This article is part of an ongoing series that began with Fallacies and Cognitive Biases.
The above picture is a detail from "50 Cognitive Biases to be aware of so you can be the very best version of you"
"We sometimes are over-optimistic about good outcomes."
This bias helps people survive by giving us a motivation to keep acting even when the math doesn't support it.
Either we have a chance or we don't.
Either we believe we have a chance or we don't believe it.
If we don't have a chance it doesn't matter what we believe, we're not going to make it.
If we do have a chance then what we believe makes a big difference. If we believe our actions will improve the outcome we will tend to act. This may be the event that decides between success and failure. Therefore it is in our best interest to have a bias towards optimism.
Of course, this doesn't work so well when we are optimistic that SOMEONE ELSE will solve the problems.
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