Learned Optimism

Whenever we experience a negative event in our lives, we always explain it to ourselves in one of two ways: optimistically or pessimistically.

But what exactly characterizes our explanatory style?

First, pessimists consider problems to be permanent, while optimists consider them only temporary.

For example, if you lose an important client, you might think, “I always  lose the most important clients.” By using the word “always,” you make the explanation permanent: you've always lost important clients, and always will – so what's the point in trying?

In contrast, if you use an optimistic explanatory style, then you consider negative events to be fleeting. For instance, you might think, “I lost this one important client, but I'll do well with other ones.”

Second, where optimists think of problems as being specific to a certain situation, pessimists tend to generalize.

For example, if a pessimistic student believes that the bad grade they received is unjustified, they might go on to think of grades as unfair in  general. Consequently, they might find it a lot harder to study for their next exam.

However, if they instead thought about the problem they encountered in a specific  manner, then they’d focus only on the event itself. For instance, they might think: “Ok, this one professor is unfair, but perhaps the others will better appreciate my work.”

Third, while optimists tend to consider negative events as being externally caused, and positive events as internally caused, pessimists usually think of these the other way around. For example, if your spouse leaves you, you could think: “He left because I'm not good enough, or because I didn't laugh at his jokes.”

On the other hand, if you consider the source of negative events as external, you might think instead: “He simply wasn't ready for a commitment, so actually the relationship was a waste of my time.”

Luckily, the ways in which optimists and pessimists make sense of bad events are not set in stone: all three behavioral patterns can be changed.