The two extremes: Optimism versus Pessimism

“ A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty ” 

“The basis of optimism does not lie in positive phrases or images of victory, but in the way you think about causes”. 

"A mood or attitude associated with an expectation about the social or material future one which the evaluator regards as socially desirable, to his/her advantage, or for his/her pleasure"

“Pessimism is an entrenched habit of mind that has sweeping and disastrous consequences: depressed mood, resignation, underachievement and even unexpectedly poor physical health.”

Seligman (1995)

Optimism

There are many different definitions of optimism and pessimism. Scheier and Carver suggest there is a global expectation that good things will be plentiful in the future and bad things scarce, named ‘dispositional optimism’. They argued that optimism is associated with, and leads to, securing positive outcomes unlike pessimism which is associated with greater negative outcomes (Scheier and Carver 1992, Scheier, Carver and Bridges 2001), the idea that ‘the glass is half full or half empty’. In many studies young people have been found to experience more life satisfaction if they are optimistic (Chang, Maydeu-Olivares & D’Zurilla, 1997).

Buchanan & Seligman (1995), designed another theory of optimism known as the ‘Explanatory Style’. They believe Optimism is a way of thinking and explaining the causes of bad and good events in our lives and the way we interpret these events develops from as early as childhood. It has been suggested that unless steps are taken to change the way we think, this style and way of thinking will last for the whole of our life, acting as a prism through which we explain to ourselves why things, good or bad, happen.

Pessimism

Individuals who are pessimistic see setbacks as perpetual, pervasive and personal, which are derived from a deep sense of helplessness. This can become a self-fulfilling prophecy of “nothing I do matters” which in severe cases may lead to depression and other anxiety disorders. However Martin Seligman believes that optimism can be learned and that identifying an individual’s explanatory style can be the first step to increasing optimism leading to improvements both physically and mentally (Gillham, Reivich, Jaycox, & Seligman 1995).

‘Explanatory Style’ of Optimism and Pessimism

The three main dimensions of the explanatory style that can be used to explain optimism and pessimism are;

Permanence vs Temporary : people who have a pessimistic explanatory style will look at the negative aspects of situations and assume that when something goes wrong it will always go wrong. Individuals with an optimistic explanatory style will learn from bad experiences and make changes so they don’t occur again in the future.

Pervasiveness- Specific vs Global : when things don’t go as planned those who are pessimists tend to catastrophise and see their failures as all inevitable or global. Therefore creating a negative overall view. Those who are optimistic also acknowledge failure but instead of seeing it as a global problem they will see it as a specific setback that can be changed.

Catastrophising

In general catastrophising is a negative way of thinking. It describes a set of emotional and cognitive processes incorporating rumination about pain, magnification of pain-related symptoms, and feelings of helplessness. (Edwards, R. R., Giles, J., Bingham, C. O., Campbell, C., Haythornthwaite, J. A. & Bathon, J., 2010). That means on one point making a catastrophe out of a situation or having a negative look to the future, thinking about what could go wrong for example. In everyday speech you say ‘You’re making a mountain out of a molehill!’.

ABCDE- exercise 

A dversity – Describes an event that happens; A failure

B elief – Describes how that adversity is interpreted; What is running through the mind

C onsequences – Include feelings and actions that result from the belief; E.g. despair, anger

D isputation – Means that one disputes the consequences by reminding oneself of any potential useful of moving on from the adversity. These responses can change the feelings to be more hopeful and positive --> self-help

A : Describe a recent adversity! Who was includes in the situation? What happened? When and where did it happen? Be objective

B: What was running through your mind? Write it down verbatim.

C: What did you feel and what did you do? List all of the emotions you experienced and your reactions.

D: Choose one piece of evidence to point out the inaccuracy of the belief or generate a more accurate, alternative belief.

Research that has been carried out into twin studies shows that up tp 50% of our personality traits, such as happiness, aggression and depression are inherited from our parents, thus suggesting that optimism has a heritable feature. Schulman, Keith and Seligman (1993) carried out a study looking at the significant correlations of explanatory style in both monozygotic and dizygotic twins. They found that there was a significant correlation for optimism in monozygotic twins compared to dizygotic twins that suggests a certain level of genetics are involved in the ‘explanatory style’. Plomin et al (1992) went on to carry out another experiment looking at twins using a larger sample. Their results supported the initial results of Schulman et al (1991) finding that an estimates 25% of variance found in optimism is linked to genetics.

Emotional states can influence the progression of disease and determine the level of resistance or vulnerability to disease (Barak, 2006). An emotional state such as stress causes increases in blood pressure, heart rate and sympathetic arousal. These changes, if chronic, can contribute to the development of heart disease and other related illnessesBarak (2006) reviewed a study by Watanuki and Kim, who Studied the physiological responses of the central and autonomic nervous systems and immune and endocrine systems when pleasant stimuli were presented to subjects. The results of the research showed an increase in secretary immunoglobulin-A (IgA) and a decrease in salivary cortisol when pleasant stimuli were presented. The lower the IgA, the higher the frequency of infection (Barak, 2006).

Straub (2007) has also implicated social engagement and Optimism in supporting the body’s immune and neuroendocrine responses. Previous studies have suggested that social support can lead to an increase in lymphocyte count, natural killer cells and cell-mediated immunity. It can therefore be theorized that people with good social support may be more likely to live longer and generally healthier lives. Straub (2007) also posited that wakeful relaxation (mindfulness) may promote a decrease in leukocyte counts coupled with an increase in natural killer cell activity. In addition, it may also improve the functioning of the immune system during stressful events.

Perceived control can be a key factor in the improvement of neuroendocrine and immune functioning (Straub, 2007). Those who perceive a higher incidence of control over life's events are more likely to undertake behaviours that promote good health. The flip side of this is that, those who feel helpless and lacking control may be at increased risk for illnesses and poor health as they tend not take action to promote health. It has even been documented that individuals such as this often engage in health-compromising behaviours. For example, if they believe that they have cancer, they might tend to drink large quantities of alcohol as they assume death is imminent anyway. Such individuals are extreme Pessimists and will on average have higher cortisol levels and weaker immune systems (Straub, 2007).

• Optimism and The Stress Factor

When Optimism is considered in relation to stress, it has been argued that an Optimist's psychological responses to external stressors differ from those of Pessimists (Scheier, Weintraub & Carver, 1986 ). An Optimistwill tend to deal with stress through mechanisms such as problem-focused coping, seeking of social support, and emphasizing positive aspects of the stressful situation whereas Pessimism is associated with denial and distancing, focusing on stressful feelings, and with disengagement from the goal with which the stressor is interfering (Scheier et, al., 1986).

The physiological response to stress is complex and derives from an evolutionary need to perform optimally in a “fight or flight” situation. Non-essential systems are temporarily shut down (your body does not need to be digesting food when you are running for your life), bowels and bladder are evacuated to lose any dead weight, blood vessels dilate and lung capacity increases to improve the efficiency of oxygen delivery and cortisol & adrenalinto twin studies shows that up to aid in the release of energy from stored fat cells so it can be delivered to the muscles. In this state you are thinking quicker and performing optimally. For short periods of time (such as when running for your life) this is fine. However, in modern life similar stress responses are triggered in response to things such as giving presentations in anticipation of a physical stressor (this explains why some people struggle to speak when giving a presentation, the saliva in their mouth, which is part of the digestive system, is lost due to the body temporarily shutting down digestive function in preparation for “fight or flight”). When these responses persist over long periods of time (chronic stress) it can be detrimental for our health. In some cases this can lead to adult onset diabetes and hypertension.

Apply this thinking to Optimism/Pessimism and we are presented with a situation where the Optimists of the world are focused on the problems at hand, seeking advice and “looking on the bright side” whereas the Pessimists avoid the problem at hand, focus on the disembodied stress and ignore any possible routes to alleviate the stressful emotional state. So, the Optimists will experience the stressful state for a shorter period of time as they are focused on resolving the issue and will as a result have less of a physiological response to the stress and avoid any long term health implications that may bring with it. Pessimists on the other hand have a life of adult onset diabetes and hypertension to look forward to. Here we can see a clear step-by-step link between an Optimistic outlook and factors affecting both health and longevity.

---

The Benefits of Pessimism

Optimism isn't always your friend, there are instances where having a glass that's half full can have a negative impact. Take this poor chap on the right here, he may very well have a better chance of survival if he assumed that no-one was coming to help, this way he could be proactive about his predicament and find shelter or water rather than remaining half buried in the middle of a desert.

Believing that the glass is half empty has often been taken as an immediate indicator that a given person is likely to lack perseverance, consider tasks as pointless and to generally avoid engagement as they will always assume or expect the worst outcome. However, this immediate assumption may have misunderstood what some of the fundamental aspects of Pessimism can provide its practitioners.

Gibson & Sanbonmatsu (2004) illustrate how a perpetually Optimistic outlook can actually be detrimental. They studied the gambling habits of both Optimists and Pessimists and found that Optimists would tend to report an overestimation of the number of wins and near-wins compared against their actual wins and near-wins. In addition, the losses incurred by the Optimists did not prompt them to reduce the amount placed on each bet. The Pessimists on the other hand tended to undersetimate wins and near-wins and had a habit of reducing the amout bet when faced with a loss. Given that the odds of winning or losing in the games of chance offered at a casino are always stacked in favour of of the house (and even if they're not, the odds still remain the same regardless of how many hands you play or how many times the roulette wheel spins) it is a poor strategy to continually assume that you are going to win. An assumption based on the belief that you are always going to lose would prove to be far more beneficial (provided that you decided that it was worth while playing in the first instance) in facilitating a win or at the very least in reducing potential loss. It could of course be argued that humans are not inherently logical beings and that this simply may just not occur to most people but this is besides the point. In this study, it was found that the Optimists did not adjust the amount bet regardless of the number of losses, this suggests that their expectations have not been altered based on their current experience is telling them.

Here it is not suggested that the bottom-up feed-forward loops involved in cognitive prediction are malfunctioning but it is suggested that that an Optimistic disposition may override or subdue the impact of any incoming information that does not fall in line with top-down Optimistic expectations (Geers & Lassiter, 2002). Gibson & Sanbonmatsu go on to suggest that although traits such as Pessimism and Optimism are developed in response to the specific environments in which we live, our preferential dispositions are not going to be useful in all contexts and for all tasks. They suggest that in forgiving environments such as the U.S. and the U.K. where resources and opportunities are generally abundant and where most individuals are afforded relatively high levels of control over their lives, Optimism may pay off. Conversely, Pessimism is more at home and more useful in harsher and more oppressive environments where resources are few and prospects are bleak, here Pessimism will prove to be far more adaptive than Optimism, as Pessimistic tendencies tend to withdraw from the field, conserve effort and minimize risk.Clearly though, when this is applied to everyday life, there are situations where an Optimistic strategy is optimal and there are situations where a Pessimistic strategy is optimal. The key is finding the right balance between the two. This may seem to most (especially the Pessimists) as quite a task but it may actually be an inherent part of human nature, it may be the case that we are all running on the Hedonic treadmill.

---

The Hedonic Treadmill

 

"Happy thou art not, for what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get, and what thou hast, thou forget'st." William Shakespeare

Despite the major positive and negative events that occur in a human life and how these tend to majorly modify mood, there is a supposed human tendencyto quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite these major positive or negative life events (Brickman, Coates & Janoff-Bulman, 1978). Humans will quickly adapt to their surroundings and to circumstances with which they are faced and adaptation can be seen as acting to minimize disturbance to your current state. This can be said to be true of both positive and negative experiences as people in the general populous are rarely in an ecstatic or depressed state for extended periods of time following a good or bad event. Brickman and his colleagues (1978) looked at those who had recently become paraplegic or quadriplegic, they found that the victims of these accidents reported being no less happy than a control group. This falls in line with the theory of the "hedonic treadmill", according to this theory, everyone has a hedonic "set point" to which they will return after temporary high or low points. It is argued that as we earn more money or reach our goals, our expectations and desires rise in tandem. The same goes for losing money or failing to reach our goals except obviously our expectations and desires would decrease in tandem. This means that there can be no permanent rise or fall in happiness. This can be visualised as a person running on a treadmill, they are always working but they are also remaining in the same place. Brickman and Campbell coined the term in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971).

This can be seen in action in the perceptions of parents when asked about raising their children. It has been found that even though parents will often (if not always) say that they love their children and that they wouldn't trade any of the time spent raising their children for anything in the world, the level of marital satisfaction (which is closely linked with happiness) takes a sharp plunge until children leave home or go to university (Griscom & Volkman, 2010). So, here we can see the hedonic treadmill at work, parents are initially struggling to cope with all the new stressors of raising a new-born, once they've got past this phase they then have to content with a troublesome toddler, teething problems, tantrums, the stress of starting school, the stress of after-school clubs, the cost of feeding and clothing children, the moods that teenagers get into and the terrifying idea of their son or daughter driving a car to name but a few. However, despite all the extra time and effort that goes into raising a child it is not often the case that a parent will consider raising a child an unpleasant experience. It could be said that their relative happiness has remained the same. Parents will experience major highs and major lows in raising a child but they will ultimately come back to a stable level of happiness regardless of their disposition.

Again, if this is applied to Optimistic and Pessimistic dispositions, it could be said that regardless of whether you are optimistic or Pessimistic, your relative place on your own scale of happiness is going to remain the same. It may be the case that an Optimist will always tend to look on the bright side because it takes them longer to return to their hedonic set point from a good experience whereas as Pessimist will take longer to return to their set point from a negative experience. However, this will ultimately make no difference as the average will always remain at the same level.

Cultural Differences

Are Americans more optimistic than Chinese?

Key Paper: Lee, Y. T., Seligman, M. E. P. (1997). Are Americans More Optimistic Than the Chinese? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. pp. 32-40.

In order to examine differences in optimistic or pessimistic views between cultures Seligman and Lee (1997) investigated the explanatory style of White American, Chinese American and mainland Chinese students. They hypothesised that White Americans would be more optimistic than Chinese Americans, who would be more optimistic than mainland Chinese. This assumption was based on previous research (Sethi & Seligman, 1993) that for example showed that fundamentalist religions (e.g. Orthodox Judaism) were more significantly optimistic than moderate religions (e.g. Catholicism), which were more optimistic than liberal religions (e.g. Unitarianism). In a study of pessimism and depression in East and West Berlin Oettingen and Seligman (1990) observed that East Berlin workmen seemed to be more pessimistic than West Berlin workmen.

Procedure: Students were asked to complete the Attributional Style Questionaire (Peterson & Seligman, 1984) which measures causal explanations for positive and negative events on three dimentsions: internatlity-externality, stability-instability, and globality-specificty (Schulman et al., 1989). It was hypothesised that mainland Chinese students were more pessimistic than both White and Chinese American counterparts.

Results: There was a marked difference between mainland Chinese optimism and White American optimism and between White American optimism and Chinese American optimism. However no significant difference between mainland Chinese and Chinese American students was found. Moreover it was shown that Chinese students attributed their success to other people or circumstances, whereas they were less self-blaming. White Americans however were more likely to be lopsided which means that they showed a self-serving bias toward making the causes of good events more stable, global and internal. Besides White Americans often attributed their success to themselves and more often attributed their failure to other people or circumstances. Although they did not directly test the relationship between political economy and people’s explanatory styles it is suggested that political economy and sociocultural factors account for different explanatory styles (controlled for age and student status). Differences in culture are for example the perception of one own’s society thus the American society is more individual oriented and Americans perceive themselves to be heterogeneous whereas mainland Chinese perceive themselves to be homogeneous. Seligman and Lee assumed that Americans who are individualistic tended to maximize their distance between themselves and other Americans which led to more polarized attributions by making good events more internal than bad events. The Group or situation orientated Chinese Americans and mainland Chinese tended to minimize their distance in order for harmony with others by making good events less internal.

Even though Seligman and Lee (1997) revealed cultural differences in the explanatory styles and thus optimism and pessimism more research and particularly more current research is needed. In times of globalisation those differences could vanish due to and political events and modernization.

The Broaden-and-Build theory

Is there a 'Middle Ground' between Positive and Negative which leads to happiness?

Evolutionary Explanation

According to Fredrickson (2000): ‘The psychological broadening sparked by one positive emotion can increase an individual’s receptiveness to subsequent pleasant or meaningful events, increasing the odds that the individual will find positive meaning in these subsequent events and experience additional positive emotions. This can in turn trigger an “upward spiral” ... with time and repeated experience, the broaden–and–build model predicts that positive emotions increment people’s enduring personal resources … these resources—gained through positive emotion experiences—can enhance health and well-being.’

Should there be an equal balance between positive and negative emotions?

Test your 'Positivity Ratio':
http://www.positivityratio.com/single.php

A simple Exercise

Empirical Support

To what extent are we able to alter our emotions and what effect may this have?

Key Study: Melissa Falkenstern, Holly H. Schiffrin*, S. Katherine Nelson, Lyndsey Ford and Christina Keyser (2009). Mood over matter: can happiness be your undoing?

Aim: According to the undoing hypothesis of Fredrickson and Levenson, positive affect can undo the physiological effects of negative emotion. The present study examined whether positive emotions could undo the cognitive effects of negative emotion.

Method and Procedure: All participants completed a letter identification task (to assess reaction time) to measure changes in the cognitive processing of 86 college students. They were induced with a negative emotion, sadness, and then randomly allocated to either receive a positive, negative, or neutral affective state by viewing various film clips. After every emotion-induction procedure, participants completed the letter-identification task and also were assessed on their trait optimism. 

Results: The current study provides preliminary support for the application of the undoing hypothesis (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998) to the cognitive domain. As would be expected from previous research on the narrowed scope of attention associated with negative affect, all participants responded faster on the letter-identification task when induced into a negative affective state. After the second emotion-induction procedure, in which participants viewed film clips intended to induce three different emotional states, a different pattern of reaction times to the letter-identification task emerged across the groups. The negative and neutral affect conditions continued to demonstrate significantly faster reaction times. 

Additional empirical findings

Several key aspects of the broaden-and-build theory have been empirically tested and supported. For instance, laboratory experiments have shown that, relative to neutral and negative states, induced positive emotions widen the scope of people’s attention (Rowe et al. 2007), broaden people’s repertoires of desired actions (Fredrickson and Branigan 1998), dismantle people’s physiological preparation for specific actions sparked by negative emotions (Fredrickson et al. 2000), and increase their openness to new experiences (Kahn and Isen 1993). It is stated that this is the result of the broadening of the attentional focus, and thereby cognition and the behavioural repertoire, which prevents that during stressful situations subjects fall into a spiral of negative thinking and depression.

• Recommended Reading: Fredrickson B.L., Tugade M.M., Waugh C.E. & Larkin G.R. (2003). What Good are Positive Emotions in Crises? A Prospective Study of Resilience and Emotions Following the Terrorist Attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. This study shows participants who have regularly 'exercised' to experience positive emotions were more resistant to negative states such as traumatic episodes after the terrorist attack.

Neuropsychological Support

As he expresses it:

'Without dopamine, human aspirations remain frozen, as it were, in an endless winter of discontent...only the strongest emotional messages instigate behaviour. When dopamine synapses are active in abundance, a person feels as if he or she can do anything...I call this emotional circuitry the 'seeking system' of the brain.' (Panksepp, 1998)

Thus dopamine levels in the brain modulate neural activity and correlate to aspects of our personality such as optimism, inquisitiveness and happiness. Moreover, it appears that these, and other positive states, are learnable emotions.

Critique

Methodological

• There are, however, several limitations to the broaden-and-build theory and empirical research. First, the experimental settings that Fredrickson and colleagues used do not necessarily reflect how positive emotions come about and/or how people build resources in everyday life contexts, including leisure activities. Laboratory tasks (e.g., watching films, filling out questionnaires, tapping computer keys while reaction time is measured), even when they induce positive emotions, are imposed on the participant.

• A second limitation is sampling. Fredrickson and colleagues have only sampled undergraduate students and working adults, who differ in many life circumstances from, for example, the elderly (Yarnal et al., 2008).

• The third and final limitation is that Fredrickson and colleagues’ studies of broadening and building processes (e.g., Cohn et al., 2009) used objectivist epistemologies in which positive emotions and their outcomes are measured by quantitative self-report survey methods. Such methods exclude par­ticipants’ personal interpretations of their experiences (Henderson, 2006), and may hinder a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of how positive emotions operate within the broaden-and-build process.

Theoretical

Clinical Application

Applying the broaden-and-build theory and optimism to clinical practice

Mindfulness

How to become more positive

Since the 1970s more and more attention was paid to the concept of mindfulness which is based on Buddhism meditation. In general the term describes a process of staying in the moment. Bishop at al (2004) however define mindfulness as a concept consisting of two components:

The first component involves the self-regulation of attention. It begins with bringing awareness to current experience by regulating the focus of attention and leads to a feeling of being fully present and alive in the here-and-now. Skills in sustained attention are required to maintain an awareness of current experience furthermore skills in switching that involve a flexibility of attention so that one can shift the focus from one object to another and finally one needs the ability to inhibit elaborative processing. All thoughts or events coming to your mind while focusing on the current experience are considered as observation and not a distraction. Nevertheless once acknowledged attention is directed back to the current experience.

Exercises for Mindfulness

There are a lot of different exercises on Mindfulness and some of them are very easy to integrate into everyday life. Here are some examples:

Breathing

Pay attention to each breath in and out.

It helps to stay in the present moment and a state of awareness and stillness.

Meditation session with Jon Kabat-Zinn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc (23 min)

Perceive a raisin with all senses

STOP- exercise

When the mind is running…

S - Stop what you are doing, put things down for a minute.

T - Take a breath. Breathe normally and naturally and follow your breath coming in and of your nose. Say to yourself “in” as you’re breathing in and “out” as you’re breathing out.

O - Observe your thoughts, feelings, and emotions. You can reflect about what is on your mind and also notice that thoughts are not facts and they are not permanent. If the thought arises that you are inadequate, just notice the thought, let it be, and continue on. Notice any emotions that are there and just name them. Notice your body. Are you standing or sitting? How is your posture? Any aches and pains.

Mindful eating

Sometimes we sit in front of the laptop and feel it is time for a treat. So we take the first bite and enjoy it! And then the second,, and the third and go on working. We click here and there, type in some words, read a text and suddenly realise the treat is gone. The only trace are the sticky hands and maybe a flavour on the tongue… The next time you are keen on a treat, eat it mindful!

1) Try taking the first four sips of a cup of hot tea or coffee with full attention?

2) If you are reading and eating, try alternating these activities, not doing both at once? Read a page, then put the book down and eat a few bites, savoring the tastes, then read another page, and so on.

3) Try eating one meal a week mindfully, alone and in silence. Be creative. For example, could you eat lunch behind a closed office door, or even alone in your car?

• A person's disposition does contain a genetic factor but it is mediated through interactions with their environment.
• Dispositional mental state may have an effect on the function of the body's physiological mechanisms.
• Disposition holds some influence over the body's ability to fight disease.
• Disposition affects both physiological and psychological responses to acute stressors. The effects of disposition on chronic stress however, are not as clear.
• Pessimism has it's uses and is particularly useful in bleak and unforgiving circumstances. One should no be too Pessimistic though, finding the right adaptive techniques to optimise success often involves utilizing aspects from both Pessimism and Optimism. 
• Average happiness levels tend to remain the same regardless of general dispositional outlook.