While residents of wealthy nations tend to have greater life satisfaction, new research shows that those living in poorer nations report having greater meaning in life.
These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological science, suggest that meaning in life may be higher in poorer nations as a result of greater religiosity (笃信宗教). As countries become richer, religion becomes less central to people’s lives and they lose a sense of meaning in life.
“Thus far, the wealth of nations has been almost always associated with longevity, health, happiness or life satisfaction,” explains psychological scientist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia. “Given that meaning in life is an important aspect of overall well-being, we wanted to look more carefully at differential patterns, correlates (相关物), and predictors for meaning in life.”
Oishi and colleague Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated life satisfaction, meaning, and well-being by examining data from the 2007 Gallup World Poll, a large-scale survey of over 140,000 participants from 132 countries. In addition to answering a basic life satisfaction question, participants were asked: “Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?” and “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”
The data revealed some unexpected trends:
“Among Americans, those who are high in life satisfaction are also high in meaning in life,” says Oishi. “But when we looked at the societal level of analysis, we found a completely different pattern of the association between meaning in life and life satisfaction.”
When looking across many countries, Oishi and Diener found that people in wealthier nations were more educated, had fewer children, and expressed more individualistic attitudes compared to those in poorer countries – all factors that were associated with higher life satisfaction but a significantly lower sense of meaning in life.”
The data suggest that religiosity may play an important role: Residents of wealthier nations, where religiosity is lower, reported less meaning in life and had higher suicide rates than poorer countries.
According to the researchers, religion may provide meaning to life to the extent that it helps people to overcome personal difficulty and cope with the struggles of working to survive in poor economic conditions:
“Religion gives a system that connects daily experiences with the coherent whole (连贯的整体) and a general structure to one’s life … and plays a critical role in constructing meaning out of extreme hardship,” the researchers write.
Oishi and Diener hope to reproduce these findings using more comprehensive measures of meaning and religiosity, and are interested in following countries over time to track whether economic prosperity gives rise to less religiosity and less meaning in life.
【小题1】Which of the following questions couldn’t the participants have answered?

A．Does your life have a purpose or meaning?

B．Do you have relatives living abroad?

C．Are you satisfied with your everyday life?

D．Is religion involved in your daily life?

【小题2】Which of the following statements is true?

A．Those who have higher life satisfaction usually have lower sense of meaning in life.

B．People in wealthier nations were more educated, have fewer children and express less individualistic attitudes compared to those in poorer countries.

C．Religion may provide meaning to life in that people can get strong support from it in face of hardship.

D．Wealthy people are more likely to commit suicide than poor people.

【小题3】What can be inferred from the passage?

A．The poorer a country is, the more religious its people are.

B．Economic prosperity gives rise to less religiosity and less meaning in life.

C．If you want to find meaning in life, you must practice a religion.

D．Meaning in life doesn’t have much to do with the amount of wealth one possesses.

【小题4】The main purpose of the passage is to explain the possible reason why __________.

A．greater life satisfaction leads to lower sense of meaning

B．residents of poorer nations enjoy greater meaning in life

C．residents of poorer nations are so religious

D．residents of wealthy nations have greater life satisfaction

假如你是李华，现任你校的学生会主席。最近，你校学生会做了调查，发现学生中存在一些不良的生活习惯：晚上熬夜；喜欢垃圾食品；长时间玩电脑游戏等。值此英语交流月之际，请你以学生会的名义用英文起草一份倡议书，号召全校同学培养良好的生活习惯。
内容包括：
1.坏习惯的不良影响；2.培养如下良好习惯：（1）按时作息；（2）均衡饮食；（3）不沉溺于网络。
注意：1.词数100左右；2.开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear students，

According to a survey among the students in our school，many students have the following bad habits：

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Students' Union

Twelve years ago, Danny called me from a dark, damp subway station. “A baby!” he shouted. “Get down here, and flag down a police car or something.” By nature, Danny is a remarkably calm person, so when I felt his heart pounding through the phone line, I ran.
When I got to the subway station, Danny was holding a light-brown-skinned baby, about a day old. The baby had been wrapped in an oversize black sweatshirt and left on the ground in a corner behind the gate.
Three months later, Danny appeared in family court to give an account of finding the baby. Suddenly, the judge asked, “Would you be interested in adopting this baby?” The question stunned everyone in the courtroom, except Danny, who answered, simply, “Yes.”
“But I know it’s not that easy,” he said.
“Well, it can be,” assured the judge before barking out orders to allow me to be a parent-to-be.
My first reaction, when I heard, went something like: “Are you crazy? How could you say yes without consulting me?”
In three years as a couple, we had never discussed adopting a child. I was an ambitious playwright working as a part-time word processor. Danny was a respected yet wildly underpaid social worker. We had a roommate, who slept in our living room, to help pay the rent.
We knew how many challenges couples usually faced when they wanted to adopt. And while Danny had patience and selflessness, I didn’t know how to change a diaper(尿布), let alone nurse a child. I didn’t trust the system and was sure there would be obstacles. Also, I couldn’t handle parenthood. So I promised myself I wouldn’t get attached.
The caretaker held him and then placed him in my arms. But when the baby stared up at me, with all the innocence and hope he represented, I, like Danny, was completely hooked.
【小题1】Why did the author rush to the subway station?

A．Because Danny finally found their long lost son.

B．Because she sensed Danny met something urgent.

C．Because Danny was knocked down by a police car.

D．Because Danny wasn’t a remarkably calm person by nature.

【小题2】How did the author react on hearing Danny’s answer to the judge’s question?

A．Surprised by the question.

B．Crazy to be a parent-to-be.

C．Annoyed at Danny’s decision.

D．Interested in adopting this baby.

【小题3】It can be inferred from the last paragraph that_________.

A．the author will adopt the baby

B．the caretaker will take the baby away

C．the couple love each other very much

D．the baby will bring hope to the family

【小题4】What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?

A．To introduce a story of a poor family.

B．To inform people of how to adopt a baby.

C．To call on people to donate money to them.

D．To show human’s kindness and love by nature.