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Scientists havelong argued whether hypocrisy is driven by emotion or by reason. In other moraljudgments, brain imaging shows, regions involved in feeling, not thinking,rule. The role of emotion in moral judgments has overturned the Enlightenmentnotion that our ethical sense is based on high-minded philosophy and cognition.That brings us to hypocrisy, which is almost ridiculously easy to bring out inpeople.

In a new study,psychologist David De Steno instructed 94 people to assign themselves and astranger of two tasks: an easy one or a hard one. Then everyone was asked, howfairly did you act? Next they watched someone else make the assignments, andjudged that person′s ethics. Selflessness was a virtual no-show: 87 Out of 94people opted forth easy task and gave the next guy the difficult one.Hypocrisy, however, showed up with bells on: every single person who made theselfish choice judged his own behavior less strictly--on average,4.5 vs3.1--than that of someone else who grabbed the easy task for himself.

The gap suggests howhypocrisy is possible. When we judge our own misbehaviors less harshly, DeSteno said, it may be because "we have this automatic, gut-level instinctto preserve our self-image. In our heart, maybe we′re just not as sensitive toour own immoral behaviors. People have learned that it pays to seem moral sinceit lets you avoid criticism and guilt. But even better is appearing moralwithout having to pay the cost of actually being moral-such as assigningyourself the tough job."

To test the role ofcognition in hypocrisy, De Steno had volunteers again assign themselves an easytask and a stranger a difficult one. But before judging the fairness of theiractions, they had to memorize seven numbers. This tactic keeps the brain′sthinking regions too tied up to think much about anything else, and it worked:hypocrisy vanished. People judged their own (selfish) behavior as harshly asthey did others′, strong evidence that moral hypocrisy requires

A.have reasonedthat hypocrisy is beneficial
B.are self-centered
C.have realizedthat it costs to be moral
D.are insensitiveto misbehaviors

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答案： A

本题解析：

细节题。定位至第三段，第三句“In our heart，maybe we’re just not as sensitive to our own immoral behaviors”指出．人们本能地维护个人形象．而内心对自己的不道德行为并不敏感。这里的“不敏感”只是针对“自己”的不道德行为，而不是针对“所有”的不道德行为，排除D项。根据最后两句“People have learned that it paysto seem moral since it lets you avoid criticism and guilt．But even better is appearing moral without having to pay the cost ofactually being moral—such as assigning yourself the tough job．"可知。人们知道表现出道德感会给自己带来好处：被试者选择自己做更难的任务，是因为这样不用付出代价就可以表现出自己良好的道德感，故A项符合文意,C项与文意相反。整段并未提到自我为中心(self-centered)。故排除B项。