Cornucopians and doomers explained. It's bred in the brain.

[GliderGuider]

The first excerpt is from a BBC story on the underlying study.

Brain 'rejects negative thoughts'

A study, published in Nature Neuroscience (GG: entitled "How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality"), suggests the brain is very good at processing good news about the future.

However, in some people, anything negative is practically ignored - with them retaining a positive world view.

They rated 14 people for their level of optimism and tested them in a brain scanner.

When the news was positive, all people had more activity in the brain's frontal lobes, which are associated with processing errors. With negative information, the most optimistic people had the least activity in the frontal lobes, while the least optimistic had the most.

It suggests the brain is picking and choosing which evidence to listen to.

And here's the abstract from Nature:

Unrealistic optimism is a pervasive human trait that influences domains ranging from personal relationships to politics and finance. How people maintain unrealistic optimism, despite frequently encountering information that challenges those biased beliefs, is unknown. We examined this question and found a marked asymmetry in belief updating. Participants updated their beliefs more in response to information that was better than expected than to information that was worse. This selectivity was mediated by a relative failure to code for errors that should reduce optimism. Distinct regions of the prefrontal cortex tracked estimation errors when those called for positive update, both in individuals who scored high and low on trait optimism. However, highly optimistic individuals exhibited reduced tracking of estimation errors that called for negative update in right inferior prefrontal gyrus. These findings indicate that optimism is tied to a selective update failure and diminished neural coding of undesirable information regarding the future.

Now isn't that interesting?

[tk2kewl]

1. Lemming syndrome?

:shrug:

[txlibdem]

2. Bookmarking for later reading

I always enjoy your OPs GG! Especially when I disagree the most.

[hunter]

3. I figure the optimists reproduce like crazy when times are good...

... and die like crazy when times are bad.

The pessimists just plod along avoiding the drama as best they are able.

My pessimistic ancestors as far back as I can trace them were always very good at walking or sailing away just before things turned to shit. They managed to sidestep all the wars, famines, and financial meltdowns of the past 300 years. Our family motto ought to be, "Fuck this, I'm outta here." My ancestors would often walk when all the optimists were still planting potatoes, or marching with patriotic or religious fervor, or borrowing money to buy bubbling stocks and bonds and property

I've always got my escape planned because I never expect prosperity to last. I'm certain this pessimism is an innate expression of my genes.

[GliderGuider]

4. "Fuck this, I'm outta here" works very well when there is an away to go to.

What happens when there is no "away"?

[hunter]

8. Maybe it's about knowing when to resettle the burned out areas.

People have lived everywhere on this planet save Antarctica for a long, long time. It's always been a "small world."

There is a fire cycle of human civilization. The trick is finding a stable place in the mosaic that's not soon to burn.

You probably won't be able to fly or drive to the place once the fire starts, but that's the way it's been throughout human history.

Unfortunately it seems the fossil fuel conflagration is going to be a big one.

[GliderGuider]

9. Very well put.

Every time we've gone somewhere else we've had to kill the people that were already living there to make room for ourselves...

[sam11111]

10. melanie - great sig... great song..where is she?

Nt

[wtmusic]

5. It's interesting that the article assumes the existence of objective reality

as a basis for comparison.

[GliderGuider]

6. I guess you gotta put your stake in the ground somewhere

But yes, I agree that there is an epistomological problem with Reality. To sidestep the issue I've given up the entire notion of belief, but that's probably not an option for your average scientist.

[wtmusic]

7. And now, another entirely valid conclusion

"Unrealistic pessimism is a pervasive human trait that influences domains ranging from personal relationships to politics and finance. How people maintain unrealistic pessimism, despite frequently encountering information that challenges those biased beliefs, is unknown. We examined this question and found a marked asymmetry in belief updating. Participants updated their beliefs more in response to information that was worse than expected than to information that was better. This selectivity was mediated by a relative failure to code for errors that should reduce pessimism. Distinct regions of the prefrontal cortex tracked estimation errors when those called for negative update, both in individuals who scored high and low on trait pessimism. However, highly pessimistic individuals exhibited reduced tracking of estimation errors that called for positive update in right inferior prefrontal gyrus. These findings indicate that pessimism is tied to a selective update failure and diminished neural coding of desirable information regarding the future."

Wonder how much that grant cost British taxpayers? :D