The optimism bias – 80% of us have it, but what is it? As put by Tali Sharot, the optimism bias is our tendency overestimating our likelihood of experiencing good events in our lives, and underestimating our likelihood of experiencing bad events.
An experiment was carried out where volunteers were asked how likely they thought they were of suffering from various bad events in their lives. They were then told the average likelihood of someone like them to suffer from these events, cancer for example lying at around 30%. They were then asked the first question again to see if they were able to change their viewpoints in the face of facts. Most people did in fact change their answer, but only when the statistics given were better than they thought. If it was worse than they first realised, only a small change was observed in their replies.
One solution to the unrealistic optimism bias is to just not expect good events to happen. If you received good news then you would be pleasantly surprised, and if you did not then you would not be disappointed. However, the key flaw to this argument is that while this seems effective, you will be miserable in the present. An example of this is when people are asked their favourite day of the week. The most popular is Saturday, followed by Friday and then Sunday. Although Sunday is the weekend and is seen as a day of rest, then only thing to look forward to is another tedious week of school or work. Friday, although being a work day, brings with it anticipation of the weekend, and is the reason why is it more popular than Sunday.
However, optimism comes with all of its flaws, most importantly over-optimism. Over-optimism is a dangerous thing, which can lead to financial collapse, failing important exams, job interviews and so on. So while being optimistic leaves you with better chances of success, it is important to remember to always have a backup plan, just in case things don’t work out quite like you planned.
Saniya Chughtai, Newstead Wood School
