16 ms·

People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

294 points by dhimes 7y ago

Bostonian 7y ago
For such studies, a randomized control trial should be done. For half the group, present the research on optimism and encourage them to be optimistic. For the other half, do nothing. I predict that telling people to be optimistic will not be effective.
- liquidise 7y ago
  I’d love to see a different question answered: is there an inverse correlation to be drawn between optimism and stress levels. From my experience significant stress can be just as debilitating as physical ailments and I find that optimists seem to handle stressful situations with more apparent ease than others.
  - refurb 7y ago
    That’s where my train of thought was going. Less optimistic, more stress, lower life expectancy.
    - vasilipupkin 7y ago
      I would guess causality runs the other way: people with high stress in life have lower life expectancy and also tend to be less optimistic because it’s easier to be optimistic if things are going well for you
      - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
        I'd say there's even a third option, the causality runs back AND forth (both good thoughts can lead to good outcomes as well as bad outcomes can lead to bad thoughts and vice a versa) Even in this third option there exist an infinite number of sub options on a gradient (where each direction carries more or less weight). Of course, any meaningful conversation can only happen after definitions (like what is pessimistic) are agreed upon. I for one don't agree with the definition of pessimism as defined by the study.
        refurb 7y ago
        It probably goes both ways? It’s well known that two people can have the exact same experience (e.g. fighting in a war, experience a natural disaster) and have vastly different psychological outcomes from it. Some can deal with it easily, while others are crippled by it.
  - Klinky 7y ago
    How does one measure stress and its effects? It often sounds like a vague catch all, that can't really be measured scientifically.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > I predict that telling people to be optimistic will not be effective. I think that it's amusing how the scientific response (which I shared) to this finding in favour of optimism is pessimism.
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- deleted 7y ago
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4ntonius8lock 7y ago
When I read the tile and skimmed through the article, I thought: define pessimism. I mean, I consider myself pessimistic, but what do THEY who designed the study consider pessimistic. I tend to find the fault in things, see how they are wrong, or in general anticipate some negativity that most people will overlook. It's literally what makes me good at my job. So I clicked through to the study. Which mentioned it used the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) to test for pessimism. So I looked up the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) and found what questions and answers they consider pessimistic. These are questions a 'pessimist' is supposed to answer as being 'very true': 3. If something can go wrong for me, it will. (R) 7. I hardly ever expect things to go my way. (R) Welp I can't say these are views of pessimists. More of someone depressed or someone who has been beaten down in life. I admire what they are trying to do, but I'm not sure this study really is proving anything until there is a clear measure of someone's pessimism. And for that we need I think better testing for someone's natural inclinations toward belief and skepticism. I've always associated skepticism as highly correlated to pessimism (seeing why not) and a tendency to believe in something at first sight as highly correlated with 'positivism' (seeing why yes). Objectively speaking, of the 7,000,000,000 people in the world, some percentage will have objectively way less things 'go their way' then for others. It's simply how distributions work. So for someone like that to answer question 7 affirmatively, they might not be pessimistic, just someone who has objectively had a shitty life. And for someone like that, well, less life expectancy should be expected. I know I've been lucky in life and would answer 7 and 3 as absolutely no despite myself considering myself a pessimist (and I've been called that enough to suspect others view me as such too)
- rolltiide 7y ago
  > More of someone depressed or someone who has been beaten down in life. Who accurately recognizes that they are going to be killed before people that have a tendency to have things go their way. Sounds like we should just rename the study then worry about how they define pessimism!
- jsharf 7y ago
  I feel like usually the pessimistic complaining posts like this in hackernews are much more negative. It feels like there's a lot of hesitancy in this one and it's much more accepting/positive because you're afraid of being pessimistic because of the article :P (Mostly just being cheeky. It's not fair to judge people on the internet when you don't know them)
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
All I can hope for is a quick death then
boyadjian 7y ago
Maybe optimism is profitable on an individual basis. But at the collective level, I am not sure it is such a good idea. Anyway, not being optimistic does not mean you must be pessimistic : We just have to be realistic. That mean, accepting the world for what it is, and not what we want it to be.
- fortran77 7y ago
  I know a lot of optimists who aren't realistic. But they're happy and tend to be successful. It's a principle among the Hasidim, too. The followers of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov believe that we should feel commanded to be happy at all times: https://breslov.org/1366/ https://breslov.org/1366/
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  Being realistic is not an alternative to optimism or pessimism though. A pessimist cynic will say "that's just the way it is" for example. Additionally pessimism and optimism are mainly about thinking about the future rather than objective state of now. Perhaps it's stocism that's a more fitting alternative.
- Zod666 7y ago
  I haven't read the article yet but I've heard stats like this before. Is it simply the effect of a positive emotional state? When my friend and I were talking about this I said: 'Be happy. Or else.'
  - rectang 7y ago
    Or else we'll put the happy helmet on you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVM1nUmDHHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVM1nUmDHHc (Ren & Stimpy Happy Happy Joy Joy Song)
    - Zod666 7y ago
      I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me. Why didn't you believe me!
300bps 7y ago
About three years ago I read someone on here recommend the book, “Learned Optimism”. They said it was life changing. I read it, did the work, and it is life changing. People with a pessimistic outlook are much less happy than people with an optimistic outlook. The book teaches you how each type thinks (for example, optimists think everything good that happens to them is personal and permanent and every bad thing that happens is impersonal and temporary. Pessimists are the opposite). The book then teaches you essentially a cognitive behavioral therapy technique to retrain your brain to think more like an optimist. It’s work but so worth it especially if you ever experience anxiety.
- taneq 7y ago
  Sounds like "Cognitive Dissonance for Fun and Profit."
- silveroriole 7y ago
  Weren’t you troubled by the fact that he admits optimists are factually wrong compared to pessimists, blame others, don’t admit fault, and just seem like generally unpleasant people (insurance salesmen and the type of person who talks on planes, for example)? Yeah, okay, they are happier, live longer, are more successful, get elected... but at what cost to the world? I came away thinking we should train the optimists to listen to pessimists more, not the opposite...
  - 300bps 7y ago
    The book is not for everyone. By that I mean that there are people in the world that think everything they do will fail. That obsess on every interaction with friends and significant others trying to look for signs that they don’t like them anymore. People that are riddled with anxiety on a daily basis because they always expect bad things to happen. That catastrophize every minor negative thing that happens in their lives. Those people will have their lives changed significantly for the better by following the program in the book. I am not troubled that reading a book will give you Narcissist Personality Disorder or as you said turn you into an insurance salesman.
- 7y ago
rectang 7y ago
Optimism is more compelling as an ethic than a philosophy. Even if pessimism more accurately represents reality, adopting optimism leads to statistically improved outcomes. So lie to yourself! Or do whatever it takes to fool yourself into adopting an optimistic mindset. Pessimism is for losers. [inb4 zealous optimists claiming that optimism is actually more realistic.]
- whatshisface 7y ago
  If you lie to yourself you'll know you're lying... Also that's a great way to keep yourself in a bad job or relationship when you could leave and get a better one.
  - firethief 7y ago
    > If you lie to yourself you'll know you're lying. You either haven't done it enough or are doing it too much
    - rectang 7y ago
      Star Trek scene about a robot who cannot handle the Liar's Paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqCiw0wD44U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqCiw0wD44U Humans are gifted, sophisticated liars. Don't think you can lie to yourself? I BELIEVE IN YOU! You can do it!
      - sitkack 7y ago
        I think self lie is a defining characteristic of humans. We also use our big brains to rationalize the decisions we have already made, not using our capacity for rationalism to make the best decisions. When we are truly rational, it is highly damaging to our egos.
tines 7y ago
But are people who live to 85 or more likely to have been optimistic?
tehjoker 7y ago
Aren't people that are richer, with the exception of those who achieve existential angst through lack of meaning, more optimistic? :P If you can't get medical care, I imagine you're both more likely to die and pretty pessimistic about the state of the world. It's easy to be optimistic when you have a feeling of control over your circumstances.
- neonate 7y ago
  That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors"
  - ummonk 7y ago
    It's a little weird to see a study about the effects of optimism control for depression...
    - stkdump 7y ago
      Only if you think that depression is a lack of optimism.
  - V-2 7y ago
    And then - as one of the possible explanations behind the correlation - they speculate that "optimistic people might be more motivated to try to maintain good health — such as maintaining a decent diet, engaging in regular exercise and not smoking". Surely this would have been controlled for already, as maintaining diet and exercising falls under the category of "health behaviors"? This is self-contradictory
- rectang 7y ago
  And it's easy to condemn unfortunate people for their pessimism, because haven't they caused their own circumstances by "choosing" pessimism? Optimism: the conceit of the fortunate.
ligand 7y ago
I really wish articles written about studies like this, where all they found was a association between stuff, and not a causal relationship, would explicitly say so. Perhaps through a little box near the end of the article stating, in simple terms, "the authors found that X and Y are associated. This does not necessarily mean that doing X will cause Y" I know the people who read the actual study in journal, entitled "Optimism is associated with ...", will notice the word "associated" and know what to make of the results. But Im pretty sure a good number of people who read pop-science articles like this dont know that "correlation doesnt imply causation". They will come to the wrong conclusion, and we cant blame them! Ive found this to be true in friends and family.
- KerrickStaley 7y ago
  And in this case, you could easily imagine the arrow of causation pointing in the other way. If you have the good fortune of being generally healthy, and make enough income to have access to good healthcare, it's likely that you will live to 85. But these same factors also make you a likely optimist.
  - halflings 7y ago
    Just copy-pasting neonate's quote from the article, responding to a similar comment: _That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors"_ Literally the second paragraph on the article. Read the article before posting comments, folks! :)
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JackPoach 7y ago
"The study included 69,744 women and 1,429 men." Does this mean it's much easier to find optimistic women than men?
- blihp 7y ago
  Probably easier to find women still alive at that age. (Here in the U.S. at least, women tend to outlive men by ~5 years)
  - adventskalender 7y ago
    If women are more optimistic than men, then that alone could be sufficient to yield the results of the study (correlation).
- andreareina 7y ago
  "Data are from 2 cohorts, women from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and men from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study (NAS)" [0] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357.short https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357.short
heavyset_go 7y ago
I can't think of a more literal example of survivorship bias.
- autokad 7y ago
  there is no way I'm making it to 85
  - booi 7y ago
    Not with that attitude
    - masonic 7y ago
      Q.E.D.
  - non-entity 7y ago
    Statistically, I'll die in my mid-70s (although I'm being slightly disingenuous in saying that), but I never understood why we strive to live so old anyway. After a while, what can you do? Many older people already rot in nursing homes. Perhaps if you've built something of significant value like a company or family that you want to see as long as possible it makes sense, but how will achieve that?
- Barrin92 7y ago
  or a simple mixup of causation. It may easily be the case that healthier people also happen to be more optimistic, from the article (I haven't looked at the study myself), this appears to be purely correlational.
aytekin 7y ago
More likely: "People who live 85 or more have more of the good things like health and safe environment which also makes them optimistic."
- has2k1 7y ago
  It is possible to imagine a potential casual process that leads to earlier death. What if pessimism creates a constant presence of key stress hormones (Adrenaline, Cortisol and Norepinephrine) and these are already linked to higher likelihoods of heart disease, cancer, ...
  - trevyn 7y ago
    Or maybe it’s acausal — some fires burn brighter, but they know that they will die sooner.
  - wozniacki 7y ago
    I'm sure it would seem like there is a link between the two somewhere, even if it is very threadbare or even spurious for that matter. More principally, these things just seem very believable because being optimistic is just a positive attribute that society rewards and approves of much more than it does pessimism (some would say being pessimistic is almost an universal negative, some outlier societies notwithstanding). This imparts a definite bias in the believability of the study, no matter what the findings of the study actually are - even if the study were to only indicate a mild association between being optimistic and longevity. Just consider the findings of a study from some years ago: "High social status has its privileges when it comes to aging – even in wild animals." ... “High-ranking members in hyena clans reproduce more, they live longer and appear to be in better overall health,” said Nora Lewin, MSU doctoral student of zoology and co-lead author. “If you want to see the hierarchy of spotted hyenas, throw down some fresh meat near them. It’s quickly apparent who’s dominant and who’s not.” ... Lewin and her teammates focused on telomeres, caps at the end of each strand of DNA that protect chromosomes from deterioration. These biomarkers are regarded as important signs of aging and stress in many species, including humans. Shrinking telomeres are a signal that cells are sliding into defensive mode, stressful actions that could soon lead to cells’ – and to the organism’s – death. “This work shows, for the first time, the effects of social rank on telomere length in wild mammals,” Lewin said. “This enhances our understanding of how social and ecological variables may contribute to age-related declines of hyenas, and in organisms in general.”[1] High social status humans live longer lives is the natural assumption here even if the suggestion is only mild. Such stuff seems more believable due to a chain of assumptions about - low status mammals, stress levels, food security, likelihood of physical harm etc. Its safe to assume those, it would seem - however light the actual evidence for it. There are scores of studies like this with very light suggestive conclusions yet the believability is high. I just wish these things are fleshed out with a lot more rigor and thoroughness by the science journalists or journalists at large. This isn't trivial, easily ignored stuff. These things have real world consequences if true. Very palpable, sizable and profound consequences on people's lives. [1] Social Status Has Impact On Overall Health of Mammals https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2015/social-status-has-impact-on-overall-health-of-mammals/ https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2015/social-status-has-impact-...
mattsfrey 7y ago
A lot of cynicism in the comments here, but having an optimistic outlook has been a boon throughout history in almost all accounts. It's definitely harder today with all of the mass media and the constant negativity, but in my opinion it's hard to argue with the logic.. positive energy yields positive results.. at least more so than negative energy
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Every day you can get up out of bed, enjoy a cup of coffee, and go outside and see the trees and smell the air, it's a great freakin' day.
  - nestorherre 7y ago
    Yep, so many things to be grateful of, but most of the people are just too "blind" to see them and acknowledge it. A gratitude journal is a really powerful tool.
goguy 7y ago
No absolutely no chance, it won't happen. Oh wait...
kristiandupont 7y ago
Yesterday, my wife stumbled upon a "20 pieces of good news" article and read it to me. Things like initiatives being taken to save the bees etc. At first I thought it was a bit silly but I realized that hearing all those good things did something wonderful: it made me feel quite optimistic on behalf of the world, which I can't say I have in a while (in spite of my own life going quite well). Keeping informed is the duty of a citizen in a democracy and I don't want to live in a rose colored bubble but I do think I am going to try and curate my news harder. For now, I started following The Good News Network and The Constructive Institute on Twitter and I will try and look for other similar sources.
- mewpmewp2 7y ago
  You should read "factfulness". It annoys me when people talk of the current world and time in negative tones when it is best we have ever had by many measurements. Not that we are having a terrible time, but it is cool to think negatively of the world it seems to me.
  - smt88 7y ago
    I agree things are better than even, but let's not forget that's on average. Many people still suffer, and even the luckiest of us can see it. People just aren't wired to think about things in terms of population statistics. > people talk of the current world and time in negative tones Are you sure they aren't also considering the trend that we're on? Things are good overall, but China and Russia are not functioning democracies, and most powerful countries are trending away from democracy. > it is cool to think negatively of the world It is cool to be concerned about others who are suffering (and maybe even a status symbol for some), and that concern leads to negative feelings. No one complains about the state of the world insincerely...
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    - rnd33 7y ago
      I think the main point I got from Factfullness was not that "the world is getting better stop being so pessimistic", but rather that we are biologically wired to seek bad news and we will automatically try to find the bad angle in everything. This is useful when you're living in a survival situation, not much so in modern society. If you zoom out a bit and look at history from a decade or even century perspective it is ludicrous to say that the world hasn't gotten better, or to say that the positive trend will somehow stop 2020. The trend away from democracy is alarming yes, and we shouldn't ignore it, but there is no way of knowing if it will be a short blip in history (like the trend of Communism 50s-80s) or something more permanent.
bencollier49 7y ago
Maybe the people who are pessimistic are right?
- coldtea 7y ago
  Doesn't matter. You can be optimistic or pessimist in the same exact situation. E.g. when in dire economic situation. The pessimist is "right" sure. But being right doesn't make you stronger. If you give up hope, you lose all kinds of benefits of the hopeful - including fighting till the last minute, and perhaps reversing the situation. Not to mention that whether you're right or wrong to be hopeful, some situations just reverse themselves, or something good happens out of nowhere, in which case the pessimist just got a more expended period of internal suffering for no good reason.
_ZeD_ 7y ago
relevant kurzgesagt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0&t=248s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0&t=248s
ivanhoe 7y ago
Reminds me of that joke that pessimist is just an optimist with a real life experience.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  My dad survived flying 30 missions over Germany when his group had 80% casualties. He had accepted that he wouldn't survive. He was always an optimist. I'd ask him why, and he'd say he survived the war when so many of his buddies didn't, and was going to enjoy every day of it. (He lived to 93.)
  - hycaria 7y ago
    Just wondering, do you often tell this anecdote ? Feels like I've read it a few times around here already.
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      Yes, I do. I thought it was an entirely appropriate response to the parent's comment.
pella 7y ago
The "Optimism" + "Placebo" - theory is also interesting. (2007) "A prior investigation found that individuals low in optimism are more likely to follow a negative placebo (nocebo) expectation. The present study tested the hypothesis that individuals high in optimism are more likely to follow a positive placebo expectation." "Results Optimism was positively associated with better sleep quality in the placebo expectation condition (r=.48, P<.05). Optimism scores were not associated with better sleep quality in either the treatment control condition (r=−.17, P=.46) or the no-placebo control condition (r=−.24, P=.35)." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399906005319 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00223...
- pella 7y ago
  Your doctor optimism is more important! "The placebo effect works and you can catch it from your doctor" (October 22, 2019 ) "If there's one thing you do want to catch from a trip to your doctor, it's her optimism." "The new study both demonstrates that the placebo effect is transmitted from doctor to patient, and shows how it might work. Researchers randomly assigned undergraduate students to play the role of a patient or a doctor. The "patients" were given a controlled heat stimulus to the forearm, after receiving one of two types of cream from the "doctor."" https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/21/npr-the-placebo-effect-works-and-you-can-catch-it-from-your-doctor https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/21/npr-the-placebo-eff...
  - amelius 7y ago
    So pessimists can't be doctors?
- pella 7y ago
  (January 2020) Journal of Psychosomatic Research: "The influence of personality traits on the placebo/nocebo response: A systematic review" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399919301990 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002239991... ( Open ) "Highlights • Results on the influence of personality traits on placebo responses are heterogeneous. • More studies are available on the influence of personality traits on the placebo response than on the nocebo response. • Optimism seems to be positively associated with placebo responses. • Anxiety might lead to increased nocebo responses. "
meed 7y ago
I’m so fcked.
known 7y ago
Share of males who survive to the age of 65. https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1208605581893726210 https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/120860558189372621...
aasasd 7y ago
How many optimists got slapped by the fate off the face of the Earth before they had a chance to participate in the study?
deleted 7y ago
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Someone 7y ago
For those repeating the “correlation isn’t causation” mantra: if you click through to the original article (https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357), you’ll find its title is "Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women”, so the authors of the paper are aware of that. They tried hard to adjust for demographics and health conditions. So, any critique should be on where those adjustments fail. The article is paywalled, so, even if I were knowledgeable about how that can be done, I can’t tell whether they are valid.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >so the authors of the paper are aware of that. The authors of every paper are aware of that. It's a thing that's being hammered on to them from early days at the university, and they are either studying for their PhDs or seasoned researchers when they create a paper. It's mostly geek arrogance and facile dismissal from HN crowd to put this tired cliche mantra up. When papers seem to ignore this, it's willingfully so (to get grants, pad their publications, etc with a nice result), not because they don't know this.
nif2ee 7y ago
Seriously Who the hell do and fund these "being optimist makes you live longer, eating healthy makes you longer, water found to be wet" researches? Is this because of the so much supply in graduate schools or researchers/schools want to see their names in the press?
- coldtea 7y ago
  Or because, you know, it's a valid question for science to research. But please, do tell us your favorite pet projects they should be studying instead. After all who cares for factors of longevity, when they could be studying new revolutionary shoe laces, or some new mobile phone bound tech...
- tasty_freeze 7y ago
  It is completely valid to study. There are plenty of "every knows that" bits of wisdom that are wrong. Or the degree of the effect is unknown. Or the mechanism of effect is unknown. Let me be concrete. Everyone knows that it is better to eat more fruits and vegetables and less processed food. Off the top of your head, how much must one eat to make a difference? Does it help people live longer, or just reduce sickness? Does it help by 1%, 5%, 20%? If you just read the title of the report it is easy to be cynical and say, "duh, I knew that", but if you read the actual study it surely will give insights that you were not aware of.
aapeli 7y ago
This is a hidden case of confounding. In particular, you would expect a question such as "in uncertain times I usually expect the best" to be very heavily confounded with your chance of making it through uncertain times (in the past and in the future). Yes, they controlled for basic things like some generic concept of health, diet and smoking, but there's so many things that are hard to control for. As a simple example: what if you have some rare genetic disease that's not controlled for but will likely kill you?
sidcool 7y ago
Alright. I should be out by 50 then.
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.
ipnon 7y ago
It could be that people who are pessimistic don't want to live or even want to die, leading them to engage in reckless or dangerous behavior.
winrid 7y ago
Met a 91 year old guy during my travels in China. He was walking around and talking to people when I was there without help. His family said he drinks a beer for breakfast every day. He drank Boju (instead of beer) before his wife died several years ago. Maybe the secret to a long life is 40% alcohol, a happy marriage, and good genetics. He looked very happy.
hadiz 7y ago
"Optimism Bias" improves our mental and physical well-being. Biases are irrational, by definition. Our mind is supposedly rational...and rationality is not always to our benefit. This kinda blew my mind when I was reading up some philosophy. My key takeaway was that rationality and logic is not always helpful to make decisions, esp. when it comes to complex systems such as people (i.e. relationships). As an engineer, it's tough to get past this mindset. On a daily basis I am striving to disconnect everything as much as possible because of scale and performance, but the human brain is nothing like that.
- celim307 7y ago
  Most memorable advice I got from my engineering professor: “you can get pretty far on feelings”
  - hadiz 7y ago
    All feelings are true, but they might not be valid. Invalid feelings are less actionable
- maratd 7y ago
  > As an engineer, it's tough to get past this mindset. Seems that way considering how you're being downvoted. A shame. As engineers, we should be more concerned with what actually works, not with what works inside our heads.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  Rational is also quite often faked under how you feel. Sadness makes you analytic, but also myopic so your conclusions are not that valid. It's always good to balance things and aim for positivity (but not foolishness).
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Personally I've found the one reliable metric I have with which to evaluate decisions is: happiness. Everything else is inherently externally derived and I might have good models of how they affect me, but I can neither control nor reliably predict them. For example, I have a good idea of how something will impact me financially, but only to a point. I also can't actually control that outcome. How something affects my happiness, though, that is something I have the most intimate ability to determine. As far as I know something makes me happy, I can't know anything else more. Therefore I try to focus most decisions around what makes me happy, with other metrics thrown in as applicable. One can choose to be rational and logical, but to what end? How does that serve you, does it? If it doesn't serve you, perhaps consider abandoning rational thought and logic for as long as it might serve to do so. We are not static beings and can be simultaneously rational and irrational. That's our power: to choose how we react and adapt. Lastly, one thing I've learned the power of as I've gotten older, is the power and benefit of holding beliefs you know to be false. I used to never understand how people could believe demonstrably false things, but I now understand that even something as absurd as that has useful applications. Use it wisely.
asdfman123 7y ago
Pessimists' outlook: pessimistic
htk 7y ago
Correlation does not imply causation. The paragraph stating that the “finding was independent of other factors” doesn’t really inspire confidence, there are countless factors that might impact the results.
- bad_user 7y ago
  Cohort studies cannot show causation, indeed, but that's not very relevant for what's being claimed. And what they are saying with "finding was independent of other factors" is that they adjusted for demographics and health conditions. Yes, there are countless factors that could impact the results, the adjustments are not perfect, but cohorts are useful clues and in the large scheme of things, if you are optimistic, this shows you have a higher likelihood to live longer.
  - htk 7y ago
    I might have read too much into it, but it’s easy for readers to extrapolate to “if you become more optimistic you’ll live longer”. A parallel would be to read “people who wear XXL are more likely to be fat”, where forcing to wear a smaller size won’t make them thinner.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
The last couple years I've become interested in gut bacteria, especially as it relates to health. Long to short, I'd like to offer this theory: People who are optimistic have more friends. People with more friends have more robust and more diverse gut bacteria. That (i.e., gut bacteria) help the optimistic live longer.
m3kw9 7y ago
Maybe because One of the the side effect of being a pessimist is giving up and just letting it go. That should nudge the data points to support this study
- m3kw9 7y ago
  The the.. do I sound like I stutter mf?
hi41 7y ago
I wish to be optimistic. My wife says that my pessimism and low energy is negatively impacting our kids. The article does not go into detail about what methods one can train on to become more optimistic. Does anyone know of some methods?
- just_browse_guy 7y ago
  As someone else has mentioned in the thread, the book Learned Optimism is all about this. I have also found learning meditation from the book The Mind Illuminated to be helpful. You could also check out CBT, and/or the writings of Albert Ellis. Fundamentally, you will need to learn to let go of your negative perspective. One thing that helped me with this is realizing that the facts of reality are one thing, and how I feel about them are another. These are entirely orthogonal, and rewiring yourself to react differently to things is very doable, especially if you realize that your negative reactions are not helpful.
tabtab 7y ago
Pessimists write more reliable code. Optimists assume users won't do funny stuff. Society owes the early croakers gratitude for their dedicated pessimism. Oh, and git off my lawn!

294 points by dhimes 7y ago

For such studies, a randomized control trial should be done. For half the group, present the research on optimism and encourage them to be optimistic. For the other half, do nothing. I predict that telling people to be optimistic will not be effective.

liquidise 7y ago
I’d love to see a different question answered: is there an inverse correlation to be drawn between optimism and stress levels. From my experience significant stress can be just as debilitating as physical ailments and I find that optimists seem to handle stressful situations with more apparent ease than others.
- refurb 7y ago
  That’s where my train of thought was going. Less optimistic, more stress, lower life expectancy.
  - vasilipupkin 7y ago
    I would guess causality runs the other way: people with high stress in life have lower life expectancy and also tend to be less optimistic because it’s easier to be optimistic if things are going well for you
    - 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
      I'd say there's even a third option, the causality runs back AND forth (both good thoughts can lead to good outcomes as well as bad outcomes can lead to bad thoughts and vice a versa) Even in this third option there exist an infinite number of sub options on a gradient (where each direction carries more or less weight). Of course, any meaningful conversation can only happen after definitions (like what is pessimistic) are agreed upon. I for one don't agree with the definition of pessimism as defined by the study.
      - refurb 7y ago
        It probably goes both ways? It’s well known that two people can have the exact same experience (e.g. fighting in a war, experience a natural disaster) and have vastly different psychological outcomes from it. Some can deal with it easily, while others are crippled by it.
- Klinky 7y ago
  How does one measure stress and its effects? It often sounds like a vague catch all, that can't really be measured scientifically.
JadeNB 7y ago
> I predict that telling people to be optimistic will not be effective. I think that it's amusing how the scientific response (which I shared) to this finding in favour of optimism is pessimism.

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4ntonius8lock 7y ago

When I read the tile and skimmed through the article, I thought: define pessimism. I mean, I consider myself pessimistic, but what do THEY who designed the study consider pessimistic. I tend to find the fault in things, see how they are wrong, or in general anticipate some negativity that most people will overlook. It's literally what makes me good at my job. So I clicked through to the study. Which mentioned it used the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) to test for pessimism. So I looked up the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R) and found what questions and answers they consider pessimistic. These are questions a 'pessimist' is supposed to answer as being 'very true': 3. If something can go wrong for me, it will. (R) 7. I hardly ever expect things to go my way. (R) Welp I can't say these are views of pessimists. More of someone depressed or someone who has been beaten down in life. I admire what they are trying to do, but I'm not sure this study really is proving anything until there is a clear measure of someone's pessimism. And for that we need I think better testing for someone's natural inclinations toward belief and skepticism. I've always associated skepticism as highly correlated to pessimism (seeing why not) and a tendency to believe in something at first sight as highly correlated with 'positivism' (seeing why yes). Objectively speaking, of the 7,000,000,000 people in the world, some percentage will have objectively way less things 'go their way' then for others. It's simply how distributions work. So for someone like that to answer question 7 affirmatively, they might not be pessimistic, just someone who has objectively had a shitty life. And for someone like that, well, less life expectancy should be expected. I know I've been lucky in life and would answer 7 and 3 as absolutely no despite myself considering myself a pessimist (and I've been called that enough to suspect others view me as such too)

rolltiide 7y ago
> More of someone depressed or someone who has been beaten down in life. Who accurately recognizes that they are going to be killed before people that have a tendency to have things go their way. Sounds like we should just rename the study then worry about how they define pessimism!
jsharf 7y ago
I feel like usually the pessimistic complaining posts like this in hackernews are much more negative. It feels like there's a lot of hesitancy in this one and it's much more accepting/positive because you're afraid of being pessimistic because of the article :P (Mostly just being cheeky. It's not fair to judge people on the internet when you don't know them)

mrtweetyhack 7y ago

All I can hope for is a quick death then

boyadjian 7y ago

Maybe optimism is profitable on an individual basis. But at the collective level, I am not sure it is such a good idea. Anyway, not being optimistic does not mean you must be pessimistic : We just have to be realistic. That mean, accepting the world for what it is, and not what we want it to be.

fortran77 7y ago
I know a lot of optimists who aren't realistic. But they're happy and tend to be successful. It's a principle among the Hasidim, too. The followers of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov believe that we should feel commanded to be happy at all times: https://breslov.org/1366/ https://breslov.org/1366/
thinkingemote 7y ago
Being realistic is not an alternative to optimism or pessimism though. A pessimist cynic will say "that's just the way it is" for example. Additionally pessimism and optimism are mainly about thinking about the future rather than objective state of now. Perhaps it's stocism that's a more fitting alternative.
Zod666 7y ago
I haven't read the article yet but I've heard stats like this before. Is it simply the effect of a positive emotional state? When my friend and I were talking about this I said: 'Be happy. Or else.'
- rectang 7y ago
  Or else we'll put the happy helmet on you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVM1nUmDHHc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVM1nUmDHHc (Ren & Stimpy Happy Happy Joy Joy Song)
  - Zod666 7y ago
    I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me. Why didn't you believe me!

300bps 7y ago

About three years ago I read someone on here recommend the book, “Learned Optimism”. They said it was life changing. I read it, did the work, and it is life changing. People with a pessimistic outlook are much less happy than people with an optimistic outlook. The book teaches you how each type thinks (for example, optimists think everything good that happens to them is personal and permanent and every bad thing that happens is impersonal and temporary. Pessimists are the opposite). The book then teaches you essentially a cognitive behavioral therapy technique to retrain your brain to think more like an optimist. It’s work but so worth it especially if you ever experience anxiety.

taneq 7y ago
Sounds like "Cognitive Dissonance for Fun and Profit."
silveroriole 7y ago
Weren’t you troubled by the fact that he admits optimists are factually wrong compared to pessimists, blame others, don’t admit fault, and just seem like generally unpleasant people (insurance salesmen and the type of person who talks on planes, for example)? Yeah, okay, they are happier, live longer, are more successful, get elected... but at what cost to the world? I came away thinking we should train the optimists to listen to pessimists more, not the opposite...
- 300bps 7y ago
  The book is not for everyone. By that I mean that there are people in the world that think everything they do will fail. That obsess on every interaction with friends and significant others trying to look for signs that they don’t like them anymore. People that are riddled with anxiety on a daily basis because they always expect bad things to happen. That catastrophize every minor negative thing that happens in their lives. Those people will have their lives changed significantly for the better by following the program in the book. I am not troubled that reading a book will give you Narcissist Personality Disorder or as you said turn you into an insurance salesman.
7y ago

rectang 7y ago

Optimism is more compelling as an ethic than a philosophy. Even if pessimism more accurately represents reality, adopting optimism leads to statistically improved outcomes. So lie to yourself! Or do whatever it takes to fool yourself into adopting an optimistic mindset. Pessimism is for losers. [inb4 zealous optimists claiming that optimism is actually more realistic.]

whatshisface 7y ago
If you lie to yourself you'll know you're lying... Also that's a great way to keep yourself in a bad job or relationship when you could leave and get a better one.
- firethief 7y ago
  > If you lie to yourself you'll know you're lying. You either haven't done it enough or are doing it too much
  - rectang 7y ago
    Star Trek scene about a robot who cannot handle the Liar's Paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqCiw0wD44U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqCiw0wD44U Humans are gifted, sophisticated liars. Don't think you can lie to yourself? I BELIEVE IN YOU! You can do it!
    - sitkack 7y ago
      I think self lie is a defining characteristic of humans. We also use our big brains to rationalize the decisions we have already made, not using our capacity for rationalism to make the best decisions. When we are truly rational, it is highly damaging to our egos.

tines 7y ago

But are people who live to 85 or more likely to have been optimistic?

tehjoker 7y ago

Aren't people that are richer, with the exception of those who achieve existential angst through lack of meaning, more optimistic? :P If you can't get medical care, I imagine you're both more likely to die and pretty pessimistic about the state of the world. It's easy to be optimistic when you have a feeling of control over your circumstances.

neonate 7y ago
That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors"
- ummonk 7y ago
  It's a little weird to see a study about the effects of optimism control for depression...
  - stkdump 7y ago
    Only if you think that depression is a lack of optimism.
- V-2 7y ago
  And then - as one of the possible explanations behind the correlation - they speculate that "optimistic people might be more motivated to try to maintain good health — such as maintaining a decent diet, engaging in regular exercise and not smoking". Surely this would have been controlled for already, as maintaining diet and exercising falls under the category of "health behaviors"? This is self-contradictory
rectang 7y ago
And it's easy to condemn unfortunate people for their pessimism, because haven't they caused their own circumstances by "choosing" pessimism? Optimism: the conceit of the fortunate.

ligand 7y ago

I really wish articles written about studies like this, where all they found was a association between stuff, and not a causal relationship, would explicitly say so. Perhaps through a little box near the end of the article stating, in simple terms, "the authors found that X and Y are associated. This does not necessarily mean that doing X will cause Y" I know the people who read the actual study in journal, entitled "Optimism is associated with ...", will notice the word "associated" and know what to make of the results. But Im pretty sure a good number of people who read pop-science articles like this dont know that "correlation doesnt imply causation". They will come to the wrong conclusion, and we cant blame them! Ive found this to be true in friends and family.

KerrickStaley 7y ago
And in this case, you could easily imagine the arrow of causation pointing in the other way. If you have the good fortune of being generally healthy, and make enough income to have access to good healthcare, it's likely that you will live to 85. But these same factors also make you a likely optimist.
- halflings 7y ago
  Just copy-pasting neonate's quote from the article, responding to a similar comment: _That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors"_ Literally the second paragraph on the article. Read the article before posting comments, folks! :)

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JackPoach 7y ago

"The study included 69,744 women and 1,429 men." Does this mean it's much easier to find optimistic women than men?

blihp 7y ago
Probably easier to find women still alive at that age. (Here in the U.S. at least, women tend to outlive men by ~5 years)
- adventskalender 7y ago
  If women are more optimistic than men, then that alone could be sufficient to yield the results of the study (correlation).
andreareina 7y ago
"Data are from 2 cohorts, women from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and men from the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study (NAS)" [0] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357.short https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357.short

heavyset_go 7y ago

I can't think of a more literal example of survivorship bias.

autokad 7y ago
there is no way I'm making it to 85
- booi 7y ago
  Not with that attitude
  - masonic 7y ago
    Q.E.D.
- non-entity 7y ago
  Statistically, I'll die in my mid-70s (although I'm being slightly disingenuous in saying that), but I never understood why we strive to live so old anyway. After a while, what can you do? Many older people already rot in nursing homes. Perhaps if you've built something of significant value like a company or family that you want to see as long as possible it makes sense, but how will achieve that?
Barrin92 7y ago
or a simple mixup of causation. It may easily be the case that healthier people also happen to be more optimistic, from the article (I haven't looked at the study myself), this appears to be purely correlational.

aytekin 7y ago

More likely: "People who live 85 or more have more of the good things like health and safe environment which also makes them optimistic."

has2k1 7y ago
It is possible to imagine a potential casual process that leads to earlier death. What if pessimism creates a constant presence of key stress hormones (Adrenaline, Cortisol and Norepinephrine) and these are already linked to higher likelihoods of heart disease, cancer, ...
- trevyn 7y ago
  Or maybe it’s acausal — some fires burn brighter, but they know that they will die sooner.
- wozniacki 7y ago
  I'm sure it would seem like there is a link between the two somewhere, even if it is very threadbare or even spurious for that matter. More principally, these things just seem very believable because being optimistic is just a positive attribute that society rewards and approves of much more than it does pessimism (some would say being pessimistic is almost an universal negative, some outlier societies notwithstanding). This imparts a definite bias in the believability of the study, no matter what the findings of the study actually are - even if the study were to only indicate a mild association between being optimistic and longevity. Just consider the findings of a study from some years ago: "High social status has its privileges when it comes to aging – even in wild animals." ... “High-ranking members in hyena clans reproduce more, they live longer and appear to be in better overall health,” said Nora Lewin, MSU doctoral student of zoology and co-lead author. “If you want to see the hierarchy of spotted hyenas, throw down some fresh meat near them. It’s quickly apparent who’s dominant and who’s not.” ... Lewin and her teammates focused on telomeres, caps at the end of each strand of DNA that protect chromosomes from deterioration. These biomarkers are regarded as important signs of aging and stress in many species, including humans. Shrinking telomeres are a signal that cells are sliding into defensive mode, stressful actions that could soon lead to cells’ – and to the organism’s – death. “This work shows, for the first time, the effects of social rank on telomere length in wild mammals,” Lewin said. “This enhances our understanding of how social and ecological variables may contribute to age-related declines of hyenas, and in organisms in general.”[1] High social status humans live longer lives is the natural assumption here even if the suggestion is only mild. Such stuff seems more believable due to a chain of assumptions about - low status mammals, stress levels, food security, likelihood of physical harm etc. Its safe to assume those, it would seem - however light the actual evidence for it. There are scores of studies like this with very light suggestive conclusions yet the believability is high. I just wish these things are fleshed out with a lot more rigor and thoroughness by the science journalists or journalists at large. This isn't trivial, easily ignored stuff. These things have real world consequences if true. Very palpable, sizable and profound consequences on people's lives. [1] Social Status Has Impact On Overall Health of Mammals https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2015/social-status-has-impact-on-overall-health-of-mammals/ https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2015/social-status-has-impact-...

mattsfrey 7y ago

A lot of cynicism in the comments here, but having an optimistic outlook has been a boon throughout history in almost all accounts. It's definitely harder today with all of the mass media and the constant negativity, but in my opinion it's hard to argue with the logic.. positive energy yields positive results.. at least more so than negative energy

WalterBright 7y ago
Every day you can get up out of bed, enjoy a cup of coffee, and go outside and see the trees and smell the air, it's a great freakin' day.
- nestorherre 7y ago
  Yep, so many things to be grateful of, but most of the people are just too "blind" to see them and acknowledge it. A gratitude journal is a really powerful tool.

goguy 7y ago

No absolutely no chance, it won't happen. Oh wait...

kristiandupont 7y ago

Yesterday, my wife stumbled upon a "20 pieces of good news" article and read it to me. Things like initiatives being taken to save the bees etc. At first I thought it was a bit silly but I realized that hearing all those good things did something wonderful: it made me feel quite optimistic on behalf of the world, which I can't say I have in a while (in spite of my own life going quite well). Keeping informed is the duty of a citizen in a democracy and I don't want to live in a rose colored bubble but I do think I am going to try and curate my news harder. For now, I started following The Good News Network and The Constructive Institute on Twitter and I will try and look for other similar sources.

mewpmewp2 7y ago
You should read "factfulness". It annoys me when people talk of the current world and time in negative tones when it is best we have ever had by many measurements. Not that we are having a terrible time, but it is cool to think negatively of the world it seems to me.
- smt88 7y ago
  I agree things are better than even, but let's not forget that's on average. Many people still suffer, and even the luckiest of us can see it. People just aren't wired to think about things in terms of population statistics. > people talk of the current world and time in negative tones Are you sure they aren't also considering the trend that we're on? Things are good overall, but China and Russia are not functioning democracies, and most powerful countries are trending away from democracy. > it is cool to think negatively of the world It is cool to be concerned about others who are suffering (and maybe even a status symbol for some), and that concern leads to negative feelings. No one complains about the state of the world insincerely...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - rnd33 7y ago
    I think the main point I got from Factfullness was not that "the world is getting better stop being so pessimistic", but rather that we are biologically wired to seek bad news and we will automatically try to find the bad angle in everything. This is useful when you're living in a survival situation, not much so in modern society. If you zoom out a bit and look at history from a decade or even century perspective it is ludicrous to say that the world hasn't gotten better, or to say that the positive trend will somehow stop 2020. The trend away from democracy is alarming yes, and we shouldn't ignore it, but there is no way of knowing if it will be a short blip in history (like the trend of Communism 50s-80s) or something more permanent.

bencollier49 7y ago

Maybe the people who are pessimistic are right?

coldtea 7y ago
Doesn't matter. You can be optimistic or pessimist in the same exact situation. E.g. when in dire economic situation. The pessimist is "right" sure. But being right doesn't make you stronger. If you give up hope, you lose all kinds of benefits of the hopeful - including fighting till the last minute, and perhaps reversing the situation. Not to mention that whether you're right or wrong to be hopeful, some situations just reverse themselves, or something good happens out of nowhere, in which case the pessimist just got a more expended period of internal suffering for no good reason.

_ZeD_ 7y ago

relevant kurzgesagt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0&t=248s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPPPFqsECz0&t=248s

ivanhoe 7y ago

Reminds me of that joke that pessimist is just an optimist with a real life experience.

WalterBright 7y ago
My dad survived flying 30 missions over Germany when his group had 80% casualties. He had accepted that he wouldn't survive. He was always an optimist. I'd ask him why, and he'd say he survived the war when so many of his buddies didn't, and was going to enjoy every day of it. (He lived to 93.)
- hycaria 7y ago
  Just wondering, do you often tell this anecdote ? Feels like I've read it a few times around here already.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Yes, I do. I thought it was an entirely appropriate response to the parent's comment.

pella 7y ago

The "Optimism" + "Placebo" - theory is also interesting. (2007) "A prior investigation found that individuals low in optimism are more likely to follow a negative placebo (nocebo) expectation. The present study tested the hypothesis that individuals high in optimism are more likely to follow a positive placebo expectation." "Results Optimism was positively associated with better sleep quality in the placebo expectation condition (r=.48, P<.05). Optimism scores were not associated with better sleep quality in either the treatment control condition (r=−.17, P=.46) or the no-placebo control condition (r=−.24, P=.35)." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399906005319 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00223...

pella 7y ago
Your doctor optimism is more important! "The placebo effect works and you can catch it from your doctor" (October 22, 2019 ) "If there's one thing you do want to catch from a trip to your doctor, it's her optimism." "The new study both demonstrates that the placebo effect is transmitted from doctor to patient, and shows how it might work. Researchers randomly assigned undergraduate students to play the role of a patient or a doctor. The "patients" were given a controlled heat stimulus to the forearm, after receiving one of two types of cream from the "doctor."" https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/21/npr-the-placebo-effect-works-and-you-can-catch-it-from-your-doctor https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/10/21/npr-the-placebo-eff...
- amelius 7y ago
  So pessimists can't be doctors?
pella 7y ago
(January 2020) Journal of Psychosomatic Research: "The influence of personality traits on the placebo/nocebo response: A systematic review" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399919301990 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002239991... ( Open ) "Highlights • Results on the influence of personality traits on placebo responses are heterogeneous. • More studies are available on the influence of personality traits on the placebo response than on the nocebo response. • Optimism seems to be positively associated with placebo responses. • Anxiety might lead to increased nocebo responses. "

meed 7y ago

I’m so fcked.

known 7y ago

Share of males who survive to the age of 65. https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1208605581893726210 https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/120860558189372621...

aasasd 7y ago

How many optimists got slapped by the fate off the face of the Earth before they had a chance to participate in the study?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Someone 7y ago

For those repeating the “correlation isn’t causation” mantra: if you click through to the original article (https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357), you’ll find its title is "Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women”, so the authors of the paper are aware of that. They tried hard to adjust for demographics and health conditions. So, any critique should be on where those adjustments fail. The article is paywalled, so, even if I were knowledgeable about how that can be done, I can’t tell whether they are valid.

coldtea 7y ago
>so the authors of the paper are aware of that. The authors of every paper are aware of that. It's a thing that's being hammered on to them from early days at the university, and they are either studying for their PhDs or seasoned researchers when they create a paper. It's mostly geek arrogance and facile dismissal from HN crowd to put this tired cliche mantra up. When papers seem to ignore this, it's willingfully so (to get grants, pad their publications, etc with a nice result), not because they don't know this.

nif2ee 7y ago

Seriously Who the hell do and fund these "being optimist makes you live longer, eating healthy makes you longer, water found to be wet" researches? Is this because of the so much supply in graduate schools or researchers/schools want to see their names in the press?

coldtea 7y ago
Or because, you know, it's a valid question for science to research. But please, do tell us your favorite pet projects they should be studying instead. After all who cares for factors of longevity, when they could be studying new revolutionary shoe laces, or some new mobile phone bound tech...
tasty_freeze 7y ago
It is completely valid to study. There are plenty of "every knows that" bits of wisdom that are wrong. Or the degree of the effect is unknown. Or the mechanism of effect is unknown. Let me be concrete. Everyone knows that it is better to eat more fruits and vegetables and less processed food. Off the top of your head, how much must one eat to make a difference? Does it help people live longer, or just reduce sickness? Does it help by 1%, 5%, 20%? If you just read the title of the report it is easy to be cynical and say, "duh, I knew that", but if you read the actual study it surely will give insights that you were not aware of.

aapeli 7y ago

This is a hidden case of confounding. In particular, you would expect a question such as "in uncertain times I usually expect the best" to be very heavily confounded with your chance of making it through uncertain times (in the past and in the future). Yes, they controlled for basic things like some generic concept of health, diet and smoking, but there's so many things that are hard to control for. As a simple example: what if you have some rare genetic disease that's not controlled for but will likely kill you?

sidcool 7y ago

Alright. I should be out by 50 then.

aldoushuxley001 7y ago
I'm gonna live forever, or die trying.

ipnon 7y ago

It could be that people who are pessimistic don't want to live or even want to die, leading them to engage in reckless or dangerous behavior.

winrid 7y ago

Met a 91 year old guy during my travels in China. He was walking around and talking to people when I was there without help. His family said he drinks a beer for breakfast every day. He drank Boju (instead of beer) before his wife died several years ago. Maybe the secret to a long life is 40% alcohol, a happy marriage, and good genetics. He looked very happy.

hadiz 7y ago

"Optimism Bias" improves our mental and physical well-being. Biases are irrational, by definition. Our mind is supposedly rational...and rationality is not always to our benefit. This kinda blew my mind when I was reading up some philosophy. My key takeaway was that rationality and logic is not always helpful to make decisions, esp. when it comes to complex systems such as people (i.e. relationships). As an engineer, it's tough to get past this mindset. On a daily basis I am striving to disconnect everything as much as possible because of scale and performance, but the human brain is nothing like that.

celim307 7y ago
Most memorable advice I got from my engineering professor: “you can get pretty far on feelings”
- hadiz 7y ago
  All feelings are true, but they might not be valid. Invalid feelings are less actionable
maratd 7y ago
> As an engineer, it's tough to get past this mindset. Seems that way considering how you're being downvoted. A shame. As engineers, we should be more concerned with what actually works, not with what works inside our heads.
agumonkey 7y ago
Rational is also quite often faked under how you feel. Sadness makes you analytic, but also myopic so your conclusions are not that valid. It's always good to balance things and aim for positivity (but not foolishness).
nkrisc 7y ago
Personally I've found the one reliable metric I have with which to evaluate decisions is: happiness. Everything else is inherently externally derived and I might have good models of how they affect me, but I can neither control nor reliably predict them. For example, I have a good idea of how something will impact me financially, but only to a point. I also can't actually control that outcome. How something affects my happiness, though, that is something I have the most intimate ability to determine. As far as I know something makes me happy, I can't know anything else more. Therefore I try to focus most decisions around what makes me happy, with other metrics thrown in as applicable. One can choose to be rational and logical, but to what end? How does that serve you, does it? If it doesn't serve you, perhaps consider abandoning rational thought and logic for as long as it might serve to do so. We are not static beings and can be simultaneously rational and irrational. That's our power: to choose how we react and adapt. Lastly, one thing I've learned the power of as I've gotten older, is the power and benefit of holding beliefs you know to be false. I used to never understand how people could believe demonstrably false things, but I now understand that even something as absurd as that has useful applications. Use it wisely.

asdfman123 7y ago

Pessimists' outlook: pessimistic

htk 7y ago

Correlation does not imply causation. The paragraph stating that the “finding was independent of other factors” doesn’t really inspire confidence, there are countless factors that might impact the results.

bad_user 7y ago
Cohort studies cannot show causation, indeed, but that's not very relevant for what's being claimed. And what they are saying with "finding was independent of other factors" is that they adjusted for demographics and health conditions. Yes, there are countless factors that could impact the results, the adjustments are not perfect, but cohorts are useful clues and in the large scheme of things, if you are optimistic, this shows you have a higher likelihood to live longer.
- htk 7y ago
  I might have read too much into it, but it’s easy for readers to extrapolate to “if you become more optimistic you’ll live longer”. A parallel would be to read “people who wear XXL are more likely to be fat”, where forcing to wear a smaller size won’t make them thinner.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

The last couple years I've become interested in gut bacteria, especially as it relates to health. Long to short, I'd like to offer this theory: People who are optimistic have more friends. People with more friends have more robust and more diverse gut bacteria. That (i.e., gut bacteria) help the optimistic live longer.

m3kw9 7y ago

Maybe because One of the the side effect of being a pessimist is giving up and just letting it go. That should nudge the data points to support this study

m3kw9 7y ago
The the.. do I sound like I stutter mf?

hi41 7y ago

I wish to be optimistic. My wife says that my pessimism and low energy is negatively impacting our kids. The article does not go into detail about what methods one can train on to become more optimistic. Does anyone know of some methods?

just_browse_guy 7y ago
As someone else has mentioned in the thread, the book Learned Optimism is all about this. I have also found learning meditation from the book The Mind Illuminated to be helpful. You could also check out CBT, and/or the writings of Albert Ellis. Fundamentally, you will need to learn to let go of your negative perspective. One thing that helped me with this is realizing that the facts of reality are one thing, and how I feel about them are another. These are entirely orthogonal, and rewiring yourself to react differently to things is very doable, especially if you realize that your negative reactions are not helpful.

tabtab 7y ago

Pessimists write more reliable code. Optimists assume users won't do funny stuff. Society owes the early croakers gratitude for their dedicated pessimism. Oh, and git off my lawn!