Scientists may have figured out why you are a pessimist

Yes, the new study has revealed why do you see a negative side of a situation than the possible benefits.

Sudhakar Jha | Published: August 10, 2018 5:58 pm

The roots of pessimism have finally been cracked by a group of scientists who were reading about mental health of patients with neuropsychiatric disorders. And this could help in new treatment options for the people who are pessimists.

Neuropsychiatric disorders like anxiety and depression are related to nervous system. And researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have pinpointed the region of the brain that has the ability to generate pessimistic mood in a person. In the tests conducted on animals, it showed that when this part of the brain, the caudate nucleus, is stimulated, it induces more negative decision-making thoughts.

What is the study?

Published in the Journal of Neuron, the test subjects gave more weight to the forthcoming negativity of a situation than the benefits of the same, compared to when the region was not stirred upon. Also, the study found that the pessimistic decision-making could continue for a day after the original stimulation. The decisions, which require you to look at both the positive and the negative elements, tend to provoke anxiety. And the study further showed that stress affects decision-making to a large extent.

How does your decision-making get affected?

For the study, the researchers reproduced an effect that’s seen with people who suffer from depression, anxiety, or obsessive-compulsive disorder. These patients follow a pattern that’s designed to place more weightage on the possible negative outcome of a situation. This kind of negative thinking, the researchers suspected, could influence approach-avoidance decision-making.

To test this, the researchers stimulated the caudate nucleus with an electrical current as animals were offered a reward (juice) paired with an unpleasant stimulus (a puff of air to the face). And when it was done, the cost-benefit calculation tilted, and the animals avoided the combinations that they would have accepted otherwise.

The result suggested that the animals began to undervalue the reward that they previously wanted, and focused more on the aversive stimulus.

Image source: Shutterstock

Published: August 10, 2018 5:58 pm

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