Genes can cause negative outlook on life: study
Posted October 13, 2013 12:53 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Do you have a dark outlook on life? Maybe mom and dad are to blame.
Local researchers have discovered some people have pessimism in their genetic make up.
The study out of UBC found a gene variant can cause people to perceive emotional events, especially negative ones, more vividly than others.
Rebecca Todd with the Department of Psychology says this sheds new light on how genes can influence how you see the world, as much as cultural differences and life experiences do. “For example, people who have this variation may look out into the crowd as see only angry faces, or they might be in an outdoor scene and see potential hazards like rocks where you might slip.”
“We’ve all heard the expression seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses. Well, this is like seeing the world through gene-coloured glasses, tinted a bit darkly,” she explains.
The study also finds some minorities are more likely to see the world positively since they often lack the genetic variant.
