Visited: 'Packed Lunch' Optimism talk @ Wellcome Collection

I went to another brilliant, free talk at the Wellcome Collection. This time with neuroscientist Tali Sharot on the subject of optimism.

It is estimated that 80% of the population are optimists and are in fact optimistically biased. Tali Sharot talked about the effect of this on our lives, particularly on how we see our lives in the future and future events. She also talked about how people maintain an optimist bias in the face of reality.

For example, it is a known fact that almost 50% of marriages end in divorce. However, when optimists are asked how likely they think their own marriage will end in divorce they answer much lower than the average. Further to this, people believe they will live much longer, healthier lives than that of the average person. It has been found that people will consistently answer questions about their own lives more positively and optimistically than that of reality, despite being fully aware of the statistics. They also don't correct themselves, to become more realistic, as events unfold in their lives and their optimism has been shown to be wrong. Also when asked to predict when a bad event, e.g. loosing their job, will happen in their lives, they predict it to be way into the future, whereas they predict happier events to occur sooner.

I also found it really interesting that, research shows, when people are asked to talk about someone else, or society generally, rather than themselves or immediate family and friends, they suddenly answered questions more realistically and closer to the national average!

It has been found that optimists, compared to pessimists, to live much longer, happier, healthier, more successful lives.

You can listen to the talk here.

This post is specially dedicated to my ever optimistic friend Nicole.