Bulgaria A Country Of Pessimism?

This study was a suprise in one aspect but not in another. The yound generation Bulgarians are generally optimistic and looking to a bright future in the new western style materialistic world. On the other hand the older generations are certainly gloomy and even more so now in the European Community. I think EU membership causing inflation to rise, increased poverty well before the recession started has depressed the majority of middle aged + Bulgarians.

......the worst global economic recession since World War II, optimism generally precedes pessimism among people around the world, a study shows. The University of Kansas and Gallup jointly presented their study in the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco on Sunday. Gallup conducted a survey on some 150,000 adults in over 140 countries around the world, asking them how they envision their life to be in the next five years. Some 89 percent of respondents said that their life would be as good as or better than now in the next five years, while 95 percent believed their life would be better in the next five years than in the past five years. Matthew Gallagher, lead researcher of the study at the University of Kansas, said, "These results provide compelling evidence that optimism is a universal phenomenon." Optimism was most greatly felt in Ireland, followed by Brazil, Denmark and New Zealand, and least felt in Zimbabwe, Egypt, Haiti and Bulgaria...... english.chosun.com Image by Tony the Misfit via Flickr