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People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

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Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#111

Post by rapnie »

ekianjo wrote: post #95
TeMPOraL wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I briefly read some "good news" sites years ago, but stopped because they started to depress me as I looked deeper into the individual reports. Most of the stories I've read were of the pattern of, "an inspiring but meaningless TED talk", or "an individual doing something completely inconsequential, but positively-looking", or "an individual or a small group working hard on a project that's completely bogus, but of c…

> I briefly read some "good news" sites years ago, but stopped because they started to depress me I think it was also a site like science-daily that makes it sound like they have an extraordinary scientific finding that will revolutionize the world every single day , except that most of it is just PR or badly designed studies.

Yes, its https://www.sciencedaily.com/

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#112

Post by cryoshon »

300bps wrote: post #16

About three years ago I read someone on here recommend the book, “Learned Optimism”. They said it was life changing. I read it, did the work, and it is life changing. People with a pessimistic outlook are much less happy than people with an optimistic outlook. The book teaches you how each type thinks (for example, optimists think everything good that happens to them is personal and permanent and every bad thing that…

this book really didn't seem very helpful for me. as another commenter described, the book seems to very heavily imply that being a pollyanna-ish person is a superior state of being -- AKA, ignorance is bliss.

sure, i believe that. but it doesn't help those of us who can't look away from the real world.

i get that my critique of the book sounds like a strawman, but i genuinely can't escape the interpretation of the argument that i proposed here on the basis of what the book says alone.

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#113

Post by aapeli »

This is a hidden case of confounding. In particular, you would expect a question such as "in uncertain times I usually expect the best" to be very heavily confounded with your chance of making it through uncertain times (in the past and in the future).

Yes, they controlled for basic things like some generic concept of health, diet and smoking, but there's so many things that are hard to control for.

As a simple example: what if you have some rare genetic disease that's not controlled for but will likely kill you?

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#114

Post by coldtea »

nif2ee wrote: post #103

Seriously Who the hell do and fund these "being optimist makes you live longer, eating healthy makes you longer, water found to be wet" researches? Is this because of the so much supply in graduate schools or researchers/schools want to see their names in the press?

Or because, you know, it's a valid question for science to research.

But please, do tell us your favorite pet projects they should be studying instead.

After all who cares for factors of longevity, when they could be studying new revolutionary shoe laces, or some new mobile phone bound tech...

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#115

Post by wozniacki »

achenatx wrote: post #98
rzzzt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the constant presence of stress hormones makes people more prone to pessimism?

Anecdotally, Ive been very fortunate to have a positive brain chemistry. When bad things have happened, my brain pretty much doesn't worry on them. Eventually things work out (or something good eventually happens) and I get through the bad times. There is no way to explain or describe this positive brain chemistry in a way that anyone can believe. But since I was a kid, my parents have been worried that Im too happy…

Does it ever bother you when people find that youre "too happy" which people might take it to mean that no outcome to any given event, can really displease you?

Have you read up on what such a "condition" - if it can be called that - is called medically? Do others share it as well?

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#116

Post by hycaria »

WalterBright wrote: post #82
ivanhoe wrote: post #70

Reminds me of that joke that pessimist is just an optimist with a real life experience.

My dad survived flying 30 missions over Germany when his group had 80% casualties. He had accepted that he wouldn't survive. He was always an optimist. I'd ask him why, and he'd say he survived the war when so many of his buddies didn't, and was going to enjoy every day of it. (He lived to 93.)

Just wondering, do you often tell this anecdote ? Feels like I've read it a few times around here already.

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#117

Post by coldtea »

Someone wrote: post #100

For those repeating the “correlation isn’t causation” mantra: if you click through to the original article ( https://www.pnas.org/content/116/37/18357 ), you’ll find its title is "Optimism is associated with exceptional longevity in 2 epidemiologic cohorts of men and women”, so the authors of the paper are aware of that. They tried hard to adjust for demographics and health conditions. So, any critique should be on w…

>so the authors of the paper are aware of that.

The authors of every paper are aware of that. It's a thing that's being hammered on to them from early days at the university, and they are either studying for their PhDs or seasoned researchers when they create a paper.

It's mostly geek arrogance and facile dismissal from HN crowd to put this tired cliche mantra up.

When papers seem to ignore this, it's willingfully so (to get grants, pad their publications, etc with a nice result), not because they don't know this.

Re: People who tend to be optimistic are likelier to live to 85 or more: study

#119

Post by coldtea »

bencollier49 wrote: post #52

Maybe the people who are pessimistic are right?

Doesn't matter. You can be optimistic or pessimist in the same exact situation. E.g. when in dire economic situation. The pessimist is "right" sure.

But being right doesn't make you stronger.

If you give up hope, you lose all kinds of benefits of the hopeful - including fighting till the last minute, and perhaps reversing the situation.

Not to mention that whether you're right or wrong to be hopeful, some situations just reverse themselves, or something good happens out of nowhere, in which case the pessimist just got a more expended period of internal suffering for no good reason.

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