What Makes Us Optimistic

Posted by Jason on

October 25, 2007

Being a shiny happy person has to do with something in your brain. More specifically, with the centers that have just been discovered by a team at the New York University. Generally, humans have great expectations from the future: overcoming the average level of success, living longer and being more successful and healthier, tending to shadow negative thoughts like getting a divorce, having a professional or financial failure, or developing cancer.

The same brain areas impaired in depression have been found to be linked to the boost of optimism. This was determined through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects were analyzing possible future life events (like “winning an award” or “the end of a romantic relationship”).

“When participants imagined positive future events relative to negative ones, enhanced activation was detected in the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala, which are the same brain areas that seem to malfunction in depression. Activation of the rostral anterior cingulate was correlated with trait optimism, with more optimistic participants showing greater activity in this region when imagining future positive events.” said lead author Tali Sharot.

The researchers discovered that subjects were more predisposed to expect future positive occurrences than negative events and lived them with higher intensity.

“Our behavioral results suggest that while the past is constrained, the future is open to interpretation, allowing people to distance themselves from possible negative events and move closer toward positive ones. Understanding optimism is critical as optimism has been related to physical and mental health. On the other hand, a pessimistic view is correlated with severity of depression symptoms.” said senior author Elizabeth Phelps, a professor of psychology and neural science.

The rostral anterior cingulate had been connected by previous researches to the control of emotional behavior. It appears that this area combines and integrates emotional and autobiographical data, providing a positive outcome regarding the future.