Happy people tend to talk more than unhappy people, but when they do, it tends to be less small talk and more substance.

　　 快乐的人比不快乐的人更易于说更多话，而且当他们开口时，更多的是有实质内容的交谈，而不是闲聊。

　　 A group of psychologists from the University of Arizona and Washington University in St. Louis set out to find whether happy and unhappy people differ in the types of conversations they tend to have. For their study, volunteers wore an unobtrusive recording device called the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) over four days. The device periodically records snippets of sounds as participants go about their lives.

　　 来自亚利桑那大学和华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校的一队心理学家开始着手研究快乐的人和不快乐的人各自可能发生的谈话种类是否会有所不同。研究中，志愿者在四天里都要戴上一件叫做电子激活录音器（EAR）的不易被发现的录音设备，它可以在被测者日常活动时定期录下声音片段。

　　 The EAR sampled 30 seconds of sounds every 12.5 minutes yielding a total of more than 20,000 recordings. Researchers then listened to the recordings and identified the conversations as trivial small talk or substantive discussions. In addition, the volunteers completed personality and well-being assessments.

 　　 EAR 每12.5 分钟便会录下一段 30 秒长的声音，总共会产生2 万段以上的录音。然后研究员会听这些录音，并分辨出这些谈话是属于平常的闲聊还是属于实质性的讨论。另外，志愿者还要完成个人性格及安逸度的评估。
 
 　　 Here’s what the researchers found:

　　 研究人员发现：

　　The happiest participants spent 25 percent less time alone and 70 percent more time talking than the unhappiest participants. The happiest participants also had twice as many substantive conversations and one-third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants.

　　 最快乐的参与者比最不快乐的独处时间少25%，与他人说话的时间多70%。同时，前者有实质内容的交谈是后者的两倍，闲聊数量是后者的 1/3。

　　 The findings suggest that happy lives are social and conversationally deep, rather than solitary and superficial. The researchers think that deep conversations may have the potential to make people happier, though the findings from this study don’t identify cause-andeffect between the two.

　　结论显示，快乐的生活具有社会层面的意义并与日常交谈有关，而并不仅仅是个体差异和表面现象。虽然这项研究的结论并没有发现谈话种类与快乐度之间的因果联系，但研究人员认为，有深度的交谈也许更可能让人快乐。