This topic of the optimism bias theory is becoming more popularly discussed in the field of psychology and the sub-fields related. By a quick Google or yahoo search you will find articles from TIME and The Huffington Post, and a TED presentation, all by Tali Sharot. I highly recommend reading and viewing these materials on this topic, because I will not approach this topic as she and many neuroscientist will by looking at statistical data.
My goal in this article is to attempt to dictate that happiness makes us bias, and how optimistic stimuli is extremely difficult to rationalize effectively.
First, in my opinion, statistics cannot help right now in this study of the optimist, but does a small job of pointing us in the right direction. Why? The paradigms revolving around such studies are new, they did not exist before this century. Thus, for those interested in psychology, must philosophize over what makes themselves, in fact, biased. Truly, it is highly likely in their own research of cognitive biases that these researchers are performing the very biases they are cataloging; whether it be in the community or individually. I wish to approach this philosophically while using few terms crafted by contemporary scientist.
The idea of the optimism bias is simple; what are the most important factors for our future happiness depends how our brain will/does construct beliefs, thoughts, and overall the connectivity in relation to those positive stimuli.
The following example for optimism manipulating cognitive abilities will be depicted in a religious practitioner who is active in their religion's community. I will introduce the idea of groupthinking, and will make the argument G.T. is a prime factor in this examples optimistic irrationality. No formal religion is insisted upon in example.
For sake of argument, our practitioner of religion will be Julia, and her religion is Athenianism. Julia is known among her friends, that are not Athenian, that she is very fundamental about her beliefs. In fact, she reads her religious text nightly before bed and volunteers with her fellow Athenians to preach lessons at local colleges every Tuesday. Julia has been part of this religion since she was a child, her parents were fundamental about the practice as well, and most of her friends were apart of the same religion (except those she made in college).
One day a nonreligious person approaches Julia's group while they are preaching in the college's quad. The person claims no one can know, as of this point in time, how the universe and life began. This directly refutes a big part of Julia's religion, and they begin to argue. No need for dialog, but they go at it heavily with all of the common arguments anyone can find that a religious vs. nonreligious person will bring up. Long story short, Julia is not convinced. After hours of arguing, Julia will still not even allow herself to attempt to look at the argument from the other person's perspective. And although the challenger was willing to admit s/he could see where Julia was coming from, Julia refused to give back the same attitude. When finally asked why Julia cannot, just a little, see it from his perspective she responded "I just have faith I am right."
Now, the analysis; that 'faith' is what I had wanted the example to build up to, for good reason. This 'faith' is not created by chance or accident, her fundamental belief or 'faith' has been developed through a variety of stimuli in her life time of developing cognitively. We have her family, religious community, friends and educational materials that all through a life time have created this faith-filled attitude. My biggest point I will try and come back to; to refute all of these groups and educations, even for one moment of an argument, could cause dysphoria to that person, to Julia.
Julia's anxiety of the future is preventing her from ever suggesting she is wrong about her faith. Her developed brain is in part insisting she maintain her faith. She would, in a sense, be telling herself she has been wrong on a multitude of dimensions. Her family is wrong; the people who have raised and loved her, her entire life would have been teaching her lies or misguided truths. Her religious community in which she would have memories of making friends, picnics, charity events, and other fun activities from her childhood. Finally, her education, she has read volumes of books about what she and her family/friends have traditionally believed in as a group. All of these positive experiences are tied to that faith, and if at any point that faith is effected in the negative, Julia can find herself being depressed. (Note: In my opinion, this is perhaps why philosophy circles back to nihilism and existentialism as priority to metaphysical concerns.)
All of these groups and materials being wrong, is unacceptable to Julia and any fundamentalist or at least intensely difficult to conform as being false, if it is in fact false (which is not the point of the example). The point is whether or not a person will even be able to accept they are wrong, or even slightly wrong. The religion as example is easy because that is more casual in our society today, but this faith-like behavior can be seen in a lot of different areas. Sport fans, politics, athletes, artist, and scientific communities even can be very hardheaded when attempting to gain a new perspective on something they hold very fundamentally sound to their practice of science. At any point information challenges what we know or our stability to be happy - we may find our optimism firing into how we should formulate thoughts!
Now, it is not merely just optimism in which prevents a person like Julia to allow herself to approach alternative ideas and ideals when involving her faith. Due to the groups she is associated with through nurture, nature, by chance and by choice, Julia has a lot of even not-so positive stimuli to guide her anxiety of the future (which is her developing cognition). But, rather than talk about pessimism biases, we will discuss what has already been circled around; groupthinking.
Julia is not the only one she shares these fundamental beliefs with, in fact, her knowledge involved in her faith is overlapped heavily by her family, friends, and religious community. Groupthink theory suggest, exactly what it sounds like; we are prone as people to look towards the group for consensus of how to think and behave. If at any point our group is challenged, we become threatened individually as we will identify ourselves with our group or groups.
The bandwagon bias is the same thing as G.T. but I regard the differences as being momentary, rather than constantly effective. "Oh, 2 million people love pizza over tacos, I am going for the pizza!" Is a lame example of bandwagon bias, but, because although that person's taste buds would actually prefer the taco, s/he will go with pizza due to what the group suggestion that it is the best choice.
Take a moment... When have you submitted to the group due to sheer numbers? When have you sided with a group, due to their history of behavior rather than current behaviors of the group? Can you describe a time where the optimism of the group was given to you; to encourage you into following the group or group's ideals?
The groupthought factor, in considering Julia's faith, is immense. Another bias that will be performed due to the optimism and the groupthink, would be the confirmation and belief biases. Rather than get into detail of these biases, I suggest they are vastly similar. Both biases suggest that a person are more likely to accept information that has no conflict with their immediate beliefs systems and knowledge. I add these biases momentarily due to the fact, they assist in future development of the person's psyche. If at any point we become more acceptable to information, purely because no other information we know can conflict with the new data - is irrational. If you do not know anything about the material being told to you, just listen and examine the facts later before conforming to the information.
Consider your idol, inspiration, or respected third party - telling you that there is a new cure for a disease, you begin to report this information to whom will ever listen without ever researching. You are told you are wrong, now, depending on who you are; you will either be fundamental and argue that you are correct due to the fact this person told you, angry if you will -and/or- you will become confused and upset.
I would love to get into how emotional intelligence could be an ample part to this conversation, but I will conclude with a summary and reflection, but suggest to do a little wikipedia search on that new series of theories in cognitive studies; emotional intelligence.
I guess, I wanted to do two things with this paper; 1. I wanted to try and simplify how a person can be completely irrational, but be perfectly content with their lives. 2. The reasoning behind a person being irrational is not just a simple formula or at least it is still not able to become a simple one solution, today. The reasoning is fuzzy, it takes a lot of factors and details that go into what makes someone irrational in order to determine such. But of course the most important concern, that makes any of this even a semi-valid article is to constantly question; what is rational? No bias? One bias? Ten biases? Twenty?
While optimism can make us bias, it can also create the potential for longevity and goal orientation. However optimism does not guarantee tolerance of other people's belief and ideas, so perhaps, in this culture that is in the pursuit of happiness we should be more in the pursuit of questioning happiness.
To end, I would like to make a reflective note:
A mini-theory about attachments: Everyone wants to involve themselves with others - to love, to hate, to teach, to learn from, to pair with, to share with, to honor, to respect... These are attachments, and they are the basis of emotions. This is apart of our mimetic nature; our nature of rerepresenting/copying others in order to create a self identity. But what is the self, because really I would argue, we are two things; a self and a metaself. The metaself is our physiological natures/nurtures and our individualistic psychological experiences. While the self is the person reading this; the consciousness.
Reflect on what makes you bias.
Reflect on the emotions you have; especially the negative.
Reflect on what you attach yourself to naturally.
Most importantly, reflect on what it means to be your'self'
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