Optimism biases denote the tendency to see future desirable events as being more likely to happen to oneself than undesirable events. Such biases are important for mental health and may extend to other individuals or social groups (social optimism biases). However, little is known about whether social optimism biases relate to brain structure. Using sparse canonical correlation analysis, we associated cortical thickness (assessed by magnetic resonance imaging) with measures of social and personal optimism bias, trait optimism and related concepts. We identified a defensive self-enhancement dimension that associated significantly and reliably with the cortical thickness of the insula and inferior frontal cortex. This self-enhancement dimension included unfavorable biases toward unpopular out-groups and indicators of personal optimism and pessimism. A shared biological substrate underlying future expectancies that subserves the promotion of the self and the denigration of unpopular out-groups may render society-wide efforts to counteract stereotyping particularly difficult: such efforts may hinder the establishment of adaptive personal optimism biases.

中文翻译：

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社会乐观倾向与皮层厚度有关。

乐观偏见表示倾向于将未来的期望事件看成比不期望事件更容易发生在自己身上。这种偏见对于心理健康很重要，并且可能会扩展到其他个人或社会群体（社会乐观偏见）。然而，人们对社交乐观主义偏见是否与大脑结构有关知之甚少。使用稀疏典范相关性分析，我们将皮质厚度（通过磁共振成像评估）与社会和个人乐观偏见，特质乐观和相关概念的度量相关联。我们确定了一个防御自我增强的维度，该维度与岛突和下额叶皮层的皮质厚度显着且可靠地相关。这种自我提升的维度包括对不受欢迎的群体的不利偏见以及个人乐观和悲观情绪的指标。