It's difficult to tell if a chicken is an optimist. After all, you can't ask if a glass of water is half full or half empty. But you can repeatedly show a white card in front of a bowl with delicious mealworms and a black card in front of an empty bowl. Once the chick is confident in choosing the white card, show them the gray card. The chick who immediately turned to this card seemed to assume that it probably contained food since the card was white rather than black. This is the same as considering the glass half full. Based on this, Most chickens indeed turn out to be “optimistic”.
Optimistic behavior can also be tested and fine-tuned in many animals. european starling If you take a bath whenever you want, you'll be more optimistic.. bottlenose dolphin Swimming in sync with each other shows more optimistic behavior. bumblebee Make more optimistic choices after being given an unexpected sweet treat.
These findings may seem outlandish, but the fact that some form of optimism is found in such a wide range of animals suggests that a positive outlook is important in our own lives and that it contributes to our well-being. This suggests that they are deeply connected. In recent years, these and other insights into how glass-half-full thinking can affect our health have begun to help us distinguish between different types of optimism. This has helped me identify the type that is good for me.
Source: www.newscientist.com
