Reasons to be Cheerful?

A talk entitled "Why are some of us optimists and others pessimists and what can we do about it?" will take place in the Central Library on Thursday June 21st at 1pm. Renowned psychologist and professor of cognitive neuroscience, Elaine Fox of the University of Essex will answer the above question from a totally scientific point of view (The talk is part of Dublin City of Science 2012). Author of "Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain", Elaine will explain how we already have tendencies towards optimism or pessimism when we are born. However, all is not lost as she can reveal some techniques to help us change our mindsets.

In anticipation you can read here an interview Elaine gave to New Scientist magazine.

More details about the talk.

Here are a couple of quotations to get you thinking on the matter:

" Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute". - G.B. Stern.

" An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty;and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be".