Works Cited

Radiohead Video
     Radiohead - Optimistic (From The Basement). (2008) Retrieved July 24, 2008,
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJfXlm4S7fo

Debate Video
     EU pessimism vs. US optimism. (2010) Retrieved October 18, 2010,
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RAM4AVAoso&feature=fvst

Hearts Picture
     Over- and Underestimation. 2011. Photograph. chess.com
http://www.chess.com/article/view/over--and-underestimation

Truth in Lies Picture
     Truths and Lies. 2011. Photograph. hartandjenny
http://hartandjenny.com/truths-and-lies/
    

Research Memo #3

The two videos that I have uploaded to my site all revolve around research memo three. The first one is a song by the band Radiohead. The song is called Optimistic. The song ties in with what im doing because of the lyrics, the main repeated lyric is "If you try your best you can". This really goes well with the optimism state of mind. The second video is an American women and a European man debating if Americas economy is goin gto get better or worse. This ties in with my topic as well because of the terms they use. It also shows how wide spread Optimism and Pessimism are. You may not be able to see it, but Optimism, Pessimism, and Realism are in our everyday lives.

EU pessimism vs. US optimism

Optimistic- Radiohead

Research Memo #2

Through all of the online articles I read, I found two that were very informational. The first talks all about optimism. It states that everybody has optimistic thoughts some point in their life. It also states that optimistic people expect the very best of things and that it can be bad for them. Most optimistic people over estimate there lifespan, sometimes by twenty years or more. Also an interesting fact that I found within the article is that neuroscience actually believes that most people are optimistic than realistic. I strongly believe that this is true because of my survey results. Overly positive assumptions can lead to a destroyed person. Optimism makes most people happier, but can also destroy somebody at the same time. The other article was a short one about pessimism but it was also very informative. It stated that pessimism was the doctrine of reality, life, and the world is evil. Pessimistic people always have a negative state of mind. Also it stated that almost everybody has had pessimistic thought sometime in their life. I couldn’t find any clear, informational articles for realism. But realism is the state of mind that believes only the facts. Even if a person is realistic, I believe sometime in their life they have a optimistic or realistic thought. So in assumption to my research questions, I believe that the happiest state of mind is optimism. But I also believe it is better to be a little of all three states of mind optimism, realism, and pessimism.

Works Cited:

Sharot, Tali. "The Optimism Bias." Time 177.23 (2011): 40. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 18 Nov. 2011

"Pessimism." (n.d.): Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia. Web. 18 Nov. 2011.

Research Questions

1.Out of the three, Optimistic, Realistic, and Pessimistic, who lives a happier lifestyle?
2.Out of the three, Optimistic, Realistic, and Pessimistic, who lives a more truthful lifestyle?
3.Out of the three, Optimistic, Realistic, and Pessimistic, who lives a healthier lifestyle?
4.Do Optimistic people expect a better outcome of their life and have a better chance of being let down?
5. Do Pessimistic people live a depressed, unhealthy lifestyle?

Research Memo #1

Results:

Hypothesis:

Most people live their life being optimistic; as a result to this I believe more people will be happier being optimistic. But being an optimists may cause them to get there hopes up for things that we know will not happen. So the people who are realist will most likely also live a mostly happy life. The people who are pessimist will defiantly live a depressing life. If you wake up every morning and always look toward that bad side of everything, you will not be happy. For example, when the Optimist wakes up he will believe that he will live happily throughout the entire day. When the Pessimist awakens he will think that this is the day that he will die and there will be no happiness. When the Realist wakes up he will get prepared for the day and pass by whatever life throws at him. Therefore, as a Realist, I believe people who are optimistic will live a happy life style, the realist will live a true lifestyle, and the pessimist will live a depressed lifestyle.

Context:

My survey that I sent out to get information from ended up bringing me a lot of good facts. The target audience I gave the survey too was anybody with the knowledge of the subject. I chose that group of people because beliefs can be held by anybody, any age or gender. The results I got in return are valid. I know this because everybody wrote down information that seems reasonable, everybody who took it, took it respectively and truthfully. It is biased though because everybody has their own opinions, but it's still valid because it is their opinions I wanted.

Question # 1	A-15	B-8	C-2
Question # 2	A-8	B-17	-
Question # 3	A-21	B-4	-
Question # 4	A-17	B-8	C-0
Question # 6	A-12	B-3	C-10

Data Analysis:

The data that I received from my surveys was interesting. Question one asked out of the three choices, optimistic, realistic, and pessimistic, which one would you describe yourself as? Fifteen people said Optimistic, eight said Realistic, and two said Pessimistic. I thought this was interesting because I thought more people would say realistic. Question two states, do you feel Optimistic people are hidden from truth? Eight people said yes, seventeen people said no. Like in the first question fifteen people said they were Optimistic, so possibly all of those people didn't want to write that they were hidden from the truth. Also was interesting. Question three asked, do you feel as if Pessimistic people are hidden from the truth? Twenty-one people said yes, four people said no. Question four states, out of the three choices who do you think lives a happier lifestyle? Seventeen people said Optimistic; eight said Realistic and Zero said Pessimistic. This was interesting and valid. Question six asked, out of the three, which one do you think deals more with false knowledge? Surprisingly twelve people said Optimistic, three people said Realistic and ten people said Pessimistic. I found all of this information useful and valid.

Conclusion:

As my results show my hypothesis was partially correct. I thought that more people would lean towards Optimistic and as my results said, that was correct. As for realistic, I figured a fair amount of people would choose that. And as for Pessimistic, rarely anybody chose it, as I expected.

Follow Up:

 Now that I have my research memo number one completed I have already started thinking about research memo two. For the next memo I want my fact and information to be a lot better and most of all have more accurate questions. My research question, who do you think lives a happier life style, is going to be my next big topic. As a result of this research I have not changed any research questions. All of my information fit in just about perfectly and was valid