在苹果（Apple）首席执行官兼联合创始人史蒂夫•乔布斯的逝世一周年祭日，上百万人向苹果专门设立的电子邮箱发去了悼念邮件。博客、Facebook和Twitter上随处可见对乔布斯的哀思，甚至不少商店也非常应景地举办了纪念活动。大家都在深切悼念这位苹果的联合创始人。新近成立的在线公墓网站Memmento.com上，目前已出现三起相互独立的乔布斯悼念活动。为何这么多和乔布斯素昧平生的人会深切缅怀他呢？

    埃塞克斯大学（the University of Essex）的心理学家安德鲁•布拉茨斯基调查了几百名苹果用户，试图了解他们与自己手中苹果设备的感情以及对乔布斯辞世的看法。结果表明，三分之一的参与者表示对自己的Mac、iPad、iPhone和iPod有很强烈的感情，认为这些产品“在自己心中占据了很特殊的地位”。这部分人中的大多数都对乔布斯的辞世深表哀悼，和对苹果设备没感觉的人相比，数量高出70%。

    心理学上有一种理论名为“自我决定论”，广泛应用于教育、体育和游戏等领域。简而言之，当人们的某些一般性需求得到满足后，就会越来越强烈地渴求心理上的参与。事实也的确如此。布拉茨斯基发现，因为苹果产品满足了人们的两个需求——“沟通”和“自主”，所以人们对苹果产品感情很深，这进而影响到他们对苹果缔造者乔布斯的感情。布拉茨斯基说：“苹果牢牢把握住了电子产品的两大核心目标：与他人沟通，以及提供完美的工具。”

    史蒂夫•乔布斯留下的不仅仅是技术，而是一些独一无二的东西。布拉茨斯基说：“我认为，乔布斯向用户提供了达到、甚至超出他们期望的体验。他给这一代科学家、学生、商人和艺术家带来的工具远远超出他们自己的预期。”

    译者：项航

    In the weeks following the death of Apple's CEO and co-founder one year ago today, more than a million people sent emails to an address set up by Apple (AAPL). Messages on blogs, Facebook (FB) and Twitter, and even makeshift in-store memorials, demonstrated a collective sadness at the Apple co-founder's passing. And now, Memmento.com, a new online cemetery, has not one, not two, but three competing Jobs memorials. Why do so many people who never met the man care so much that he is gone?

    Andrew Przybylski, a psychologist at the University of Essex, surveyed a few hundred Apple users about how their relationship with their devices informed their feelings about Jobs' death. A third of the participants reported feeling emotionally connected to their Macs, iPads, iPhones and iPods, agreeing with the statement that the devices "occupy a special place in my heart" -- and those people were 70% sadder about his passing than those who didn't feel the love.

    An idea called the self-determination theory used in education, sports, and gaming circles tells us that people become more psychologically involved when circumstances satisfy certain universal needs. Indeed, Przybylski found that people felt emotionally connected to their Apple gadgets -- and by extension their creator -- because the devices satisfied two of those needs, "relatedness" and "autonomy," which, he says, "strike at the heart of the purpose of computing devices: to connect us to others and to provide us with meaningful choices."

    Beyond just putting technology in people's hands, there's something unique in Steve Jobs' legacy. "I think that he delivered experiences that met and in many cases exceeded users expectations," Przybylski says. "He gave generations of scientists, students, business people, and artists tools to go farther than they thought they could."