Toward a Neurobiology of Unrealistic Optimism

Punit Shah

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00344

Abstract

Toward a Neurobiology of Unrealistic Optimism

Highlights

Unrealistic optimism is recognized as one of the major human cognitive biases (Kahneman, 2011)
They reported that this asymmetric “updating” originates from a prediction error bias which correlates with activity in various regions of the frontal cortex. On first glance, this method does not appear to suffer from the problems inherent in the comparison approach of optimism research, and their findings have been interpreted as evidence of unrealistic optimism
This has naturally shifted attention towards the neurobiology underlying this phenomenon. In their new study published in Current Biology, Sharot et al (2012) go further, by demonstrating how the differential updating reported previously (Sharot et al, 2011), is modulated by administering l-DOPA as belief updating for bad news becomes impaired

Summary

Introduction

Unrealistic optimism is recognized as one of the major human cognitive biases (Kahneman, 2011). Sharot et al (2011) provided a promising, new approach to investigate optimism bias, via the concept of belief change. Sharot and colleagues reported that unrealistic optimism persists “in the face of reality” because good (versus bad) news is incorporated significantly more into one’s beliefs of personal risk.

Results

Conclusion