How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality
Open accessAbstract
Unrealistic optimism is a pervasive human trait that influences domains ranging from personal relationships to politics and finance. How people maintain unrealistic optimism, despite frequently encountering information that challenges those biased beliefs, is unknown. We examined this question and found a marked asymmetry in belief updating. Participants updated their beliefs more in response to information that was better than expected than to information that was worse. This selectivity was mediated by a relative failure to code for errors that should reduce optimism. Distinct regions of the prefrontal cortex tracked estimation errors when those called for positive update, both in individuals who scored high and low on trait optimism. However, highly optimistic individuals exhibited reduced tracking of estimation errors that called for negative update in right inferior prefrontal gyrus. These findings indicate that optimism is tied to a selective update failure and diminished neural coding of undesirable information regarding the future.
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Neuroscientific data show that a positive view of one's own traits tends to correlate with reduced activation of the right inferior prefrontal gyrus when the subject receives negative self-related information.
“Relatedly, neuroscientific data show that a positive view of one's own traits tends to correlate with a reduced activation of the right inferior prefrontal gyrus, which is the area of the brain processing selfrelated content, when the subject receives negative self-related information(Sharot et al. 2011).”
From What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias? (2022) · cites this paper as Sharot et al. 2011
The Results section ('Trait optimism, biased updating, and BOLD signal'; page unavailable) reports that participants high in trait optimism showed weaker right-IFG tracking of undesirable estimation errors. The study concerns information about the likelihood of adverse events in one's future, not negative information about one's traits. It also does not establish that the right IFG is an area for processing self-related content generally. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredOptimists about themselves display a diminished sensitivity for negative information that is in tension with self-related trait optimism.
“That is, optimists about themselves display a diminished sensitivity for negative information that is in tension with self-related trait optimism (ibid).”
From What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias? (2022) · cites this paper as Sharot et al. 2011
Optimistic updating cannot be interpreted purely on the basis of selective attention, cognitive, or mnemonic abilities in processing desirable and undesirable feedback.
“optimistic updating could not be interpreted purely on the basis of selective attention, cognitive, or mnemonic abilities in processing desirable and undesirable feedback (19, 20, 45)”
From Distinct oxytocin effects on belief updating in response to desirable and undesirable feedback (2016) · cites this paper as [19]
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- Authors
- Sharot, T., Korn, C. W., & Dolan, R. J.
- Affiliations
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
- Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Sharot, Tali
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2011-10-09
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1475-1479
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- PMC
- PMC3204264
- OpenAlex
- W2039909349
- Cited by
- 729
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 62 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 62 · 2021: 61 · 2020: 91 · 2019: 67 · 2018: 67 · 2017: 37 · 2016: 46 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 26 · 2012: 19
- FWCI
- 13.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust (078865)
- Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Optimism, Hope, and Well-being
- Keywords
- optimism bias, belief updating, Bayesian updating, estimation error, prefrontal cortex, dispositional optimism, negative information processing, cognitive biases
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Attitude, Brain, Brain Mapping, Denial, Psychological, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Oxygen, Reality Testing, Statistics as Topic, Observer Variation, Young Adult
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