Slashdot Mirror
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
What is the use of all these discoveries. The world is going to end soon due to global warming.
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
There's a better way of looking at it... optimism is the defect.
As a pessimist, I personally am happier than every optimist I know. Here's why I'm always happy:
1) If I expect the worst, and someone excellent happens, then awesome!
And now the good part:
2) If i expect the worst, and it actually does happen, then at least I was right!
it is totally opposite for optimists, if someone goes wrong then not only are the wrong, but they are also unhappy, my way you always win
Step 4: Prophet!
No, no, you got it all wrong. You feeling sad only means that she destroyed the part that makes you happy. If you have a strange but persistent feeling that your brain is going to grow back, your rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala are a-okay!
Magazine 13 - We like to think its funny... sort of