It's an age-old battle.
Pessimists think optimists are foolish, optimists
think pessimists make themselves
unnecessarily miserable. A lot of research has been done on this issue
in the last 30 years. Have we answered the question yet? Is the glass half-full
or half-empty?
Martin Seligman and his colleagues
at the University of Pennsylvania found that optimistic people are happier
than pessimists. When something bad happens, optimists think of it as temporary,
limited in its effect, and not entirely their fault. Pessimists do the
opposite. They consider the setback to be permanent, far-reaching and all
their fault. There are varying degrees of this, of course; it's not black
or white. Most people fall somewhere between the two extremes.
The main difference between optimists
and pessimists is how they explain setbacks to themselves. Using these
definitions, researchers find that optimism contributes to good health
and pessimism contributes to illness.
In several large-scale, long-term,
carefully controlled experiments, Seligman discovered that optimists are
more successful than pessimists -- optimistic politicians win more elections,
optimistic students get better grades, optimistic athletes win more
contests, optimistic salespeople make more money.
Why would this be so? Because
optimism and pessimism both tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies. If you
think a setback is permanent, why would you try to change it? Pessimistic
explanations tend to make you feel defeated -- making you less likely to
take constructive action. Optimistic explanations, on the other hand, make
you more likely to act. If you think the setback is only temporary, you're
apt to try to do something about it, and because you take action, you make
it temporary. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Pessimistic people do have one
advantage: They see reality more accurately. It's the attitude to adopt
if you're attempting something risky or dangerous. But be careful because
one of the biggest counts against pessimism is that it causes depression.
More accurately, pessimism sets up the condition for depression to occur.
One bad setback can knock a pessimist into the pit. Since depression costs
this country more per year than heart disease (the nation's number one
killer), pessimism has serious side effects. It's kind of a booby-prize
for a pessimist to be able to say, "Yes, but I see reality more accurately."
The good news is that a pessimist
can learn to be an optimist. Pessimists can learn to see the temporary
aspects of setbacks. They can be more specific about the effects of it,
they can learn to not take all the blame and they can learn to take credit
for the good they do. All it takes is practice. Optimism is simply a way
of thinking about good and bad; it's a cognitive skill anyone can learn.
So, what about the age-old conflict?
Is the glass half-full or half-empty?
Our best answer is that the
glass is both half-full and half-empty, but
you're much better off if you
think of it as half-full.
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Excerpted from Adam Khan's book,
Self-Help Stuff That Works, a collection of powerful principles to help
you accomplish more in your life and feel better doing it. Check out reviews
and a sample chapter at
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0962465674/lighthousesound>
Write to Adam at mailto:adamkhan@aol.com
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