optimism bias

I like to think of myself as a pos­i­tive and opti­mistic per­son. It seems to me to make for an eas­i­er and more enjoy­able jour­ney through life. So I was intrigued when I read of neu­ro­sci­en­tist Tali Sharot’s research into the Opti­mism Bias, which has shown that despite all the bad news sto­ries we are bom­bard­ed with on a dai­ly basis: war, vio­lence, wrong-doing and finan­cial melt­down, the major­i­ty of us are opti­mistic by nature; our brains are hard­wired to be so. It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing con­cept and one I had to find out more about, so I bought the book and met with Tali in her office at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don for an enthralling dis­cus­sion. [Read more…] about The Sci­ence of Opti­mism: a Con­ver­sa­tion on ‘The Opti­mism Bias’ with neu­ro­sci­en­tist Tali Sharot