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Study finds human beings are largely optimistic, even in the face of a darker reality.
English poet Alexander Pope got it right in the 1700s when he wrote "Hope springs eternal in the human breast".
A new British study has found human beings are hard-wired to be optimistic, even in the face of a darker reality.
Scientists led by Tali Sharot at the University College London studied a group of people who were told they were likely to experience something bad.
The results found most people stayed highly optimistic.
And the researchers say the study shows why people are often foolhardy, naive or overly ambitious.
"We tend to learn more from positive information about the future," Dr Sharot said.
"The reason is that regions of the front of your brain are very good at tracking and coding for positive information about the future.
"When you get negative information about the future, the frontal lobes don't code that information as efficiently."
Dr Sharot is also the author of a book called The Optimism Bias, which explains how the human brain is hard-wired for hope.
"Now it doesn't mean that we don't remember positive or negative information, it just means that we take positive [information] about the future in order to update our beliefs," she said.
"For example, if we learn that the probability of suffering from a certain disease is actually less than what we expected, we take that information and we update that belief of how likely we are to suffer a medical disease.
"But if we get negative information about the future, for example, everyone knows that divorce rates are about 50 per cent, we don't take that information as relevant to us and don't change or estimate on how likely we are to get divorced."
Even in the face of mounting negative information about the likelihood of illness, accident or even heartbreak, people still cling to the positive.
"It's some sort of denial. We think that we will be okay. This is not going to happen to us. You can say it's some sort of denial," Dr Sharot said.
But she warned downplaying the negative comes at a cost.
"We might not take the precautionary actions needed," she said.
"For example, you might not go to medical screening as often as you should because you think you are going to be okay.
"You might not buy insurance, and when we talk about financial markets, what happens is the optimism bias of all of the individuals come together into a bubble and actually a bias that is much, much bigger, and in that situation it can be ever more dangerous."
Dr Sharot says the research also provides insights into mental illness.
"If we know how the healthy brain works, we get insight into what happens in mental illness such as depression.
"The second thing we learn is that optimism doesn't change your beliefs. It will actually make you more likely to take actions to protect yourself."
Looking on the bright side, the findings show being optimistic makes us more adventurous and productive, lowers stress and anxiety, and promotes health and wellbeing.
The research is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
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