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Brain Regions Responsible for Optimism Located
TaeKwonDood writes "The brain region responsible for believing you can seduce Giselle Bundchen or make a YouTube clone for bobble-head doll movies successful has been located. Surprisingly, it is not in a bottle of Jager, it's in the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala."
now i must suppress those regions so i dont get too optimistic and do something stupid, like "first post" on an article, or something.
stuff
So thats why I have been sad after my wife shot me in the head!
What is the use of all these discoveries. The world is going to end soon due to global warming.
Tell that to Dubya.
pessimists are brain damaged?
proud caffeine whore
Too bad we'll never be able to do anything with this discovery.
Sigh.
have we located the part of the brain responsible for horrible slashdot summaries?
So I guess this is the brain region that makes some people think their article summaries going to end up perceived as clever or funny.
Optimistic people may try things because they think there will be a good outcome. Often, it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. It's hard to be optimistic if you are delusional and always try to do things that just-aren't-on. An optimistic person is more likely to be satisfied with an adequately attractive mate than to try seducing a movie star. Optimism is about lowering your expectations enough that they are often exceeded. Then you think the world is a wonderful place because you got a better deal than you bargained for.
I was accused of being too pessimistic, so I went and read a little about the subject. The most interesting thing I found was a book by Julie Norem called "The Positive Power of Negative Thinking".
She puts forward a case that optimism/pessimism is a result of how your personality reacts to stress. Optimists tend to ignore the things that could go wrong, so they don't get stressed in the first place, and are therefore happier people. When bad things do go wrong, optimists tend to relate it to external causes. On the other hand, pessimists are pessimists because they have a tendency to be anxious. They immediately foresee the risks of each situation (due to their personality, not a conscious decision) and therefore they map out alternatives to each bad outcome until they've relieved their stress by feeling confident that, no matter what happens, they have a plan for every eventuality. When things still go wrong, pessimists tend to ask themselves what they could have done differently to avoid the bad outcome (internalizing it).
When an optimist and a pessimist face a situation together, the pessimist causes stress in the optimist by pointing out what could go wrong. The optimist causes stress in the pessimist by refusing to make contingency plans.
Once I realized all this, I was able to continue making contingency plans to keep my own stress under control, but I am now more careful about voicing my internal thought process around people who I know are optimists.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Mine's missing.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
so are we now able to remove this completely useless section of the brain then. I've always though that optimistic people had something wrong with them and now that this diseases portion of the brain has been islolated it can hopefully be removed allowing those previously affli ted by optimi
to lead more productive lives.
I reject your reality
Perhaps the day is coming close when we will be able to artifically induce optimism in ourselves by tickling the right brain cells.
Feeling nervous before an interview? *zap*
Footballer lacks confidence before a game? *zap*
Going out for your first date? *zap*
Meeting her parents? *zap*
This is a guaranteed major money spinner, and I won't be surprised if it becomes addictive as well.
This is just a pure stab in the dark here, but could a drug stimulating this region be used to help depression? One of the symptoms seems to be a feeling of despair and inability - turning this feeling around by (chemically) convincing folks that they /can/ pull themselves out of the hole they're in might work.
TFA tells almost nothing - a region in brain seems to light up when people think up optimistic thoughts, and seems to overlap with that of pessimistic thoughts. Why? Don't know. Are they the only regions? Don't know. How big was the sample? A few people. What does it mean? Who the hell knows?!
Cute summary, though, got me to post a comment. Supermodel always sells.
We now know that being a psychic entails being extremely pessimistic. Or maybe Murphy's law is more true than anyone realized.
Schrödinger's download is slow.
Surprisingly, it is not in a bottle of Jager, it's in the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala.
So, what exactly is it in the bottle of Jager that makes your rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala think you can get a date with Gisele?
Put another way, getting drunk can make you optimistic - it would be interesting to study the effects of alcohol on that region of the brain. If that portion of the brain could be stimulated in some other way it could lead to a powerful new series of drugs to battle depression. Or improve combat effectiveness. Or maybe even get you that date with Gisele.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
...despite calling you a lilly-livered nerd-faced card-carrying SCO-fan-club hippo-ass face with a check-sum-faulting 286 for a brain.
Table-ized A.I.
Those timelines have to come from somewhere.
Wasn't she the hot chick in that star wars movie?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
As a Democrat and loyal Slashdot user, I blame the Jew puppet Bu$Hitler Chimpy McHaliburtin
Instead he blows the heads off children in Iraq for his amusement.
Oh well, every dead soldier is one less Republican vote and one more victory for us Democrats
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just look at this post!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Queue the "Natalie Portman" + "Hot Grits" memes
The game.
I *knew* they'd find it!
The article seems to assume that optimists (people whose rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala are highly active) are the norm, or at least the ideal, and that pessimists (where those regions are less active) have something "going wrong." I wonder if that's actually the case. Optimism may FEEL better (obviously depression is pretty rotten), and it's apparently beneficial to the optimists (or so studies have indicated), but does it more accurately describe reality? Lots of people say that they're not pessimists, but realists, and that realism is simply inherently depressing. So are all the benefits of optimism emotional, or are there benefits to pessimism as well, in the sense that the pessimist models reality more realistically? If that's the case (and I guess it might not be), which wins out?
I've got a baaaad feelin about this one...
And what is the part of the brain responsible for making people want to date Gisele Bundchen? That is one ugly chick. In fact, most top models nowdays are hideous, masculine, angular, and totally unfuckable. That's what happens when the fashion industry is run by bitter women and gay men. The saddest part is that some young girls now actually want to look like that because they think men find it attractive.
Wake me when they find the brain region responsible for intelligent article summaries and tags. zzzznnork..mmmm....giselllle....zzzzzz
Perfect. A region that causes optimism, without the rest of the brain to back it up. Let's call it the "Stiffler" region, after good ol' Steve from the American Pie movie.
Nope that was the medulla oblongatta. Not that kernel sanders ever spelled that out for me, so I could be wrong there.
I'm usually cranky about claims to have found the part of the brain that does X, since this pre-supposes that X is done in a particular part. In a computer, some things like long-term data storage are localizable. Other things like getting the size of a file aren't performed in any particular part. If you believed that getting the size of a file was done in some particular part, you might find out where activity occurs (changes of states) when you ask for the size of a file, and then erroneously conclude that the hard disk is what gets the size of a file, when the real behavior is a combination of the hard disk, CPU, RAM, bus, and operating system. Again, it's the assumption that every behavior or ability you can label is the result of some area of the brain whose only function is that behavior or ability.
pfft... they will never be able to find the pessimistic part of the brain.
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!
Who the fuck is Giselle Bundchen? Google turned up some pictures of a model, but like all other models she is extraordinarily thin. Is there anything specific that makes this model unique?
I think the tag feature that /. has works very well. If I had heard about this article being on /., I certainly would use the search criteria "science, overactiverostralanteriorcingulateandamygdala, datewithgisele, datewithgiselebundchen, giselebundchen". I wouldn't know how to find this particular article in any other way.
-- Cheers!
Giselle is a man
Giselle is a man
The cake (giselle) is a lie (man)
I think the researchers have greatly underestimated the power of Jager.
Basically, yes. If you define wellness as including happiness*, then yes, pessimists are brain-damaged. This is basically what buddha showed, and cured, 2500 years ago, along with many other philosophers leaders, and general humans since. Too bad the pessimists never saw the point in figuring out what he had to say ;)
* which makes a lot of sense, since the most obviously healthy people are capable of happiness even in extreme situations.
Sorry, I can't stop it, my brain's just wired to think like that.
Past a threshold, maybe. But I could ask the same question about the other side of the coin: "are _optimists_ brain damaged?"
It seems to me that the only position that is actually any use is the center line: realism. A healthy realistic assessment of how the world works and what are the _real_ chances that Y happens when you do X.
Think of, say, the japanese game Go. You look at a group of pieces. Are they alive? Are they dead? The only good position is to just count eyes and conclude impartially based on the rules. Pessimism is, obviously, bad. If you make your decisions starting from "bah, with my luck, those are probably dead too" you'll tend to let groups die which could have been saved, and lose the game. But I'd argue that excessive optimism is actually _worse_. Newbies get pwned most of the time is because they insist on trying to save a dead group or follow a losing ladder, and just give the opponent a bigger capture.
If you don't know Go, think of Chess, Poker, Blackjack, whatever you know. Same idea. Excessive illogical pessimism is bad, but advancing into a trap because of excessive illogical optimism is, I would argue, even worse. Betting the house on the slim chance that you'll get another ace and turn a 20 into a 21 at Blackjack, just because you have a good feeling about your luck and know you can do it, is blatantly stupid.
At some point you just have to face reality and admit that taking or continuing a course of action is stupid and possibly self-destructive. Not because of overwhelming pessimism, not because you'd rather sit in a corner and do nothing, etc. Simply because some other course of action might yield better results with the same time, money and effort investment.
Honestly, the Darwin Awards are full of people who killed themselves because they massively mis-judged their chances on the optimistic side. Like the priest who was sure that his faith will let him walk on water. Doubly so, without a backup plan: he couldn't swim. Can we say that he was a bit too optimistic when judging that course of action?
Or look at the economy. How many people venture their lifetime savings without a realistic plan, just because they use optimism instead of logic? The dot-com bubble -- like most bubbles in history -- was based on optimism too. Forget logic, just dump your money on a company with no product or customers, and if it goes wrong, you know you're lucky enough to sell them to some other dolt before it bombs. How many lost their lifetime savings that way?
Pyramid scams? Same thing. Even people who understand exponentials ended up losing their money to those because they were optimistic enough that they're starting early and will get their payoff before it bombs.
Stock spam? Same thing. There _still_ are people who believe that they can act just fast enough to beat the scam and make a profit there. It doesn't ever actually work, but they're optimistic.
Briefly: much ink has been used in praising the importance of taking the opportunity when it presents itself. And indeed to much pessimism can hinder that. But I fear that not enough has been said about the importance of recognizing what's an actual golden ring that you can grab, and what's the ring on a grenade. History is full of people who'd rather pluck the latter than let a possible opportunity go by... and lost.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
isn't same as being ignorant or oblivious of the situation. Some one saying "The world is perfect!", isn't being optimistic, just delusional. As someone in replies said already, there is a difference between delusion and optimism. You can be realistic about the situation, but optimistic about your ability to live in it. Being optimistic and being realistic aren't mutually exclusive. Optimist and a pessimist might interpret the situation EXACTLY the same. Optimist will however think that the situation can be improved or made less bad, and will usually act on that. Pessimist will however be entirely passive and complain how it will only get worse, AND because he is passive it WILL (in most cases) get worse, making his claim a self fulfilling prophecy.
Someone here said that pessimist are good for contingency plans, well I disagree. A pessimist would think 'why make a plan, it will go wrong anyway', an optimist will say "Things will go wrong, but I think we can make a plan that will reduce the damage if they do".
Once again difference between pessimist and optimist, is not in the view of "How things are?" but in the view of "What can be done?"
Of course this is in my opinion (and in opinon of some people from who i 'stole' the ideas from)Just in case my grasp of English isn't up to snuff, let's look at what the American Heritage Dictionary has to say about it: Miriam-Webster says: "an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome"
I don't see any mention that being an underachiever is an integral part of it.
Yes, I guess one way to expect the most favourable outcome is to redefine your criteria so that anything short of a total disaster is a win. Then you won't have many "losses" in your experience, or much reason to expect a loss.
On the other hand, I don't see anywhere that "deluded" can't possibly be it. If you expect the best possible outcome where everyone else sees that chances are 99.99% that it will go bad, you _are_ deluded. You're also still an optimist, according to both quoted dictionaries.
To pick on your own examples, I see nothing in both that says an optimist wouldn't ever try to hit on a movie star. In fact, from where I stand, if anyone's going to try that, it'll be an optimist. The pessimists will look at that course of action, think "screw that, the way the universe hates me, she wouldn't even spit on me" and go do something else.
So it seems to me like you're just giving there a recipe of how to be happy, rather than define optimism. In fact, I'd say you're writing there the exact _opposite_ of what the dictionary says. Expecting the worst so your expectations are exceeded all the time, well, is exactly at odds with the dictionary's "expecting the best possible outcome."
2. It also seems to me that if I were to believe your definition, that's actually worse than pessimism. That's the recipe for being an underachiever. A _happy_ underachiever, duly noted, but an underachiever anyway.
Simply put, humans do what (they think) works and produces the desired results. If you're going to see even missing the target completely as still a great success, then there's no logical need to spend a lot of time and effort trying to hit the bullseye.
As a personal anecdote, I've actually tried your kind of (redefined) "optimism" at some point in college. I can tell you that my grades dipped very very fast. The idea that "ah, who cares about grades, any grade that passes the year is just as good" caused not just half my grades to be just that in one semester, but I actually flunked an exam in the next one. That was the time to revise that philosophy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should be ultra-competitive and obsessed with clawing your way to the top at all cost, either. But there are a lot of comfortable shades of grey between that and lowering your expectations to meet the results. A more realistic assessment of where you are, what worked, what didn't, what was really a success, and what wasn't, what you really needed, and what you didn't really need, can be a lot more productive.
Sometimes you don't need to win first prize in a category, yes, that much is true. But then decide that logically and fully aware why and what's the tradeoff. Don't just lower your expectations until whatever happened is great. Because if it's just a reflex to keep doing that to stay happy, then you'll lower them even for the things that do matter.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
...if the US government can figure that out, it might work even better than Reagan's "cheer up america" campaign ;)
In fact, they didn't even establish that the two regions were "responsible" for optimism - as TFA's title might suggest, but rather
So what the researchers did say was that those parts of the brain seemed to be more active when thinking Happy Thoughts. There was no causality established.
Perhaps this is the part of the brain that responds to optimistic thoughts, and releases chemicals to make the flesh feel Happier?
Also keep in mind that the researchers couldn't get people to think neutral thoughts very well - they all tended towards positive thoughts in those situations.
When presented with a half full glass of beer, here are the reactions that determine your personality:
The optimist: The glass if half full
The pessimist: The glass is half empty
The pedant: The glass is too big
The paranoid: Who drank half my beer?
The engineer: We have a 100% design margin
The slashdotter: What's beer?
The average US
school leaver: What's half?
The surrealist: The glass is a pink frog
The opportunist: It's your round
The drunk: Are you gonna finish that...?
any more...?
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Scientists also located the area of the brain responsibile for gullibility, and they now have a procedure to remove that section of your brain.
[Apologies to the Unknown Slashdotter who posted this a while back.]
Optimists do have one definite advantage when it comes to, say, starting a business.
A pessimist knows that he'll fail 9 times out of 10, so he doesn't bother trying in the first place.
An optimist, even after repeated failure, remains convinced that this time he'll succeed...
...and eventually, if he's a reasonably intelligent optimist - and sometimes even if he's not - he does succeed.
Lifetime score for starting a successful business:
Pessimist: 0
Optimist: 1
It's not always true, and sometimes an optimist with just the right dose of pessimism and paranoia can succeed spectacularly (c.f. Bill Gates, Andrew Groves), but your average successful business owner was once an optimistic failure.
Setting expectations and then exceeding them is a key factor in getting raises, promotions, and other perks. I don't aim too low when I write my yearly goals (because my boss would never go for "I'm going to show up on time 3 out of 5 days") but I don't shoot for the moon either. I set goals that are reasonable for me to attain without much "extra" effort. Then, when I manage to significantly outperform, I'm golden. It helps to keep a list of all the "amazing" things you do during the course of the year, too. :-)
Since when is optimism the equivalent of self-delusion? But, what can you expect for a /. summary.....
I used to use cingulate, but I switched to verizon.
didn't you smoke tons of weed like my buddies and I?
so, unless one of you mooks gets lucky and hits the trillion dollar lottery, fuggedaboutit.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Now we have the first hope in many years of pharmaceutical companies finally coming out with a drug to cure this sad and debilitating mental illness.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Yes, of course! The rostral anterior cingulate! How could I have been such a fool, why didn't I see that?!
*bangs head against wall*
Stupid, stupid, stupid!!
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Hmm, that sounds very interesting, and very close to what I was thinking about this. I wrote a short story which summarizes the concept, it is called "Intelligence grows on trees". Basically, it is the same thing, but the difference is that I consider one's ability to "measure" possible outcomes to be proportional with one's intelligence, rather than one's level of optimism.
In other words, it's not a matter of feeling positive or negative about something, but a matter of being able to predict that event. Some things are "feeling-agnostic" and there is no reason for us to feel bad or good about them; emotions should not be involved.
Optimism or pessimism is a high-level protocol, stacked on top of other things. Reality does not care how you feel about it, so in the end you are a "winner" if you can rationally deal with things, rather than emotionally treat them as good/bad.
You might also be interested in this book, which is very good: The brain - a decoded enigma. And there are a couple of other examples on my site, which illustrate how math can be applied to life (most of the stories are about social relationships).
I've always considered myself an optimist, yet I always try to find potential flaws in all my plans which means (according to the author of the book you mentioned) that I am a pessimist. Could that be true? Or maybe we are dealing with different definitions for 'optimism' and 'pessimism'.
I thought this could have a connection with music; so I made a little experiment, and created an account on last.fm, to see what statistics says about my favourite music. It turns out that Moby's "Why does my heart feel so bad?" (along with other similar songs by Moby) is top rated in my list. Hmmm.. so... am I still an optimist?
The saddest poem
Optimists believe we are living in the best of all possible worlds,
Pessimists fear the Optimists are correct...
(too lazy to look up the actual quote)
Now we have the first hope in many years of pharmaceutical companies finally coming out with a drug to cure this sad and debilitating mental illness.
Which? Optimism?
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
Thanks. I think that comment pretty much just cured mine for today.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
So if someone had an overly active rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala, would that make them Optimist Prime?