Attitude

It's amazing to me to observe how much of how people react to us is a reflection of our own mood, attitude, and behavior. This thought led me to think about the following: 1) It is true that we cannot always be cheerful, happy, and fun; it is also true that action accompanied by a positive mental attitude usually translates into better results. To give a simple example, consider how, in general terms, an optimistic person with a positive attitude is less likely to give up before succeeding. The more you try something, the more likely you are to accomplish your goal -simple statistics. 2) Another known fact is that, as I mentioned before, our moods an attitudes tend to be influenced by those of others -comedy shows use this principle by having people, or recordings of people- laughing so that we will think their jokes are funny. 3) It is often commented upon by foreigners living in the US, how American culture has this expectation that people should always show a positive face -some may like this attitude, others may hate it, and all for good reasons- but most people agree that is one trait of American culture.

Given the above facts, I was wondering if the success of this country in so many areas, from science to economy could be the result some kind of massive-scale positive feedback effect. Not to say that other nations cannot succeed for many different reasons -the case of Japan, or Korea come to mind, and there are others- but I was just wondering how much of an impact this aspect of American idiosyncrasy has had.

So my basic question is this: is America successful because it thinks it is successful? If a society somehow decided to have "positive attitude" taught in school from an early age, indoctrinated by parents, and considered a key principle of behavior, how would it affect the culture, economy, and society? Would we see a quantum leap take place?

Too bad that this question will remain an intellectual exercise for the foreseeable future.