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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

#141

Post by Gravityloss »

achenatx wrote: post #135
Gravityloss wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do annoying things to avoid bad things from happening in the future. If one is very optimistic, then one would not believe the bad things would happen and thus one would not be very motivated to do the annoying things. For example do you wear a seat belt or brush your teeth? I know the questions may sound a bit offensive but I'm honestly interested in hearing people's motivations.

I do, because wearing a seatbelt is not that annoying. It just doesn't bother me. Being optimistic doesnt mean that I don't think bad things will happen to me, just that it will be ok, or not be ok. Either way there is always something positive to come out of every situation. There are some paths that I would prefer, but even the bad paths have lots of positives. During the 2010 recession we had a client that owed us…

Ok, thanks for answering!

I guess one could map it very crudely so that the pessimist sees the alternatives as A = -10 and B = -8 and the optimist sees them as A = +4 and B = +6. Both estimate pairs will lead to the same action but the latter person will have a more positive outlook.

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

#142

Post by watwut »

achenatx wrote: post #136
wozniacki wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

the way people see it is that I dont react to bad situations. I have been called "stone cold". I have sometimes wondered if it is related to sociopathy. I am a giving person and would rather give than receive, so am not very selfish. However, bad things just dont bother me because there is always something positive that comes out of everything. When my wife had an aortic dissection and had a high chance of dying, peo…

You remind me preacher character from "Adam's Apples" movie.

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

#143

Post by tomp »

mindfulgeek wrote: post #125
aytekin wrote: post #38

More likely: "People who live 85 or more have more of the good things like health and safe environment which also makes them optimistic."

Some of the most positive people I’ve met have lived in the worst of circumstances. The mind decides what it wants about the situation. Optimism is a powerful tool, even if only the person using it can feel the difference.

But that’s not what’s being discussed. Does optimism actually make you live a longer and more successful life, or is your life equally short and shitty, you just enjoy it more?

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

#144

Post by tasty_freeze »

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?

It is completely valid to study. There are plenty of "every knows that" bits of wisdom that are wrong. Or the degree of the effect is unknown. Or the mechanism of effect is unknown.

Let me be concrete. Everyone knows that it is better to eat more fruits and vegetables and less processed food. Off the top of your head, how much must one eat to make a difference? Does it help people live longer, or just reduce sickness? Does it help by 1%, 5%, 20%?

If you just read the title of the report it is easy to be cynical and say, "duh, I knew that", but if you read the actual study it surely will give insights that you were not aware of.

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

#145

Post by dasil003 »

watwut wrote: post #129
tomp wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you possibly measure that? By the time that children even understand the concept of “optimism” (or even “future”), they have already had years (decades?) of positive or negative signals (either from their environment, or from their genes) that likely cause both optimism and success (such as non-abusive parents, health, etc.).

If you assume that everything will turn out bad, you wont even try. If you assume all people around you are assholes, you wont even try good relationships. Plus, people like better optimistically looking people and reward them more then pessimistic people with equal merit. Moreover, outward apparent optimism create illusion of success even when there is not actual real success backing it. (The optimism does not even…

Very much this. I feel the same way about free will. It’s empowering to believe in it whether or not it’s technically true.

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

#147

Post by atq2119 »

tomp wrote: post #143
mindfulgeek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the most positive people I’ve met have lived in the worst of circumstances. The mind decides what it wants about the situation. Optimism is a powerful tool, even if only the person using it can feel the difference.

But that’s not what’s being discussed. Does optimism actually make you live a longer and more successful life, or is your life equally short and shitty, you just enjoy it more?

If you enjoy it more, it's less shitty by definition...

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

#148

Post by katzgrau »

watwut wrote: post #129
tomp wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you possibly measure that? By the time that children even understand the concept of “optimism” (or even “future”), they have already had years (decades?) of positive or negative signals (either from their environment, or from their genes) that likely cause both optimism and success (such as non-abusive parents, health, etc.).

If you assume that everything will turn out bad, you wont even try. If you assume all people around you are assholes, you wont even try good relationships. Plus, people like better optimistically looking people and reward them more then pessimistic people with equal merit. Moreover, outward apparent optimism create illusion of success even when there is not actual real success backing it. (The optimism does not even…

This is the root of it, and something most on HN won't accept. Optimistic people generally see and seek opportunity (either knowingly or unknowingly) more frequently than pessimists.

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

#149

Post by nkrisc »

hadiz wrote: post #130

"Optimism Bias" improves our mental and physical well-being. Biases are irrational, by definition. Our mind is supposedly rational...and rationality is not always to our benefit. This kinda blew my mind when I was reading up some philosophy. My key takeaway was that rationality and logic is not always helpful to make decisions, esp. when it comes to complex systems such as people (i.e. relationships). As an engineer,…

Personally I've found the one reliable metric I have with which to evaluate decisions is: happiness. Everything else is inherently externally derived and I might have good models of how they affect me, but I can neither control nor reliably predict them. For example, I have a good idea of how something will impact me financially, but only to a point. I also can't actually control that outcome. How something affects my happiness, though, that is something I have the most intimate ability to determine. As far as I know something makes me happy, I can't know anything else more. Therefore I try to focus most decisions around what makes me happy, with other metrics thrown in as applicable.

One can choose to be rational and logical, but to what end? How does that serve you, does it? If it doesn't serve you, perhaps consider abandoning rational thought and logic for as long as it might serve to do so. We are not static beings and can be simultaneously rational and irrational. That's our power: to choose how we react and adapt.

Lastly, one thing I've learned the power of as I've gotten older, is the power and benefit of holding beliefs you know to be false. I used to never understand how people could believe demonstrably false things, but I now understand that even something as absurd as that has useful applications. Use it wisely.

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

#150

Post by bad_user »

htk wrote: post #146

Correlation does not imply causation. The paragraph stating that the “finding was independent of other factors” doesn’t really inspire confidence, there are countless factors that might impact the results.

Cohort studies cannot show causation, indeed, but that's not very relevant for what's being claimed.

And what they are saying with "finding was independent of other factors" is that they adjusted for demographics and health conditions.

Yes, there are countless factors that could impact the results, the adjustments are not perfect, but cohorts are useful clues and in the large scheme of things, if you are optimistic, this shows you have a higher likelihood to live longer.

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