Half Full: The Development, Problems, and Purpose of Optimism Bias

Humans are a remarkably successful species. What motivates us? What is it that moved us out of caves and beyond our basic survival instincts? What sparked imagination and innovation?

We are, after all, as finite a creature as any other. Why bother? And what made us want to bother?

Optimism.

If you examine human history; our use of fire, electricity, the construction of cities, the development of science, art, mathematics, religion, the empires, the wars, the advancements in shipping, trade, aeronautics, all of it. You will the find the exceptionally optimistic individuals of an exceptionally optimistic species.

The Development

We are largely wired towards optimism. And while this has advanced us it also seems counterintuitive to the evolutionary need to survive. Doesn’t caution, and by extension pessimism, make more sense?

Biologist Ajit Varki traces the development of optimism to the awareness of mortality. The theory being that this development and awareness evolved simultaneously. That optimism was crucial and kept out species moving forward. Were we not able to possess the notion of “an afterlife”, our dominance, indeed, our very survival would have been endangered.

“Terror would have made you dysfunctional in passing your genes on. You would be scared to fight another caveman for a mate. If you were a woman who had just watched another woman die in childbirth, you would say, “I don’t want that!” and you would avoid procreation. So at the same time in our evolution, we had to come up with a compensating psychological trick: the ability to deny the reality that we will all die.”

The Bias

Our propensity to be positive is such that it qualifies as a bias. An excellent analysis of “The Optimism Bias” can be found in Tali Sharot’s book of the same name. This is how she describes optimism bias: The tendency to overestimate the likelihood of experiencing positive events in the future and/or underestimating negative ones.

She explains that the research into Optimism Bias was an offshoot from the study of memory.

It is no secret that our memory is flawed, often inventing intricate details that were not present or did not occur. This is a result of our imagining of the future being the same neural system used for recollection (making it a reconstructive process).

“Memory is fiction. It may present itself to us as fact, but it is highly susceptible to distortion. Memory is not just a replaying, but a rewriting.”

~Daniel Levitin

So part of studying memory required research participants to describe events in the future. During the process of studying how the brain works when imagining future events, researchers noted that participants would describe decidedly unexciting events in elaborate and exciting terms.

This finding became the foundation for the study of Optimism Bias.

Problems

So far we’ve looked at how Optimism Bias helped us become the species we are today. But that, it should be noted, can be said in either a good or a bad tone.

In his extensive but accessible work Behave, Robert Sapolsky examines the work of Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, “Irrational optimism in warfare is disastrous. This can range from the theologically optimistic conviction that God is on your side to the tendency of military strategists to overestimate their side’s capabilities and underestimate those of the opposition–’piece of cake, full steam ahead’ becomes the logical conclusion.”

Tali Sharot looks at the effect Optimism Bias on the market, “Attributing unrealistic loss probability to negative life events (such as illness and job loss) and unrealistically high probability to positive life events (such as getting a raise) triggers debtors to borrow more than they would have borrowed otherwise. And yet, as was bluntly apparent in September 2008, stocks stubbornly persist in going down as well as up. Economists have suggested that the optimism bias was a root cause for the  financial meltdown of 2008.”

And of course, the planet itself is facing the consequences of our Optimism Bias and the denial that often comes with it.

“Our failure to do anything about climate change is the ultimate form of denial—now, of course, that reality is staring us in the face.”

~Ajit Varki

Purpose

An awareness of the development and the negative aspects of Optimism Bias can help us to allow for the benefits of the Bias. Specifically with goal setting. Here our optimism becomes the fuel for self-fulfilling prophecy. If you predict a positive outcome for your goals, you are more likely to achieve them. “People’s behavior is determined by their subjective perception of reality, rather than by objective reality. Therefore, believing in a positive outcome will enhance the probability that the desired outcome will be realized.”–Tali Sharot

Optimism keeps us moving forward. And as long as we are aware of the pitfalls as well as the positives, it can keep us moving forward joyfully.

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References

1. You think you’ll live forever by Dr Ajit Varki
2. Behave by Dr Robert Sapolsky
3. The Optimism Bias by Dr Tali Sharot
4. Featured photo by Pixabay