Hope Springs Eternal

One of the characteristics that set humans apart from most other creatures is our ability to see into the future; to travel ahead in time. It’s what helps us plan. We can for instance, make a decision to go grocery shopping even though we just eaten a big meal; we know we’ll be hungry later, and we’re out of eggs, so we shop.

The Theory of Relativity

The Relativity Theory was first identified by Ernst Heinrich Weber (June 24, 1795 – January 26, 1878) a German physician who is considered to be one of the founders of experimental psychology. His work measured our ability to perceive differences in weight (that is lifted or held) and found that your ability to perceive change is relative to what you start with.

The Optimism Bias

Tali Sharot write The Optimism Bias, a book on why humans almost always view the future as hopeful and sunny. She has studied hundreds of subjects, young and old, and found that no matter the odds, we always believe that tomorrow will be better. We’re apparently hard wired that way. “We hugely underestimate the likelihood of divorce, cancer and unemployment,” she writes. “”We expect to be healthier than the average person and more successful than [our] peers.”