THE other day I spotted a quiz in a magazine. ‘Are you an optimist or a pessimist?’ it asked.

I began to complete it, already knowing what the answer would be.

‘In uncertain times, I usually expect the best’ was the first question. I had to choose between several answers, ranging from agreeing a lot to disagreeing a lot.

Without hesitation, I ticked the latter.

‘I am always optimistic about my future,’ it asked, and again I ticked the last option. And so it went on. Needless to say, my score placed me deep within the pessimistic side of the result table.

The conclusion did not make for happy reading: ‘You see the world as a place of bad experiences and events,’ it said.

Whatever the scenario, I always look on the black side. It drives my family mad. My daughter told me off for tainting her experience of moving into her student hall at university through my fretting about a speeding fine I was convinced I had got on the way there.

I was so sure that I would receive one that I curtailed my spending that weekend in readiness for the fine and fretted about the penalty points I was bound to get. I was even more convinced when I typed in the location to Google and discovered that it was the UK’s most prolific speed camera, catching almost 50 motorists a day.

I moaned about it every day for the next fortnight, after which the time lapsed and I grudgingly admitted that it looked, on this occasion, as though I had escaped prosecution.

My fears extend from possible domestic woes to major global crises. My garage contains supplies of bottled water, tinned fruit and various other non-perishables in case war breaks out. Thinking about it, I probably did not need to do a quiz to confirm my pessimistic character.

Pessimists can blame their feelings on bad genes, a study by researchers from the University of British Columbia discovered. They found that a gene variant - going by the snappy name ADA2b - can influence your perception of life by amplifying negative experiences and emotional events.

“These individuals may be more likely to pick out angry faces in a crowd of people,” says Rebecca Todd, who led the study. “Outdoors, they might notice potential hazards - places you could slip, loose rocks that might fall, instead of seeing the natural beauty.”

That’s me all over. When we are out walking on the coast or climbing hills, my daughters berate me for steering them away from paths I feel are dangerous. It is as though I foresee disaster and have to act to prevent it.

I used to think it was because I had worked for so long as a newspaper reporter, surrounded by tales of woe. But I now believe it has been passed down from my dad. The study does not refer to inherited genes, but my dad tends to look on the black side of things. When the house next door went up for sale he imagined a worst-case scenario. The new neighbours turned out to be very nice and there was no mention of a nuclear reactor being built on the land. When the same happened to me, however, the most dreaded outcome did come true and we got neighbours from hell.

Negativity doesn’t have to be all bad, however. Some psychologists believe that pessimism has its advantages. Those who expect the worst often are more resourceful, because they are better prepared when things go wrong.

So if Armageddon befalls us, I should in theory be the only one not panicking.

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