Psychologist Kuniaki Yanagisawa and colleagues used functional MRI (fMRI) to monitor 87 participants, who believed that neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex was an area associated with self-referential and future thinking, which was more convergent in the population with higher optimistic scores.
In contrast, less optimistic individuals showed more patterns of brain activity.
“What is most striking about this study is that the abstract concept of ‘similar thinking’ is actually visible in the form of a pattern of brain activity,” Yanagisawa said.
Inspired by Tolstoy’s opening line Anna Kareninathe team summed up their results: “Optimistic people are the same, but everyone is not very optimistic people imagine the future in their own way.”
In two FMR experiments, participants were asked to vividly imagine plot scenes – some positive, some negative, some neutral – involving themselves or romantic partners. The researchers then used inter-subject representation similarity analysis (IS-RSA) and multidimensional scaling (Indscal) to compare neural patterns across individuals.
Crucially, only one pair of optimistic individuals showed consistent neural representations in the medial prefrontal cortex, supporting the researchers’ “Anna Karenina model.” Pairs including at least one pessimist show more neural differences.
The study also shows that optimists make a stronger psychological difference between positive and negative events. This separation is not due to reinterpretation of negative events, but by dealing with them in a more abstract and emotionally distant way. By contrast, it imagines a positive situation more vividly and more specifically.
Yanagisawa believes that these common cognitive structures may partially explain why optimists tend to have closer social connections. “The feeling of being ‘at the same wavelength’ every day is not only a metaphor,” he said. “The optimist brain is very physically likely to share common concepts of the future.”
Now, researchers aim to explore that this common neural fusion is developed through experience and communication. They hope to understand how these psychological frameworks can ultimately help solve loneliness and improve social connections.
Magazine: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
doi:10.1073/pnas.2511101122
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