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No, Human Beings Are Not Naturally Optimistic, Study Says

New research challenges the idea that human beings are innately optimistic about their own lives. We speak to the researchers to find out why we’re all much saner than previously thought.
Stocksy via Bratislav Nadezdic

If you're a glass half-empty person who doesn't bother to send their CV off for jobs they're wildly under-qualified for: congratulations! You have science on your side.

For years, psychologists believed that we're generally pretty chill about the likelihood of bad things happening to us. This so-called optimism bias paradigm has been used to argue that people think they're less likely than their neighbor to get a life-threatening illness, for example. It was thought to be one of the reasons why rational, intelligent people like you or me continue to do moronic things—like jumping off cliffs or watching Adam Sandler films.

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New research from University College London disputes the idea that we're at heart optimistic people. In their study, researchers used computer simulations that they programmed to make decisions rationally, based on the probabilities of good or bad news.

"So the computer will be given an estimate of how likely a desirable event is, such as living to 90 years old," says Dr Adam Harris. "We'll tell the machine that the average individual has a 30 percent chance of living to 90 years old, but that it has just a 20 percent chance of living to that age. And it will respond with a pessimistic outlook."

Switching the model around, Harris and his team programmed the computer with a more favorable scenario. "So say, for example, your likelihood of getting cancer is 20 percent, as opposed to 30 percent in the general population, that's desirable—because you don't want to get cancer." What Harris found is that the computer switched up its reasoning to demonstrate a more positive outlook.

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While this may sound unsurprising—after all, computers do have a tendency to do computer-like, rational things—what Harris found remarkable was the pattern of results the tests produced. When compared to earlier tests run using human volunteers, the data matched up: Humans demonstrated the same tendencies towards pessimism or optimism as their machine counterparts.

In short, the study suggests that human beings aren't inherently optimistic; researchers had just been interpreting their decision-making wrong. "It's only when you run the findings through computer simulations that you realize that something's not right with optimism bias theory."

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That said, there are some instances where people will demonstrate irrational tendencies towards optimism. "For some things in life, I'll be optimistic, and for some things I'll be pessimistic." Harris uses the example of sports fans.

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"Say I support a certain football team. I've probably got more information about them than about other teams; maybe I know their star player has had a great season. I therefore believe they're going to win. But I may not know that the opposing team's player has also had a great season, because I only read sports blogs about my own team." As a result of this inadequate information, Harris explains, people will be overly optimistic.

What are the real-world consequences of realizing we're all a lot less optimistic than previously thought? We may well have to rethink entire swathes of public policy predicated on the comparative optimism paradigm.

Until then, if you're tempted to ridicule someone who claims that we can eradicate the gender pay gap and end climate change in our lifetimes, don't be disheartened—they're likely the freakishly optimistic exception, not the rule.