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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."
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
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.
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.
Have you ever met anyone with clinical depression? They have a hard time getting motivated, they always feel down, and can't focus -- among a ton of other issues. This sounds like it might be a big help.
I wouldn't go so far as to call it a cure, but look: 1) Optimism can be a great motivator and 2) It might get people with depression to look at the world in a better light 3) it's easier to focus on something you care about or think will improve your lot in life.
So yes, I'd say there's a good chance that it would do all three, if not by curing the disease, then by helping to cover the symptoms.
I'm not qualified in any way to say this stuff, but it is what it is, for what it's worth, from an armchair psychologist.