"Optimism lives in a curious in-between space. It isn't an outcome so much as an expectation about one. Yet optimism and pessimism each have immediate consequences for mental health. When we expect good things, daily life feels safer and more enjoyable. Persistent pessimism, on the other hand, breeds emptiness and depression. As a psychiatrist, I often meet people who undermine their own positive feelings."
"Sometimes people stop hoping not because they've lost joy, but because hope itself has become unbearable. After too many disappointments, the brain learns that striving leads to pain. The neurobiology of this is extraordinary: dopamine circuits literally adapt to repeated letdowns. Over time, the system recalibrates away from anticipation. The result is a form of neurobiological pessimism, a nervous system that expects nothing."
Optimism functions as an expectation about future outcomes rather than a guaranteed result. Positive expectations make daily life feel safer and more enjoyable, while persistent pessimism creates emptiness and depressive states. Repeated disappointments cause dopamine circuits to adapt, reducing anticipatory dopamine responses and recalibrating the brain away from expectation. Dopamine signals reflect reward-prediction errors by rising when outcomes exceed expectations and dipping when they fall short. Restoring hope requires reengagement in purposeful action and changes to the environment that rebuild successful experiences and recalibrate the reward system toward renewed anticipation.
Read at Psychology Today
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