Brain Regions Responsible for Optimism Located

TaeKwonDood writes "The brain region responsible for believing you can seduce Giselle Bundchen or make a YouTube clone for bobble-head doll movies successful has been located. Surprisingly, it is not in a bottle of Jager, it's in the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala."

Optimism != delusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Optimistic people may try things because they think there will be a good outcome. Often, it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. It's hard to be optimistic if you are delusional and always try to do things that just-aren't-on. An optimistic person is more likely to be satisfied with an adequately attractive mate than to try seducing a movie star. Optimism is about lowering your expectations enough that they are often exceeded. Then you think the world is a wonderful place because you got a better deal than you bargained for.

Re:A book about pessimism

[Anonymous Coward]

So, never trust an optimistic sys admin.

Re:A book about pessimism

[Soko]

Once I realized all this, I was able to continue making contingency plans to keep my own stress under control, but I am now more careful about voicing my internal thought process around people who I know are optimists.

Hm. A pessimist has contingency plans for dealing with an optimist. Makes sense.

Soko

Re:Depression?

[Siridar]

So...what you're saying is, if you're depressed, you're not likely to attempt to kill yourself because you wouldn't succeed? I don't think that's the case. If you've got a optimistic frame of mind, I think suicide would be pretty far down the list...rather than thinking "there's no way out of this, death is my only option" it'd be more like "I can pull myself out of this, all I really need to do is try". Chemically-assisted affirmations, if you will...

Re:A book about pessimism

[dbcad7]

What the heck makes you think an optimist doesn't also have, or won't make, contingency plans ?

That you generally have an outlook that things will work out, doesn't automatically make you single minded. A true optimist sees little point in expending energy on worrying.. this energy is better used at finding what will produce a positive result.. Also, an optimist would not be affected by a pessimists stress, but rather they would be annoyed at the wasted energy.

Things go wrong (and right) for both optimists and pessimists regardless of how much it was worried over... and both optimism and pessimism can be self fulfilling.

Assumptions

[SourGrapes]

The article seems to assume that optimists (people whose rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala are highly active) are the norm, or at least the ideal, and that pessimists (where those regions are less active) have something "going wrong." I wonder if that's actually the case. Optimism may FEEL better (obviously depression is pretty rotten), and it's apparently beneficial to the optimists (or so studies have indicated), but does it more accurately describe reality? Lots of people say that they're not pessimists, but realists, and that realism is simply inherently depressing. So are all the benefits of optimism emotional, or are there benefits to pessimism as well, in the sense that the pessimist models reality more realistically? If that's the case (and I guess it might not be), which wins out?

Re:A book about pessimism

[ScrewMaster]

You're confusing "pessimist" with "doomsayer". The terms are not equivalent. A pessimist is someone who acknowledges the existence of that bastard Murphy and his friends: in other words, a fatalistic acceptance of reality. True optimists may be more fun to be around when everything is going well, but as they willfully remain blissfully unaware of what is, they are risky companions indeed (everyone driving an SUV at 80 MPH on the highway with a cell phone plastered to his or her ear is an optimist.)

Granted, pessimists who continually voice their concerns get a negative rep, no argument. However, most pessimists I know (including myself) have justifiable confidence in an eventual positive outcome because of that pessimism. We've made plans, tried to account for all the possible negative (trust me, pessimism is hard work!) and if we fail it's because we missed something, not because we didn't believe anything could go wrong. NASA, for example, is populated by pessimists ... believe me, you don't want an optimist designing your spacecraft: you'll burn to a crisp at liftoff. Conversely, true optimists rarely make any effort to ensure their goals are achieved, and simply have faith that everything will work out in the end. Sometimes they are right (sometimes pigs fly), but usually they're completely blindsided when everything that can go wrong does, because they refused to acknowledge the possibility.

On the other hand, optimists do make better leaders, this is true. After all, people are rarely inspired by pessimists. However, the most successful optimistic leaders learn early on to depend upon their more pessimistic advisors, or they don't last long.

In any event, optimists are among the most irritating people I know. I mean, sometimes you just want to take them by the lapels and shake some awareness into them. But you can't: ignorance is curable but optimism is forever.

Re:A book about pessimism

[dunkelfalke]

actually an optimist has only disappointments in his life.
compare that to a pessemist who has only happy surprises.

Re:so...

[fferreres]

If you are really pessimistic, you will fear it being an illusion, you may believe "this's is not it", etc. You are not really optimistic I venture to say, but agnostic. If not then, I do tend to see it that way. No matter the outcome, it's great for me. I don't have time to add bad thoughts to a reality that...mh...is. Instead of disliking the outcome, you start to figure things out as great lessons, and you learn to not matter much about the outcome, because the process (attitude?) always takes you where you want to go. Optimism per se helps in a different context. If you don't think an outcome is possible, it will probably not happen. But if you are to worried about an outcome, it may well not happen. Optimism as hope is not great, optimism as attitude does. This is MHO.

Re:Tags work well

[caluml]

It does sort of work. For instance, when I want to find an article about Vista, I know to search for defectivebydesign. It's just a pseudo-code to confuse outsiders.