Anyone heading into the New Year with renewed optimism should beware – as a study shows positive thinking may not lead to a prosperous future.
Researchers at Bath University have found that an optimistic outlook can lead to poor decision-making, with serious implications for people’s financial wellbeing.
Excessive optimism is also linked to lower cognitive ability, with dreamers doing poorly in tests for verbal fluency, problem-solving, numerical reasoning and memory.
By contrast, those with higher cognitive abilities were more realistic – even pessimistic – about the future.
Researchers at Bath University have found that an optimistic outlook can lead to poor decision-making, with serious implications for people’s financial wellbeing (Stock image)
Excessive optimism is also linked to lower cognitive ability, with dreamers doing poorly in tests for verbal fluency, problem-solving, numerical reasoning and memory (Stock image)
The study used data from a UK survey of 36,000 households, which included the results of cognitive tests.
Researchers looked at people’s expectations of financial wellbeing and compared them with actual outcomes, measured annually for a decade.
‘The results are clear. Plans based on overly optimistic beliefs make for poor decisions and are bound to deliver worse outcomes than would realistic beliefs.
People essentially delude themselves, to a degree,’ said Dr Chris Dawson, of the university’s School of Management.