Why do individuals engage in self-defeating behaviors like self-harm, addiction, and risky sexual behaviors? Why do they experience the apathy of depression or inaction when trapped by multiple competing problems? We propose a framework for explaining these and other related behaviors based on the insight that individuals can only experience a limited number of latent stimuli to which they are exposed. We conduct an experiment to test this model and find that more than two thirds of the subjects behave consistent with our theoretical framework.

中文翻译：

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合理化自我挫败行为：理论和证据

为什么个人会从事自我伤害、成瘾和危险性行为等自我挫败的行为？为什么当他们被多个相互竞争的问题所困时，他们会感到沮丧或无所作为？我们提出了一个框架来解释这些行为和其他相关行为，其基础是个人只能体验到他们所接触的有限数量的潜在刺激。我们进行了一个实验来测试这个模型，发现超过三分之二的受试者的行为与我们的理论框架一致。