本次公投對英國來說利弊難判，但它意味著修辭界將變得熱鬧非凡，評論者和政壇人士傾盡全力，用不同的方式來表達外界對公投結果的驚訝。但凡牽涉到英國人，相關新聞總會讓我們吃驚、不安、震驚、慌亂、緊張，亦或目瞪口呆。

然而，有一個群體甚至一點兒也不驚訝，那就是心理學家。如果我們先問過他們，我們或許也不會吃驚了。脫歐公投的動力來自政治和經濟，沒錯，但它更主要的是源于人類思維的非理性活動。如果歐盟剩余成員希望共建未來，這個問題就值得考慮。

在歐盟解體這個問題上，最容易預見的一點是自歐盟成立以來，所有成員國都曾發牢騷說要脫離這個群體。首先付諸行動的則是英國人。自力更生會讓自己更大更強的信念最有可能阻止個人或群體把自己的身份融入一個更大的群體。

希臘和意大利曾擁有主宰世界的文化，但它們的全盛時期出現在千年以前。相反，日不落帝國是一些活著的，或者說上了年紀的英國人的親身體驗。對其他英國人來說，這段黃金時期由自己的父母或祖父母親口講述，與其說是古代史，更不如說是口耳相傳的故事。這讓與另外27個國家平起平坐的想法變得尤其難以接受。

天普大學心理學家弗蘭克·法利研究冒險、歷史和政治心理學。他說：“英國曾經是海洋的統治者，但其衰落已經持續了很長一段時間。當然，在歐洲英國依然強大，但其地域范圍僅限于英倫三島。在內心深處，成為輪子上的一個齒而不是整個齒輪讓英國人很惱火，對此我們不應感到意外。”

國家自主權和民族認同感同樣重要。歐盟的決策一直都低效而復雜。從進口法規到香蕉的恰當弧度，一切都要由設在布魯塞爾的嶄新官僚機構投票決定。不過，這不僅僅是低效問題，它還讓人有些氣惱，沒有哪個國家很喜歡跟那么多國家“比嗓門”。失去發言權是分離主義和退出的一個關鍵因素。

蘇格蘭鄧迪大學心理學家法比奧·薩尼指出：“社會研究者發現，當一個人感到在某個群體中有發言權的時候，他對這個群體的認同感通常就會較強。我覺得許多反歐洲人士想脫歐的原因是他們覺得英國在歐洲沒有發言權。”

即將卸任的英國首相大衛·卡梅隆在2013年謀求連任時承諾將發起公投，這可能是為上述民族主義“高燒”降溫的好辦法。當然，它在2014年的蘇格蘭獨立公投中發揮了作用。在公投前的拉票活動中，投票者也許度過了一段歡樂時光，他們可以把臉涂成藍白色，高舉《勇敢的心》海報。然而，到了做決定的時候，蘇格蘭人用55比45的明確結果把自己留在了大不列顛。但本次脫歐公投中，這項策略以失敗告終。

薩尼說：“我覺得卡梅隆認為自己能贏得公投，進而讓黨內以及別處的反對者閉上嘴。他的失誤之處在于他認為有足夠多的投票者對歐盟的態度跟他一樣。實則不然。”

出現這種情況的原因之一是歐洲大陸的本土主義全面抬頭，這一點令人擔憂，而且或許也是卡梅隆三年前無法預見到的。歐洲一直存在民族主義者，敘利亞內戰帶來的難民危機壯大了他們的聲勢，這很不幸。而巴黎和奧蘭多等地的恐怖襲擊讓他們得以把這一點轉化為公開的恐外情緒。英國也許沒有唐納德·特朗普那樣的“霧笛”型人士，呼吁繞著英國筑起圍墻，但這并不是說與之類似的封鎖邊境傾向并未產生影響。

埃默里大學心理學家德魯·韋斯滕認為：“關注移民問題有一個實實在在的立法方面的原因。可惜的是，伊斯蘭國讓一些本該是中立派的人基于有意無意的偏見或傾向參加了投票。”幾乎不能因此斷言那些支持脫歐的英國人受到了種族歧視影響，但它確實意味著和較為安定的時期相比，那些利用種族歧視的人對投票者有了更大的影響。

今后的一個問題是英國的脫歐公投會不會在歐洲引發全面退出。美國在這方面的經驗表明不會有什么好事。美國內戰期間南方并未整體脫離聯邦。但從1860年12月到1861年6月，先后有11個州退出，最早的是南加州，最后一個是田納西州。1861年1月的短短17天里就有五個州相繼脫離聯邦。這樣的浪潮一旦出現就很難遏制。

法利說：“我認為這對歐洲來說確實是個風險。這在很大程度上來源于情緒。人們并不會把留歐或脫歐的利弊都寫下來，然后得出結論。許多人投的都是情感票。”

現在，歐盟領導人得撤掉全體會議桌前的一把椅子，而英國在厘清與歐盟成員國關系時遇到的挑戰可能會在很大程度上決定這些國家會不會步其后塵。然而，盡管這些都是政治問題，但在這些國家做決定的過程中，心理因素的影響至少會和理性一樣大。這是一個很麻煩的事實，同時也是徹徹底底的真實人性。 (財富中文網)

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

The Brexit vote may or may not be a good thing for the U.K., but it means boom times for the adjective industry, with commentators and politicians falling all over themselves to come up with different ways of saying that the world was surprised the results. We have been alternately stunned, roiled, shocked, jolted, rattled and—as is inevitable whenever the Brits are involved—gobsmacked by the news.

But there’s one group of folks who haven’t been the slightest bit surprised: the psychologists—and if we’d asked them first, we might not be either. The Brexit vote was motivated by politics and economics, yes, but it was more primally a function of the irrational ways of the human mind—something worth considering if the rest of the European Union hopes to have a future together.

The most predictable part of the fracture in the alliance was that of all of the countries that have grumbled about leaving the E.U. since its formation, it was the Brits who jumped first. There is nothing that makes individuals or groups less likely to immerse their identities into that of a larger group than the belief that they were bigger and better on their own.

Greece and Italy were once home to the world’s dominant cultures, but their period of primacy was millennia ago. The era when the sun never set on the British empire, by contrast, occurred in the lifetimes of some living—if aged—Britons. For the rest, that golden time was less ancient history than oral history, a period described to them in the first person by their parents and grandparents. That made the idea of being just one of 28 especially hard to swallow.

“Britain once ruled the waves and has been diminished for a long time,” says psychologist Frank Farley of Temple University, who studies risk-taking, history and political psychology. “It remains a power in Europe for sure, but it’s diminished to the island geography. We shouldn’t be surprised that at a deep level, Britons chafed at just being one cog in the wheel as opposed to the wheel.”

Just as important as national identity was national autonomy. Decision-making in the E.U. was always going to be cumbersome, with a brand-new bureaucracy in Brussels voting on everything from import regulations to the proper curvature of a banana. That’s more than just inefficient, however, it’s also a bit galling, with no nation much liking it when its voice must compete with those of so many others. And loss of voice is a key factor in separatism and secession.

“Social researchers know that identity with a group is normally stronger when one has a sense of having a voice within that group,” says psychologist Fabio Sani of Scotland’s University of Dundee. “I sense that many of the anti-European people wanted to exit because they felt that the U.K. doesn’t have that in Europe.”

Calling for a vote—as soon-to-be former Prime Minister David Cameron promised to do when he ran for re-election in 2013—can be a good way to break that kind of nationalist fever. Certainly, it worked in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Voters may have had a high-old time during the campaign with their blue and white face paint and their Braveheart posters, but once it came time to make a decision, they voted by a convincing 55 to 45 majority to remain a part of Great Britain. In the current vote, that strategy failed.

“I think Cameron thought he’d win the vote and then silence the opposing voices in his party and elsewhere,” says Sani. “What he miscalculated was thinking that enough voters had the same perspective on the E.U. as he did. They didn’t.”

One reason for that—which Cameron might not have been able to foresee three years ago—is the alarming rise in nativism across the continent. The immigration crisis caused by the Syrian civil war has given European nationalists—who have always been there—an unfortunate boost, and the terrorist attacks in Paris, Orlando and elsewhere have allowed them to spin that into open xenophobia. The U.K. may not have a fog-horn figure like Donald Trump calling for building walls around the island, but that doesn’t me an that the same kind of close-the-border dynamic wasn’t in play.

“There’s a very legitimate reason to be concerned about immigration,” says psychologist Drew Westen of Emory University. “Unfortunately ISIS has given would-be fence-sitters the permission to vote out of some combination of conscious or unconscious prejudice or bias.” That hardly means that pro-Brexit Britons acted out of racism; it does mean that people who do traffic in racism had more power to influence voters than they would have had in more peaceable times.

One question going forward is whether the Brexit vote will lead to an exit contagion across Europe. America’s own experience with secession does not portend good things. The South did not walk out en masse before the Civil War. There were eleven serial secessions—beginning with South Carolina and ending with Tennessee—from December of 1860 to June of 1861, with five states quitting over the course of just 17 days in January. A bandwagon, once started, can be hard to stop.

“I think it does pose a risk in Europe,” says Farley. “Much of this is emotional. People aren’t putting together a ledger with the negatives and positives of staying or leaving and then coming to a conclusion. A lot of voting is that way.”

For now, E.U. leaders will have to remove only one chair from the continental conference table, and the challenges Britain faces as it unwinds its relationship with the rest of Union will likely play a big role in determining if any other members follow. As with all things political, however, psychology will play at least as big a role as reason in the decisions those countries make. It’s a messy truth, but it’s an entirely human one too.