Learned optimism

 

In the book “How children succeed” by Peter Tough, he mentioned a researcher by the name of Martin Seligman.  Seligman is one of the main scholars behind the school of thought known as positive psychology, and the book originally published in 1991, is the movement’s founding text, teaching that optimism is a learnable skill, not an inborn trait.

Pessimistic adults and children can train to be more helpful.  Seligman says, and if they do, they will likely become happier, healthier and successful.

In learned optimism, Seligman wrote that most people, depression was not an illness, but simply a “severe low mood” that occurred “when we harbour pessimistic beliefs about the causes of our setbacks.”  If you want to avoid depression and improve your life, Seligman counselled, you need to refashion your explanatory style” to create a better story about why good and bad things happen to you.

Pessimists, Seligman wrote, tend to react to negative events by explaining them as permanent, personal and pervasive. E.g. of the 3Ps – Failed a test? It’s not because you didn’t prepare well; it’s because you are stupid.  If you are turned down for a date, there’s no point in asking someone else, because you are simply unlovable.    

Optimists, by contrast, look for specific, limited, short term explanations for bad events and as a result, in the face of a setback, they are more likely to pick themselves up and try again.