Why pessimism might be a good thing
A cautiously optimistic outlook on your anxiety
Let’s talk about pessimism and how to get the most out of it. After having written about positive mental health, my inner grump compelled me to write about something less cheerful but also very underrated.
I am not a naturally positive person. I had been calling myself a realist, but had to realize at some point that I had mostly just been pessimistic. Sometimes I even managed to make myself feel bad for being a pessimist. If you’re like me, stop it (and make sure to watch the linked video!). There is no reason to do that.
What is pessimism? Psychologically, it is a disposition that mostly stems from what kind of worldview we get taught at a young age. The way that the people closest to us help us process our interactions with our environment teaches us how to predict what is coming our way and how to cope in the future.
But if you could deliberately choose your outlook on life, would you go for one that can be described as the following?
Pessimism is an entrenched habit of mind that has sweeping and disastrous consequences: depressed mood, resignation, underachievement and even unexpectedly poor physical health.
— Martin Seligman, positive psychology researcher
Hooray for optimism… maybe?
Of course, sometimes I wish I were more optimistic. Optimism is associated with higher emotional well-being, more effective coping strategies as well as better physical health. Optimists are also better liked than pessimists in social contexts and tend to succeed better in life’s endeavors. Wouldn’t you rather go for this as well?
From a scientific perspective, the problem with studies on the effects of optimism is that it’s hard to determine correlation and causation: someone born with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth might have more reasons to be an optimist than a person facing a lot of adversity would.
Colloquially, one fictional example of unwavering optimism, Eleanor H. Porter’s Pollyanna, is sometimes being used as a synonym for naïveté, meaning that optimism in bleak situations can be seen as often unwarranted.
Some experts are skeptical of the rather recent wave of positive psychology and its research on optimism. They say that the striking results of most studies appeared due to an effect often observed in emerging fields: everyone gets a little overly excited about a new discovery and it is praised as the answer to all problems. Some even call the positive psychology movement exclusionary for its negativity about negativity (which, let’s face it, is just a part of life that can’t be avoided completely). Let’s look into that.
…or maybe not?
The use of Pollyanna as a pejorative example is no accident. Today, especially in our americanized modern western culture, a positive outlook on life is highly valued. Historically, optimism and hope weren’t necessarily known for having a positive reputation. Nietzsche called hope “the worst of all evils”. Schopenhauer also didn’t describe it appreciatively, either:
Hope is the result of confusing the desire that something should take place with the probability that it will. Perhaps no man is free from this folly of the heart, which deranges the intellect’s correct appreciation of probability (…).
— Arthur Schopenhauer
While this might sound a little bit dramatic, there is actually scientific proof that he might have been right. A dose of optimism bias keeps us all from constantly being scared for our lives all day every day. But blind unrealistic optimism can come at the cost of ignoring very realistic potential health risks (i.e. the probability of serious illness) or prevent people from actually actively working towards a specific goal, hoping instead that things will just fall into place in a fortunate stroke of faith.
Optimism, as I already mentioned, is strongly linked to well-being and happiness. According to leading happiness researchers Shigehiro Oishi and Ed Diener, most people’s happiness setpoint is already above neutral in the first place. From there on out, there is no optimal level of happiness for all walks of life.
When it comes to interpersonal relationships, the highest level of happiness is also the most desirable. In other contexts, achieving high happiness can lead to inactivity: someone who is completely satisfied with their career or the political climate they live in will likely be less motivated to work towards improving their situation. Here we can circle back to optimists that expect things to just fall into place: they are less likely to actively strive towards positive change.
So all in all, it’s about what works for whom under which circumstances — adaptability and balance.
The right kind of pessimism: how anxiety can become your superpower
Both optimism and pessimism can, in fact, be adaptive strategies. Some people are defensive pessimists. They spend their time reflecting on possible negative outcomes and also actively preparing for them, thus using their tendency to sometimes overthink to their advantage. This is called prefactual thinking: mental simulation of possible events before they occur. It seems to be an effective strategy for people with higher levels of anxiety, neuroticism, and lower self-esteem. Experiments that tried to distract people with those traits from working through their anxiety as preparation for certain tasks while trying to get them to expect more positive outcomes significantly worsened their performances.
One crucial detail here is that defensive pessimists do get not stuck in the past, ruminating on what already went wrong and can’t be changed. They use their negative expectations to specifically target the task at hand and be best prepared for all eventualities rather than just avoiding difficult situations. That friend of yours that always carries around band-aids, has lists for everything, and gets to the airport three hours early? They might be a defensive pessimist. Or maybe that person is you. Such goal-oriented ways can lead to higher self-esteem than in other anxious people. In some cases, pessimism can even lead to a lower probability of depressive symptoms after negative life events.
Defensive pessimists’ counterparts, strategic optimists, tend to experience less anxiety and thus think less about any problems that may arise. In case of a negative outcome, they engage in downward counterfactual thinking, imagining how things could have turned out worse than they did (think back to Pollyanna being happy about having had her legs in the first place after she had lost the use of them).
Both groups need to stick to their preferred strategy in order to perform best. For example, forcing people with lower self-esteem to repeat positive affirmations can, counterintuitively, lead to worse moods (Hey there, toxic positivity!). What we learn from this is that there is no one universal strategy that should be used by everybody.
There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
— William Shakespeare
So to sum this up:
- Figure out what your natural disposition is: What works for you? How much planning and preparation do you feel comfortable with?
- Factor in your goals and circumstances.
- Do not let anxiety and negative thinking pull you back to past failures. Use them towards anticipating possible challenges and solving them.
Make the best of what you have. This will be the best solution for you to navigate challenges and achieve progress and growth.
I would like to leave you with another quote. I tried, but I couldn’t find its author. You might have already heard it somewhere and maybe you’ll find it corny (Watch my anxiety kicking in!) but here it goes.
People who wonder if the glass is half empty or half full miss the point.
The glass is refillable.
— Unknown
On a less objective side note: You might also want to embrace your inner grump and watch this video on how happy people are less persuasive, more gullible, and how the pursuit of happiness might even make you lonely and miserable. Enjoy!
I am looking forward to comments and feedback from fellow killjoys, hopeless idealists, and everyone in between.
Best
Inna
