Optimism

Abstract

What leads people to being remorselessly, almost naively, optimistic while others maintain a gloomy pessimistic outlook under the most favourable conditions? Certainly observations confirm that people are fairly consistent over time with respect to their disposition to view the world. In short, optimists nearly always see events (present and future) in a positive light while pessimists see the same events in the opposite way. Optimists see the donut; pessimists the hole.