By Jordi Cabanas-Danés
How often do we hear statements like, “I am an optimist; I always tend to look at the bright side” or, “I am not a pessimist; I am just being realistic”? As humans, we love to categorize and label pretty much everything (See Blog 17: It’s time to lift these labels). But is optimism a trait, or is it a tool you can use to your advantage to reframe your narratives? As usual, it’s probably a bit of both.
Pessimists often view optimists as naïve or delusional, out of touch with reality. In fact, mental health experts in the past (1930s to the 1960s) associated optimism with a poor mental health due to having inaccurate views of reality.1 Optimists, on the other hand, might perceive pessimists (including those historical mental health experts) as energy drainers, always complaining and worrying about scenarios that might never happen. How can we better understand and learn from each other?
Optimism as an explanatory style
Rather than looking at optimism as a trait, consider it a way of narrating and explaining past events to manage future expectations. Let’s take a perceived negative event, like having a paper rejected by a journal. A pessimist might think: “I’m not a good scientist (something chronic; stable) and I wrote a terrible paper (caused by myself; internal), and I will never be able to publish anything (it extrapolates to other situations; global).
In contrast, an optimistic narrative might sound more like: “The reviewers of my paper didn’t seem to appreciate my story (caused by someone else; external). That’s too bad, but I can learn from their comments and improve my next submission (it was only a one-time thing; local), and I will end up finding the right place for it (the situation will not persist; unstable).
By learning to reframe the story we tell to ourselves, we can learn optimism. Cause for all we know, both narratives can make sense in the given context. But why choose optimism? Yes, it can be a choice.
Is an optimistic view really better?
There is substantial evidence linking an optimistic outlook to positive (mental) health. Optimists tend to experience less stress during setbacks, not just by telling themselves that everything will be fine, but mostly by actively coping with the stress through acceptance, humor, seeking support and using structured strategies for improvement. On a physiological level, optimism is associated with longer life expectancy. Research has found that when confronted with severe illness, even unrealistic optimism can be a more effective predictor of survival than realistic acceptance (Taylor et al. 2009).
The good news is that such a mindset can be learnt. However, the benefits mostly only hold for a realistic optimism (with an exception above). Wishful thinking can actually have negative consequences, as risks might be percieived as lower than they are, leading to poor preparation for traumatic experiences.
Conversely, thinking and planning for worse-case scenarios (a common pessimistic practice) can minimize the potential emotional consequences of failure, motivate reflection and keep you “motivated” in preparing for the worst. Ultimately, it comes down to balancing our thinking styles based on the likelihood of outcomes. If both are equally plausible, why not treat ourselves with a story that will make us feel better at multiple levels?
Holding control as the key to navigate
One way to transition from a pessimistic to an optimistic style is by changing our perception of control. As much as we love having control, we often misunderstand when we have it and to what extent. According to Thompson, 2002, we might need to maintain control either by changing our goals in a given adverse situation, so that we can redirect control to those; or by creating new scenarios in which we do have control; or by accepting the current circumstances, thereby creating the feeling of control over the fact that we can’t change what’s happened.
In the previous example, we might have lost the control over getting the paper published (we never had it, to begin with), but we can redirect the control into working on the feedback received, or focus on the control of resubmitting it, while accepting that you can’t change the fact that the paper was rejected and therefore, redundantly, the situation is under control.
Now it’s up to you whether to tell yourself the story from a half-full or half-empty tub perspective. And in any case, learn by trying.
Do you recognize yourself in this article? The PhD advisors are here for you. Get in touch with us for a consultation (phdadvisor@amsterdamumc.nl).
[1] Boniwell, I., & Tunariu, A. D. (2021). Positive psychology: Theory, research and applications (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.