Next Gen News

Tali Sharot explains how he discovered the optimism bias, and how it helps keep people happier

What exactly is the tendency for optimism?

waiting for the future to be a little better than that eventually. People tend to overestimate the positive - to have a long term relationship or a certain salary, career success - and underestimate the likelihood of negative events, such as cancer, being in an accident, a divorce . Regarding the difference between their expectations and the result, when the first is slightly better than the second.

How

met with her?

was to see whether the neural mechanisms involved to remember the past are to imagine the future. My work is mostly negative memory about traumatic events, so I was interested to imagine negative traumatic events, but had to compare them with people every day imagining events boring. But when I asked people to imagine events boring, often imagined a kind of magnificent scenery, which I found very surprising.

was so surprised because you are really a pessimist? I do not expect amazing results.

not. And we can say that he was optimistic because I was looking for something specific. It was not because I was or am a pessimist. But I do not think people can rank just as pessimistic or optimistic.

How would you be optimistic?

do not think people can find their own level of optimism. The only way is to get tested, know that all these experiences, so I can not test me. My guess is it would probably be average. This is the best statistical estimate, you can always do, right? The average person is slightly optimistic, 80% of the population will be on the optimistic side

In some countries - for example, Great Britain, which is more culturally acceptable to be pessimistic. In the U.S., optimism is considered a good thing, so I suspect that people usually say they are optimistic here, people can not tell. But there is no real difference.

people who are pessimists seem to actually have a more realistic vision of the future, but it does them no good.

In general, you must have positive expectations for achieving their goals.

this mean that Olympic athletes are subject to cognitive biases false? You can not win all the gold, but they have to believe that they can to push through years of training.

do not know if athletes are more optimistic - perhaps because it can be said of many professions. Look at mine. People always think that your next job will be changes everything. But not everything can be. And in fact my students to think that way because it can be true and motivates them to do things.

You give the example of the law students who say there is a divorce rate of 50%, but still believe that their relationship will last forever. He made me have a more realistic view of human relationships?

Yes, I suspect so.

this mean you are less romantic than they were before?

Maybe. However, it may be because I'm older.

But the book you say that being older does not necessarily wiser.

You talk about the illusion of introspection. It seems that the more you try to think of you, less self-awareness seems to accumulate.

is not as hard you try, but ended up going to the wrong kind of things are not imported. I give an example where people are trying to decide between two images to put on the wall. We think you will be happier, but attending to items that are not really important for an emotional response.