????當工作間開始感覺像是小牢房，情況就不太妙了。不幸的是，低迷的經濟給仍然有幸保住飯碗的人帶來的一個后果就是，我們會覺得自己陷入了工作的牢籠。

????數據顯示，大眾的行為還真像是陷入了牢籠。經濟景氣時，更多的人主動辭職、而不是被裁員。而在衰退時兩者的關系就恰恰相反，表明此時員工不愿意、或者無法主動離職。即使根據勞工統計局（Bureau of Labor Statistics）本月發布的數據，當前主動離職的人又超過了被解雇者，兩者的差距還是小于經濟危機前。

????人們常常因為非常現實的外界原因而屈就于自己并不喜歡的工作，比如得付賬單、還貸款、養家糊口，要得到足夠便宜的醫療保險也得有工作。但很多人（也包括記者）的工作技能卻只適用于那些變幻莫測的行業。

????馬里蘭大學（the University of Maryland）管理與組織學教授吉拉德?陳說：“客觀地講，現狀并不樂觀，我們仍然處在經濟危機中?！比欢芾в诠ぷ鞯母杏X卻不見得符合實情。我們的大腦處理信息的方式有時會放大悲觀情緒。

????陳教授指出，情勢無法掌控時，人們往往就會覺得受困其中。反過來，“那些在各種經濟形勢下都能自我調適的人就能控制自身的感覺?！?/p>

????但某些因素也讓我們難以釋懷，覺得自己已經成為工作的奴隸。“通常是在工作中發生的變故，”德克薩斯基督教大學（Texas Christian University）尼利（Neely）商學院的管理學教授比爾?貝克爾說。“換了個很難伺候的老板，分派給你的新任務和你的技能不對路，又或者你覺得與公司文化很不合拍?！边@些工作上的變故會帶來困難，而員工又覺得自己無法抽身離開。

????我們的思維方式也會火上添油。貝克爾說：“我們都有自利偏見，在這些情況下自利偏見就是我們最大的敵人?！彼^續解釋什么是自利偏見：“萬事大吉時，我們會歸功于自己，‘有我這么能干的人，當然沒問題’。而一旦情況不妙，我們就會認為是公司或者經濟大環境的問題。”

????歸咎于外界因素其實也有好處：它是一種保護機制。有證據表明，得憂郁癥的人缺乏自利偏見，他們覺得所有的問題都是自己造成的。

????但這種思維的益處也是有限的。把責任從自身轉嫁到外界會讓人缺乏動力，難以改變自己的行為。如果是外部世界的問題，那你就會想，我為什么要改變呢？

????對未知的恐懼是另一種讓我們受困的強大心理因素。貝克爾說：“就算不快樂，我們依然還是傾向于保持現狀?！?/p>

????陳教授指出，現狀是相對于過去而言的。人們總是會和過去對比。我們的大腦會畫出一條趨勢線：如果我們的工作開始很順利，然后發生問題，我們就會處理這個信息，認為情況變糟了。我們也傾向于認為，不管情況變糟還是好轉，這個趨勢總會一直延續下去。

????進入這樣一個負面漩渦的員工只會給公司帶來危害。

????陳教授說，停下來重新審視局勢是脫離苦海的一個辦法。和六個月前比，工作也許感覺不妙，但和兩年前比呢？

????When cubicles start to feel like prison bars, it's a problem. Unfortunately, a downside of the sluggish economy is that many of us lucky enough to have a job can feel like we are trapped in it.

????Some data suggests people are still acting trapped. In a good economy, more people quit their jobs than are laid off. But that relationship flipped during the recession, which could indicate that people were less willing or able to leave. While more people are leaving voluntarily now than not, according to a report published this month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that gap is closer than it was before the recession.

????Often, people stay at jobs they don't want because of very real external circumstances -- there are bills and loans to pay off, families to support, and your job can feel like the only means to get affordable healthcare. Many of us have skills (ahem, journalism) that are closely tied to industries in flux.

????"The reality is objectively worse than in other times; the economic crisis is real," says Gilad Chen, a professor of management and organization at the University of Maryland. Yet, feeling trapped might not match our actual situations. Our brains process information in ways that, sometimes, can amplify those feelings.

????People often feel trapped when it seems like circumstances are out of their control, says Chen. Conversely, "the people who adapt in these and other economic conditions are those who take ownership."

????But certain events make it tough to shake the notion that we are slaves to the office. "Usually that amounts to something that changes at work," says Bill Becker, a management professor at Texas Christian University's Neely business school. "You get a new boss, and they're just impossible to work for, you get some kind of new assignment and it doesn't fit, or you realize the culture is just so different." So the nature of the job changes for the worse, yet employees feel like they can't leave.

????Our brains don't help matters. "We have this self-serving bias, that I think is our worst enemy in these kinds of situations," says Becker. The self-serving bias goes like this, he explains: "When things go good, we attribute them to ourselves and say, 'Of course they're going well, I'm awesome.' When things go poorly, on the other hand, we are much more likely to blame it on the company or the economy."

????Blaming external forces actually serves a purpose: it's a protective mechanism. Some evidence suggests that people with depression have very low self-serving bias -- they think everything is their fault.

????But there is a limit to the benefits of this approach. Shifting responsibility from oneself to external forces can make it difficult to build up the drive it takes to change your act. If the outside world is the problem, the thinking goes, why should you change?

????Fear of the unknown is another powerful psychological factor that can trap us, Becker says. "Even if we're unhappy, there is always a bias to stay where we are."

????Yet where we are is relative to where we have been before, Chen says. People tend to compare their situations to their past. Our mind draws a trend line: if we were doing well at work, then something bad happens, we process that information to mean that things are getting worse. We also tend to think that if work is getting worse, or better, it will continue on that track.

????Employees who start that spiral on the negative side can become toxic to a company.

????One way to pull out of it is to stop and reexamine the data, says Chen. Maybe work feels worse compared to six months ago, but what about two years ago?