Output details
11 - Computer Science and Informatics
University of Sheffield
Environmental variability can select for optimism or pessimism
<28> Cognitive biases such as optimism and pessimism are hugely important for understanding human decision-making and decision pathologies, and are widely studied by economists and neuroscientists. Such biases appear to be irrational and hence should not be observed in brains resulting from natural selection. Until this work an underlying theory had not been formalised. This computational and mathematical modelling paper presents the first framework for understanding the evolution of behavioural optimism and pessimism, with implications for research in neuroscience and behaviour. Ecology Letters is ranked 1/131 among ecology journals.