Government Nudge Units Use Behavioural Economics

The Economist has a report on how the UK government is trying to influence public actions through Beahvioural Exonomics. 

https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21625871-behavioural-economics-changing-regulation-payday-lending-target-nudge-nudge-think-think

Use the ABC technique to overcome pessimism

Use the ABC technique to reduce pessimism 

Adversity

Belief

Consequences

And then optimists see 

Permanence

Pervasiveness

Personalization

differently than pessimists, so this article explains how you can change these thoughts to be more positive.  

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/abc.htm#np

Brain Favours an Optimistic Outlook

There are many studies that point to the health benefits of having a positive disposition, and I’ve read that up to 80% of people tend towards being positive in life.  (I’ll try to find the links and cross reference.) 

A study in England in 2011 reported that most of us have a bias towards positivity. 

“When the news was positive, all people had more activity in the brain's frontal lobes, which are associated with processing errors. With negative information, the most optimistic people had the least activity in the frontal lobes, while the least optimistic had the most.”

"And despite how sophisticated these neural networks are, it is illuminating to see how the brain sometimes comes up with wrong and overly optimistic answers despite the evidence."

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-15214080