In daily life, many people can't wait to know a lot of news, and the sooner they know, the better. But is it really good for people?
In fact, many unknown information that does not affect your daily life is not particularly necessary to explore, and it will not even be of any use to people!
However, some people have raised doubts. In some cases, if you know your genetic risks and the ways to reduce them as early as possible, people may avoid risks in advance and live a healthier life. Isn't that a lot of benefits? So, why do the actual results of Americans in front of us backfire? Therefore, neuroscientists decided to do some in-depth research to understand the two States of "foresight" and "hindsight", which can make people live happier.
The mysterious function of dopamine
In order to know which makes people live happier, the first thing we need to know is dopamine, the mysterious substance in our body.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter related to human desires and feelings. Its function is to transmit information of excitement and joy between brain nerve cells. It is easy for people to be infatuated with things that make them happy or excited, so people are addicted to some things mainly because of dopamine.
Therefore, people think that happiness is mainly the result of dopamine transmitting excitement and joy information.
So, what is the relationship between dopamine and "prophet" and "hindsight"?
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health once conducted an experiment in which monkeys were trained to look at the screen in exchange for the rewards they wanted. The monkey has two pictures to choose from: the first picture is a landscape painting that has nothing to do with the reward content, but there will be a reward after reading the picture; The second screen is a picture showing the rewards they will receive. It turns out that the monkeys are eagerly looking at the second screen. When the monkeys see the picture of the prize to be won, the dopamine in their brains has increased obviously! This means that the monkeys are very excited and happy when they see the prize they are going to get, even if they haven't been rewarded yet.
This discovery points out that both the news of winning the prize and the news about winning the prize can raise dopamine in the brain and make people "excited". This explains why people "especially want to know the result".
Bad news affects people's mood.
However, dopamine not only responds to good news, but also treats bad news equally! 20 18 researchers at the university of Melbourne, Australia, found that when people get bad news, dopamine in their brains will also react obviously.
In their experiment, the researchers recorded the brain activities of 22 participants while playing card games.
This is a new game that no one has played. There are five black cards or red cards in the game. The rule of the game is that the number of red cards is greater than the number of black cards, which means victory. Before the start of the game, players have two choices: one is to never know the rules of the game and only play until the end to see the results, and the other is to know the rules of the game in advance at the expense of deducting a certain fee from the final prize.
For those who choose not to know the rules of the game, there is no reaction when they see the turned cards. But for people who spend money on gossip, a red or black card will let them know that the final result may be lost, and dopamine signals will also appear in their brains, which means that people begin to become nervous and their emotions have obvious fluctuations.
The results of this study show that when people can't get the expected "good" results, they will feel sad and lost. Therefore, knowing some information in advance is not a safe and good thing for people! Especially for some patients with congenital heart disease, if they habitually inquire about unknown information, only a considerable part of it is disappointing or even frustrating, which will lead to their discomfort and even affect their health. And if we don't explore this information, people may maintain a stable mood and there will be no uncomfortable mood swings.
Ignorance is also a blessing.
In 20 18, a joint research group in Britain and the United States launched a new study on card games. At the beginning of each round, players will see their winning probability in this round, and they can also decide in advance whether they know the final result after several rounds of superposition. But whether participants choose to know or not, it can't affect their total income.
The research team found that when after several rounds of lottery, people feel that they have a high probability of winning the final prize, most of them choose to be informed of the final result in advance in order to feel the joy of winning the prize in advance. At this time, dopamine in their brains is very active; However, few people choose to know the result in advance when they feel that their chances of winning in the end are very small. The data recorded by researchers show that when you don't expect to know the potential failure results, the activity level of dopamine secretion area in the brain is low, that is, people's excitement is low.
Judging from the research results, our brains are actually willing to actively approach positive information and avoid negative information.
So why do people avoid negative information? Scientists believe that knowing some negative information in advance will lead to people's panic and loss of happiness. On the contrary, when people have good expectations about what will happen, we will feel happy earlier. Therefore, avoiding knowing the potential negative information in advance can not only reduce the sense of hardship in life, but also help people maintain positive beliefs.
Scientists have come to the conclusion that years of research on the brain show that not all the results are good because of the short life. We might as well control our eagerness to know some information and pursue the essence of things, which is more conducive to building our own happiness and maintaining an active life.