to live in states or cities resembling their names, havecareers that resemble their names and even marry those whose surnames beginwith the same letter as their own.

The twist, Pelham says, is that hehas believed the name-letter effect would apply only to positive outcomes.Nelson and Simmons, he says, are “showing it applies more so to negative thingsthan positive things.”

The researchers say the effect isdefinitely more than coincidence but is small nevertheless. “I know plenty ofChrises and Davids who have done very well in school,” Simmons says.

1.The new research is mainly about therelationship between one’s ______.

2.Who may serve as an example to show the“name-letter effect”?

3.Which can be used to explain theunderlined word “twist” in the last but one paragraph?

4.The last paragraph mainly tells us thatthe “name-letter effect”______.                

试题答案

【答案】

1.C

2.C

3.A

4.D

【解析】

试题