(Slightly off-topic) Brain imaging reveals why we remain optimistic in the face of reality

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2011/WTVM053018.htm

Brain imaging reveals why we remain optimistic in the face of reality

10 October 2011

…

In a study published today in 'Nature Neuroscience', researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) show that people who are very optimistic about the outcome of events tend to learn only from information that reinforces their rose-tinted view of the world. This is related to 'faulty' function of their frontal lobes.

…

Nineteen volunteers were presented with a series of negative life events, such as car theft or Parkinson's disease, while lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, which measures activity in the brain. They were asked to estimate the probability that this event would happen to them in the future. After a short pause, the volunteers were told the average probability of this event occurring. In total, the participants saw 80 such events.

After the scanning sessions, the participants were asked once again to estimate the probability of each event occurring to them. They were also asked to fill in a questionnaire measuring their level of optimism.

The researchers found that people did, in fact, update their estimates based on the information given, but only if the information was better than expected. For example, if they had predicted that their likelihood of suffering from cancer was 40 per cent, but the average likelihood was 30 per cent, they might adjust their estimate to 32 per cent. If the information was worse than expected - for example, if they had estimated 10 per cent - then they tended to adjust their estimate much less, as if ignoring the data.

…

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nn.2949

[robinlynne]

1. the inverse is of course just as true.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Could you explain?

Do you mean there are pessimists who emphasize negative information?

That’s possible, however, this research does not appear to address that.

[robinlynne]

3. of course! 50% percent of us. all with different reasons, and in different ways.

one of the cures for depression is to activate the frontal lobe because the emotions (other parts of the brain) are taking over. Exactly what this story says about the opposite.
The frontal lobe is responsible for reason. logic.
If we use other parts of the brain more than the frontal lobe we can just as well become depressed, i.e. process negative information, and ignore positive information, or become optimistic, processing more positive information than negative.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. In either case, unrealistic expectations can result

Currently, I would say that when it comes to ecological concerns at least, it appears that more people are unrealistically optimistic than are unrealistically pessimistic (although I would say that some certainly fall into the latter category.)

[robinlynne]

5. Yes. and yes. last night a friend was saying that the water and food are coming to an

end on the planet, and millions of hungry people will be in the streets fighting for food.
He felt this is coming right now. That people should move out of big cities.

[bananas]

7. Malthusian doomers

Frances Moore Lappe' has it right, she's changed her views somewhat since her first book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Moore_Lappe

Frances Moore Lappé (born February 10, 1944) is the author of 18 books including the three-million copy Diet for a Small Planet. She is the co-founder of three national organizations that explore the roots of hunger, poverty and environmental crises, as well as solutions now emerging worldwide through what she calls Living Democracy. Her most recent book is EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want

<snip>

Throughout her works Lappé has argued that world hunger is caused not by the lack of food but rather by the inability of hungry people to gain access to the abundance of food that exists in the world and/or food-producing resources because they are simply too poor. She has posited that our current "thin democracy" creates a mal-distribution of power and resources that inevitably creates waste and an artificial scarcity of the essentials for sustainable living.

<snip>

In 1987 in Sweden, Lappé became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award, often called the Alternative Nobel. In 2003, she received the Rachel Carson Award from the National Nutritional Foods Association. She was selected as one of twelve living "women whose words have changed the world" by the Women's National Book Association.

In 2008, she was honored by the James Beard Foundation as the Humanitarian of the Year.In the same year, Gourmet Magazine named Lappé among 25 people (including Thomas Jefferson, Upton Sinclair, and Julia Child), whose work has changed the way America eats. Diet for a Small Planet was selected as one of 75 Books by Women Whose Words Have Changed the World by members of the Women’s National Book Association in observance of its 75th anniversary.

Historian Howard Zinn wrote: “A small number of people in every generation are forerunners, in thought, action, spirit, who swerve past the barriers of greed and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us. Lappé is one of those.” The Washington Post says: “Some of the twentieth century’s most vibrant activist thinkers have been American women – Margaret Mead, Jeanette Rankin, Barbara Ward, Dorothy Day – who took it upon themselves to pump life into basic truths. Frances Moore Lappé is among them."

<snip>

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Well, about those millions of people fighting for food…

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/world/july-dec11/food_09-07.html

World Updated: Sept. 7, 2011, 10:10 a.m. ET

Did Food Prices Spur the Arab Spring?

Parts of the Middle East and North Africa were historically considered the Fertile Crescent, but this region of abundance is now in decline, and some analysts say it's no coincidence that there is unrest growing in its place.

One of the driving forces behind the Arab Spring, some contend, is the high cost of food. A combination of shrinking farmlands, weather and poor water allocation is helping contribute to higher prices and, in turn, anti-government sentiment, according to analysts.

…

"I think that the prices of food mobilized people," said Rami Zurayk, an agronomy professor at the American University of Beirut.

"If you look at Tunisia, for example, you see that the Tunisian uprising started in the rural area," where many small farmers live and are just looking for a means to support themselves and their families, said Zurayk. There, a young man running a vegetable stand set himself on fire to protest corruption, and many people see his action as the start of the Arab Spring.

…

In general, according to Oushy and Zurayk, the governments of the region should direct more resources toward farmers and their land, rather than mainly urban areas, and that will help quell discontent in the long run.

Here’s what may be an eye opening quiz from the UN’s World Food Programme: http://gifts.wfp.org/quiz?utm_source=wfp.org&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=you-versus-hunger

[bananas]

6. It's way more than 50%

Most people tend to be over-optimistic.
People who score higher on depression tests also score higher on tests of objectivity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias

Optimism bias is the demonstrated systematic tendency for people to be overly optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. This includes over-estimating the likelihood of positive events and under-estimating the likelihood of negative events. Along with the illusion of control and illusory superiority, it is one of the positive illusions to which people are generally susceptible. Excessive optimism can result in cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and delays when plans are implemented or expensive projects are built. More generally, they are related to the initiation of military conflicts and the creation of economic bubbles.

<snip>

Overconfidence bias may cause many people to overestimate their degree of control and their odds of success. This may be protective against depression—since Seligman and Maier's model of depression includes a sense of learned helplessness and loss of predictability and control. Depressives tend to be more accurate and less overconfident in their assessments of the probabilities of good and bad events occurring to others, but they tend to overestimate the probability of bad events happening to them.<7> This has caused some researchers to consider that overconfidence bias may be adaptive or protective in some situations.

<snip>

[robinlynne]

9. very interesting.