Human Brain Hardwired For Optimism

An NYU psychology study showed greater activity in brain’s rostral anterior cingulate cortex, left, and amygdala, right, when subjects imagined positive future events.

Image: New York University

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Apparently, we can't help ourselves. As a species, we believe we will get that raise, win that poker game, build that dam, and successfully woo that special someone.

A propensity for optimism has long been a defining element of human culture, from Alexander the Great just saying "yes" to conquering much of the ancient world to a Harvard dropout named Bill becoming the richest man in the world. "A pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity," said Winston Churchill. "An optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."

Just ask your brain. In a recent study conducted at New York University, cognitive neuroscientist Elizabeth Phelps and her former graduate student Tali Sharot used functional magnetic resonance imaging to reveal that our brains are far more active when we sugarcoat the future than when we are negative about what's going to happen. The study appeared last month in the scientific journal Nature.

Scientists have long known that people tend to be overly optimistic about future events. Couples getting married believe they will avoid divorce, and contractors insist they will replace the roof on your house faster than often actually happens.

In Britain, the Department for Transport recently issued a "Supplementary Green Book Guidance on Optimism Bias," which mandates adjustments, based on distortions caused by optimism, to estimates of project costs, benefits, and duration. The guidelines are necessary, it said, because "there is a demonstrated, systematic tendency for project appraisers to be overly optimistic."

In eons past, this optimism may explain why a relatively frail, slow-footed creature with small teeth overcame so much to dominate the earth. Saber-toothed tigers? Build a better spear. Freezing caves in the winter? Build a bonfire. Trekking thousands of miles across tundra and land bridges to North America during the last ice age? Let's go!

The N.Y.U. team scanned the brains of 15 volunteers who were told to envision various possible life events, positive and negative-from winning a prize to losing a lover. Subjects were asked to envisage some events as having happened in the past, and some in the future.

The question posed by the team: Does our brain interpret bad and good outcomes differently?

One way to assess this is to see what areas of the brain light up when a person thinks optimistically or pessimistically-that is, which regions surge with blood flows that signal brain activity that the fMRI can detect.

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