How does our brain learn from our mistakes? Does he prefer the good news to the bad? These questions were answered by a team of Inserm researchers led by Stefano Palminteri from the Laboratory of Cognitive Neurosciences.
Researchers in cognitive psychology know that humans tend to take positive information (good news) into account more than negative information (bad news). They call this the “optimism bias”.
“This fundamental asymmetry is supposed to generate and nourish this bias and make us believe that our future prospects are, on average, better than those of the others. This has notably been demonstrated in heavy smokers who underestimate their risk premature mortality or in some women who underestimate their risk of having breast cancer“ underline the researchers of Inserm’s Cognitive Neurosciences Laboratory.
We learn optimism from our trials and mistakes
They wanted to know more about this phenomenon in order to understand whether it was only linked to our beliefs or if it was part of our most fundamental learning: when we learn from our trials and errors.
To do this, they studied the behavior of a group of people engaged in a process of learning by trial and error which consisted of making a choice between two symbols associated with a reward. Depending on the participant’s choice, the latter could receive “good news” (you won € 0.50), earn nothing or receive bad news (you lost € 0.50).
Read also: Optimism: 4 secrets to be positive
The results showed that participants gave good news 50% more importance on average than bad news. At the same time, researchers at LNC studied participants’ brain activity, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
According to Stefano Palminteri, lead author of the study: “the brain activity recorded in the major structures of the brain reward circuit is almost
2 times more important in an optimistic subject compared to a more realistic subject, with equal monetary reward. This activity highlights distinct profiles, more or less optimistic or realistic “.
This study suggests that optimism bias could be involved in pathologies such as depression (absence of bias) or certain addictions (overexpression of bias). “The study of these elementary biases in the learning process is therefore essential” say the authors whose study was published in Nature Human Behavior.
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