The Health Benefits Of Low Expectations

Why is it not surprising that a study that found health benefits in pessimism was conducted in Germany? It’s true. The Los Angeles Times reports that the researchers, who studied health and welfare surveys (conducted each year from 1993 to 200) from 40,000 Germans between ages 18 and 96, asked people to estimate their present and future life satisfaction on a scale of 0 to 10. Who made the most accurate predictions? Not the youngsters: the researchers found that the group aged 18 to 39 routinely overestimated their future life satisfaction. Middle-aged adults, 40 to 64, more accurately predicted how they would feel in the future. The good news? Adults 65 and older were far more likely to underestimate their future life satisfaction. Not only did they feel more satisfied than they thought they would, the older pessimists seemed to suffer a lower ratio of disability and death for the study period. Read more in the Los Angeles Times.