NEWS: Optimism (OR: The Science Behind Believing That You Won't Die in a Fire)

GEEK: Optimism (OR: The Science Behind Believing That You Won't Die in a Fire)

Hey there! As you may know, my little region of Southern California has been suffering the effects of a sprawling inferno for the past week or so. I'll admit, after days of non-stop live coverage of devastated homes and new blazes cresting hills and threatening nuclear facilities like a ticking time bomb, it's tough not to totally retreat into your own reality, windows drawn from the ashen air rattling your lungs and clogging your brain, and just sit down on othe floor watch marathons of Yo Gabba Gabba (a delightfully psychotropic Banana Splits-like show my little sister introduced me to the other day during my family's evacuation visit). But in situations like this, optimism is one hell of an asset -- knowing, just knowing your house won't burn down in a fire and that everything will rebuild and be all right makes days a whole lot easier to take.

It's easy to tell someone to just be optimistic, but everyone knows it's not quite as simple as that. Scientists, however, are cracking into the state of mind we call optimism and discovering that it's more of a state in your mind than anything, and (cue shock here) it seems to be in cohabitation with its evil twin.

Personally, I wouldn't call "imagining receiving a big chunk of cash in the future, or winning a prize" optimism so much as believing in luck and faeries, but maybe I'm just more cynical than I thought. Anyway, researchers hooked fifteen young adults up to highly fancy and sophisticated brain-tracking machinery, and asked them to imagine several scenarios from the future, running the gamut from winning a grand award to being dumped and attending a funeral. While envisioning the more optimistic episodes, the the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala of the subjects (way down in the established emotion centers of the brain) lit up like crazy. The researchers' monocles collectively popped upon realizing that these are the same brain areas that are known to control pessimism and depression, and then lots of thinking went on.

So what we know now is that optimism is also controlled by emotions. In this vein, researchers noted problems controlling "optimism bias" in their subjects, where -- given neutral situations -- the subjects tended to build them up better than they were. We're just a chipper lot, we young adults.

The good thing about this research is that it has the potential to go a long way in more effectively treating depression. Perhaps one day we'll have a more perfect pill to cancel out the negative and accentuate the positive, attacking and enhancing the same site at once. It'll be a nice thing, I imagine (optimistically). Until then, I'll just be here on the floor, watching kids' shows with cameos by Biz Markie. It's the next best thing.


_DictionaryGirl_ wishes the kids' shows of her youth featured Biz Markie.

But they can also use it to develop other kinds of drugs....

Note the disturbing implication of this and previous research upon which it builds: in order just to function normally, without sinking into pathological depression, human beings need an optimism bias, that is, a tendency to systematically "spin" the facts to look better than they are. It is fairly well established that the people with the most realistic estimations of their prospects in life, those free from the mild to moderate delusions of "it will/won't happen to me," tend to be the clinically depressed.

Shit man.... that's exactly what I'm missing. An optimism bias.

Zap me until I'm positive. K. THX. BAI.

I, for one, welcome our optimistic young adult overlords?

I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.

you disbelieve the power of the secret? clearly you will amount to nothing in this world.

Oh, yeah.

.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

And I note you use the future tense there: How do you know that I already haven't amounted to nothing?

I loved it!

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.

you disbelieve the power of the secret? clearly you will amount to nothing in this world.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

And I note you use the future tense there: How do you know that I already haven't amounted to nothing?

youre posting on this website when you could be out there, attracting fame and fortune!

So have you read it?

If so, why cite the opinions of others and not your own?

If not, then the opinions of others don't mean much apparently.

1. No, havent. 2. Base, self defeating Snark. 3. cause im a jerk, you dingus!

Oh....you called me a jerk? I'M A JERK?!?!?

attn_ho said:

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.

you disbelieve the power of the secret? clearly you will amount to nothing in this world.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

And I note you use the future tense there: How do you know that I already haven't amounted to nothing?

youre posting on this website when you could be out there, attracting fame and fortune!

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

OH SNAP?

I'm, um...snapping?

I'm snapped?

Snap to the Crackle to the muthafuckin' POP.

If I still lived in so CA and my house was burning, seriously, I'd grab a coat hanger and some marshmallows and just give in.

At least we'd have something to laugh about later.

Reminds me of Brain Candy.

indeed, i miss The Biz

I haven't read the Secret, but I believe I did.

Oh well. Until the magic pills arrive I'll stick to self medication.

[YOUTUBE]<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/usbNJMUZSwo&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/usbNJMUZSwo&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

Hmmm... didn't work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usbNJMUZSwo

Chaser's War on Everything about "The Secret". Americans would know them from the APEC stunt.

Just put the YouTube URL in between the [YOUTUBE] tags, not the HTML code.

better yet, VISUALIZE the youtube showing up!