Optimism- Good or Bad

Ta l i S h a r o t

T h e O p t i m i s m b i a s

OPTIMISM

Good or Bad

Ta l i S h a r o t

T h e O p t i m i s m b i a s

A cognitive illusion

Tendency to overestimate our likelihood of experiencing good events in our lives and underestimate our likelihood of experiencing bad events.

OPTIMISM BIAS

T h e O p t i m i s m b i a s Ta l i S h a r o t

Marriage

In the Western world, divorce rates are about 40%. But when you ask newlyweds about their own likelihood of divorce, they estimate it at 0%

REAL LIFE CASE


Marriage

So it turns out that optimists are not less likely to divorce, but they are more likely to remarry.

REAL LIFE CASE


In the words of

75% of British people said that they were optimistic about the future of their own families.

REAL LIFE FACTS


Q: Asked how well they get along with others.

Believes they're at the bottom 25 % -- 10 out of 1,500.

Believes they're at the top 25% -- almost all

Most of the people put themselves

above average on most of these

abilities,

LIVE EXPERIMENT


Asked how well they get along with others.

Believes they're at the bottom 25 % -- 10 out of 1,500.

Believes they're at the top 25% -- almost all

LIVE EXPERIMENT


All can’t be better than

everyone else.

GOOD or BAD


Logic:

If we don't expect greatness, well we're not going to be disappointed when these things don't happen. And we're pleasantly surprised when they do, we will be happy.

But the question is, is it good for us? So some people say no.

But the question is, is it good for us? So some people say no. Some people say the secret to happiness is low expectations.

GOOD or BAD


GOOD or BAD


Reason 1:

Whatever happens, whether you succeed or you fail, people with high expectations always feel better.

Because how we feel when we get dumped or win employee of the month depends on how we interpret that event.

Reason 1: experiment Studies on high and low expectations. People with high expectations succeed, they attribute that success to their own traits. "I'm a genius, therefore I got an A, therefore I'll get an A again and again in the future." When they failed, it’s because the exam just happened to be unfair. Next time they will do better. People with low expectations do the opposite. When they failed it was because they were dumb When they succeeded it was because the exam just happened to be really easy. Next time reality would catch up with them. So they felt worse.

GOOD or BAD


Reason 2: Regardless of the outcome, the pure act of anticipation makes us happy.

GOOD or BAD


Reason 2: experiment

Students were asked to imagine getting a passionate kiss from a celebrity.

Then asked, "How much are you willing to pay to get a kiss from a celebrity if the kiss was delivered immediately, in 3 hours, in 24 hours, in 3 days, in 1 year, in 10 years?

GOOD or BAD


Reason 2: experiment Students were asked to imagine getting a passionate kiss from a celebrity.

3 days seemed to be the optimum amount.

GOOD or BAD


So…

GOOD or BAD


Reason 3:

Also,

GOOD or BAD


Reason 3: experiment

It acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Controlled experiments have shown that optimism is not only related to success, it leads to success.

Optimism leads to success in academia and sports and politics.

Most surprising benefit of optimism is health. If we expect the future to be bright, stress and anxiety are reduced.

GOOD or BAD


So optimists are people who expect more kisses in their future, more strolls in the park.

Without the optimism bias, we would all be slightly depressed.

People with mild depression actually are more realistic than healthy individuals.

Individuals with severe depression have a pessimistic bias. So they tend to expect the future to be worse than it ends up being.

Outcomes


So all in all, optimism has lots of benefits. But how do we maintain optimism in the face of reality?

STUDY


People were asked to estimate their likelihood of experiencing different terrible events in their lives.

So, for example, what is your likelihood of suffering from cancer?

And then they were told the average likelihood of someone like them to suffer these misfortunes.

So cancer, for example, is about 30 percent.

And then we asked them again, "How likely are you to suffer from cancer?“

Will people take the information given to them

STUDY


• People do take the information given to them to change their beliefs but mostly when the information we gave them was better than what they expected.

• If one said 50%, after getting to know the 30, next time around he will say 35%. So they learned quickly and efficiently.

• If one said 1%, even after giving the new information will still think it's about 11%

STUDY


• Everyone is aware that likelihood of cancer is 30% and of divorce is 40%. But they didn't think that those numbers were related to them.

STUDY


What this means is that warning signs such as these may only have limited impact.

• What was going on inside the human brain that prevented us from taking these warning signs personally.

STUDY


But at the same time, when we hear that the housing market is hopeful, we think, "Oh, my house is definitely going to double in price.

• To try and figure that out, participants were askedto lie in a brain imaging scanner. And using a method called functional MRI, the regions in the brain that were responding to positive information were identified

STUDY


• if someone said, "My likelihood of suffering from cancer is 50 percent," and we said, "Hey, good news. Average likelihood is 30 percent," the left inferior frontal gyrus would respond fiercely.

• On the other side of the brain, the right inferior frontal gyrus was responding to bad news. And here's the thing: it wasn't doing a very good job. The more optimistic you were, the less likely this region was to respond to unexpected negative information.

STUDY


STUDY


The average amount of bias that a normal human has i.e. how much he learns from good news relative to bad news.

STUDY


After interfering with the region that we found to integrate negative information the optimism bias grew even larger. We made people more biased

STUDY


Then interfered with the brain region that we found to integrate good news and the optimism bias disappeared.

• Amazed by these results because one is able to eliminate a deep-rooted bias in humans.

STUDY


A firefighter from California says, "Fatality investigations for firefighters often include 'We didn't think the fire was going to do that,' even when all of the available information was there to make safe decisions."

PITFALLS


• So unrealistic optimism can lead to risky behavior, to financial collapse, to faulty planning.

• The British government, for example, has acknowledged that the optimism bias can make individuals more likely to underestimate the costs and durations of projects. So they have adjusted the 2012 Olympic budget for the optimism bias.

PITFALLS


Tali Sharot: “ So what we would really like to do, is we would like to protect ourselves from the dangers of optimism, but at the same time remain hopeful, benefiting from the many fruits of optimism.”

The key here really is knowledge.

It’s a good thing because one is enabled to strike a balance, to come up with plans and rules to protect themselves from unrealistic optimism, but at the same time remain hopeful.

CONCLUSION


CONCLUSION


If you're an optimistic penguin who believes they can fly, but then adjusts a parachute to your back just in

case things don't work out exactly as you had planned, you will soar like an eagle, even if you're just

a penguin.

CONCLUSION


THANK YOU

Optimism- Good or Bad

Education