Just Look Up To Find Happiness
Psychologists have proved what the playwright Oscar Wilde always suspected: optimists and pessimists really do look at the world differently.
Wilde once quipped that even when “we are all in the gutter, some of us are looking at the stars” — and now psychologists have shown he got it just right.
In a study they found that pessimists’ brains work better when they are staring downwards and that optimists’ minds function more quickly when they are looking upwards.
The finding suggests that the hangdog expression typically adopted by the miserable could have a purpose. They might be having sad thoughts but they are thinking them more efficiently than if they looked upwards.
More importantly, the research suggests new ways for diagnosing and treating conditions such as depression, according to Brian Meier, a psychologist at North Dakota State University who led the study.
In the study, researchers tested volunteers to find those with the strongest pessimistic and optimistic traits. Then the volunteers were asked to perform various cognitive tests while looking downwards and similar tasks while looking slightly upwards.
The results showed that the pessimists performed best while looking downwards, the optimists best when they looked upwards.
“Humans have linked words like up and down, night and day with positive and negative emotions ever since advanced thought evolved. These tests hint at the origin of that relationship,” said Meier.
It is possible that such postures can actually reinforce the moods that caused them, so people with pessimistic or depressive tendencies are perpetuating them through directing their gaze downwards.
“It suggests it may be possible to relieve depression simply by persuading them to break their habits and move their gaze upwards,” said Meier.
However, is it really fair to assume anyone with their eyes fixed firmly on the ground is depressed? Yes, according to Phillip Hodson, a fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. “It’s true if you feel down you look down. It’s a psychological as well as physical function,” he said.
“Football players drop their heads when they miss a penalty because their muscles go limp and they feel deflated. If they score, they get a shot of adrenaline, they breathe more deeply and stand up taller.”
Hodson is convinced that long-term pessimists and depressives also develop a very different view of the world and their role in it compared with others.
“They expect to do badly and so they become more prone to error and they have less joie de vivre,” he said. “They’ve probably had less sleep and are sluggish; and consequently they do see the world differently.”
Depression has been recognised for centuries. Its causes were, however, a mystery until recently and sufferers were often derided as malingerers.
Recent research has shown that depressives or long-term pessimists have subtle differences in their brain chemistry that may be partly genetic or could be caused by bad diets or other factors.
Lewis Wolpert, a professor of biology at University College London, suffered serious bouts of depression that he described as like being in a “black pit” in his renowned book Malignant Sadness.
Now recovered, Wolpert’s glittering scientific career also includes a Nobel prize and becoming a senior fellow of the Royal Society.
But the pessimism still sneaks through, as when Wolpert was asked to tell a recent interviewer of his original reasons for taking up science. “Maybe I thought my nose was too big and my penis too small,” he said, “I just wanted to understand what determined the shape of things.”
(info by Roger Dobson, Jonathon Carr-Brown and Tom Baird from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1706116,00.html)