Belief in humanity: 10 studies that can help us revive hope for the future

Reading the scientific literature about human behavior can make you cynical, although sometimes it is justified. The world is not always fair. Evil does not always bear the deserved punishment, and good does not always conquer evil . But there are many scientifically based reasons for maintaining hope and a positive outlook on the future.

Let's try to distance ourselves from the cruel reality and consider some studies that can help revive faith in humanity .
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1) You better recover from serious problems.

From a study conducted by a Harvard "expert on happiness," Daniel Gilbert, author of the book Stumbling on Happiness (Doubts about happiness):

People find a reasonable explanation for divorce, demotion and illness, but not for slow elevators and poor quality guilt. It’s a paradox, but people sometimes recover faster from tragic events than from something less serious. (Aronson & Mills, 1958; Gerard & Mathewson, 1966; Zimbardo, 1966)

2) Sadness is not so scary

We expect sadness to be much more painful than it actually is. Studies show that we tend to overestimate the influence of feelings such as sadness and regret.
Here is another excerpt from the book Stumbling on Happiness, author Daniel Gilbert.

... Losses can affect our emotional experiences, and research shows that, despite the fact that losses affect us, this effect is not as strong as we expect.

3) "Everything that does not kill makes us stronger." This statement is absolutely true.

People who have experienced terrible events become stronger than those who have never encountered problems and misfortunes.
From Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being (New understanding of happiness and well-being):

Approximately 1,700 people each month told us about difficult events in their lives, and all of them were tested for well-being. To our surprise, it turned out that people who had experienced one terrible event had significant advantages (and, consequently, a higher level of well-being) over those who had never experienced trouble. And those who went through two tragic events became stronger than those who had a tragedy in life only once or not at all. People who survived three such events: were raped, tortured, held violently, for example, held captive, were stronger than those who had to face it twice.

4) There is an inverse effect of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder): sometimes terrible events make us better.

Tragedy can make us not only stronger, it can also make us better.

From the book The Happiness Advantage: The Benefits of Happiness: Seven Principles of Positive Psychology, which Increases Success and Productivity):

Based on the data from this study, today we can say for sure that severe suffering or serious injury can lead to significant positive personal changes due to the wide range of feelings experienced. After the events of March 11, 2004, namely the detonation of a train in Madrid, psychologists revealed that many residents experienced positive psychological changes. The same thing happens with most women diagnosed with breast cancer. What positive changes are we talking about? Increased spirituality, compassion for others, openness and even, ultimately, absolute satisfaction with life. After the trauma experienced, people also report increased personal strength and self-confidence, as well as a sense of gratitude and the emergence of emotional contact in relationships with others.

5) In fact, we are rarely limited by our genes.

How often does innate talent limit your ability to do something?
In ~ 95% of cases there is no such connection.
From the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (New Psychology of Success):

Benjamin Bloom, an outstanding research teacher, studied 120 successful students. Among them were pianists, concerts, sculptors, swimmers who participated in the Olympic Games, world-class tennis players and mathematics. Most of the study participants were not remarkable in childhood and did not show obvious talents until they began to seriously engage in their own education. Bloom says: “After forty years of intensive study of school education, both in the United States and abroad, I came to the main conclusion: what can be taught by one individual person can be taught to almost all other people in the world. Almost all people are trained if they are provided with the appropriate conditions. ” The researcher does not take into account 2 - 3% of children who have serious health problems, as well as 1 - 2% of children with other extreme (extreme) characteristics. It comes from the general mass of people.

6) You do not need to win the lottery to become happy

Happy people do not have more happy events in their lives than less happy ones.

From the book 50 of the Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior (50 myths of popular psychology: the destruction of widespread misconceptions about human behavior):

Ed Diener and Martin Seligman tested more than 200 students for the level of happiness and compared the participants with the highest indicator (“extremely happy”) 10% with the average and lower indicator, also 10% each. According to objective data, very happy students did not experience more positive life events, did not succeed in exams and did not go on hot dates more often than representatives of the other two groups (Diener & Seligman, 2002).

7) Helping others help you

Undergraduates who wrote letters of support for “risk takers” for middle school students persuading them to continue to study hard and explaining that the mind “is not a gift, but rather an ability that can be developed” themselves became happier and more successful in school over the next few months.

True, in fact, there were no middle school students. By itself, writing letters led to such results.
From the book Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World (Meaning of Situations: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World):

Did these letters help middle school students bounce back after an adversity? It is impossible to say - the letters simply were not delivered to the addressees. But even the experience of writing letters has had a lasting impact on the college students themselves. A few months later, the authors of the letters still reported about their satisfaction with schooling, unlike other undergraduates at Stanford. Their average scores were a third higher on a scale of four.

8) “Both hope and despair are self-programming”

The bloody events experienced by the soldiers in difficult combat conditions show that a person is more influenced by how he perceives the situation than the situation itself.

From Maximum Brainpower: Challenging the Brain for Health and Wisdom (Maximum Brain Power: Brain Responsibility for Health and Wisdom):

... the brain does not allow the body to expend all its resources if we do not have sufficient chances for success. Our physical strength is beyond our control in those cases where the brain does not believe in the result, because the most terrible thing for a person is to spend all his resources and fail. If we do not believe that we can cope in a specific situation, we will not receive the resources necessary for this. The moment we begin to believe in ourselves, the floodgates open, and the energy flows like a river. Both hope and despair are self-programming.

9) An excess of trust is better than its lack

Candidates were asked to rate their level of trust in other people on a scale from 1 to 10. In the course of the study, it was found out that those with a level of confidence are at the level of 8.

Those whose confidence exceeds this level are 7% less than those who are at level 8. Such people are more often used to their advantage.

People with a low level of trust have incomes that are 14.5% lower than those who are at the mark of 8. People with higher education and its absence have such a gap. Obviously, this category is missing a lot of opportunities, not trusting others.

10) Sometimes empathy is more important than objectivity.

From my interview with Professor Wharton, Adam Grant, author of the book Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success (Come and take: A revolutionary approach to success):

A study by Turner and his colleagues among radiologists showed that doctors who saw a photograph of a patient whose X-ray they were going to view showed more sympathy than if they had only seen X-rays themselves. As a result, they wrote longer and more detailed reports, with much greater diagnostic accuracy.

And further:

11) The greatest goal is not to be perfect, but to become better.

The goal to become better increases motivation and energy, makes the tasks set more interesting. This effect is even transferred to subsequent targets.

From the book Nine Things Successful People Do Differently (Nine things that successful people do not like everyone else):

Such goals, on the other hand, are extremely viable. When we think about what we are doing from the point of view of studying and mastering, recognizing that we can make some mistakes in the process of achieving the goal, we remain motivated, despite the setbacks . Research shows that the desire to become better also has a positive effect on what we feel while working; We naturally find our occupation more interesting and enjoyable when we think of it in the light of our own progress, and not perfection.

PS We recommend another article on the topic - What is common between running a company and a racing car ?

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult .