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Learned optimism is the idea in positive psychology that a talent for joy, like any other, can be cultivated. In contrast with learned helplessness, optimism is learned by consciously challenging any negative self talk.
Learned optimism was defined by Martin Seligman and published in his 1990 book, Learned Optimism. [1] The benefits of an optimistic outlook are many: Optimists are higher achievers and have better overall health. Pessimism, on the other hand, is much more common; pessimists are more likely to give up in the face of adversity or to suffer from depression. Seligman invites pessimists to learn to be optimists by thinking about their reactions to adversity in a new way. The resulting optimism—one that grew from pessimism—is a learned optimism. The optimist's outlook on failure can thus be summarized as "What happened was an unlucky situation (not personal), and really just a setback (not permanent) for this one, of many, goals (not pervasive)".
Other differences exist between pessimists and optimists in terms of explanatory style:
Seligman came to the concept of learned optimism through a scientific study of learned helplessness, the idea that a certain reoccurring negative event is out of the person's control. As he was performing tests to study helplessness further, he began to wonder why some people resisted helplessness-conditioning. He noticed that, while some subjects blamed themselves for negative outcomes, others blamed the experiment for setting them up to fail.
Seligman shifted his focus to attempting to discover what it is that keeps some people from ever becoming helpless. The answer was optimism. Using his knowledge about conditioning people to be helpless in the lab, he shifted his focus to conditioning people to be optimists. The result of these experiments led to defining the processes of learning optimism.
In a study completed by Martin Seligman and Gregory Buchanan at the University of Pennsylvania and published by the American Psychological Association, learned optimism techniques were found to significantly reduce depression in a class of college freshmen. As incoming students to the university, a survey determined the most pessimistic students and they were invited to participate in the study. They were randomly assigned, half to attend a 16-hour workshop on the techniques of learning optimism, and half were the control group. In an 18-month follow up, 32% of the control group suffered moderate to severe depression and 15% suffered moderate to severe anxiety disorder, whereas only 22% of the workshop participants were depressed and 7% had anxiety issues. Those who participated in the learned optimism workshop also reported fewer health problems over the 18-month period of the study than those students in the control group. [2]
A study done by Peter Schulman at the Wharton School, published in the Journal of Selling and Sales Management, looked to determine the effects of applying learned optimism in business. After measuring the optimism levels of an insurance sales force, it was determined that the optimistic sales people sold 35 percent more, and identified pessimists were two times more likely to quit in the first year than optimists. As a result of his studies, he recommends testing sales job candidates for optimism levels to fit them to appropriate positions, training employees in learned optimism techniques, and designing an organization overall to have attainable goals set and good support from management. [3]
Finally, a study conducted by Mark Ylvisaker of the College of Saint Rose and Timothy Feeney of the Wildwood Institute looked at children with executive function impairment. The children had brain functioning impairments affecting motor skills, memory, or the ability to focus. Learned optimism was not taught to the children themselves, but rather to their caretakers, who often are more likely to feel helpless than optimistic in regards to caring for the child. It was found that learned optimism in caretakers of children with brain damage actually led the children to develop more functioning than children without optimistic caretakers. Thus Ylvisaker concludes that the optimism of professional rehabilitators can affect the results of their clients. [4]
According to Martin Seligman, anyone can learn optimism. Whether currently an optimist or a pessimist, benefits can be gained from exposure to the process of learned optimism to improve response to both big and small adversities. A learned optimism test (developed by Seligman) is used to determine an individual's base level of optimism. Being in the more pessimistic categories means that learning optimism has a chance of preventing depression, helping the person achieve more, and improve physical health.
Seligman's process of learning optimism consists of a simple method to train a new way of responding to adversity, specifically, by learning to talk themselves through personal defeat. It begins with the Ellis ABC model of adversity, belief, and consequence. [5] Adversity is the event that happens, Belief is how that adversity is interpreted, and Consequences are the feelings and actions that result from the beliefs. This is demonstrated in the example below:
In the journey to learning optimism, emphasis is placed on first understanding one's current reaction to and interpretation of adversity. Learners are asked to keep a journal for two days in which they note small adverse events and the beliefs and consequences that followed. Next the learner returns to the journal to highlight pessimism (e.g., pervasiveness: "it doomed me...") in their written descriptions of the events.
To the ABC model, Seligman adds "D" (disputation) and E (energization). Disputation centers on generating counter-evidence to any of the following: the negative beliefs in general, the causes of the event, or the implications. D also means reminding oneself of any potential usefulness of moving on from the adversity. Disputation for the above traffic example might sound like this: "I am overreacting. I don't know what situation he is in. Maybe he is on his way to his daughter's piano recital and is running late. I'm sure I have cut people off before without meaning to, so I should really cut him a break. I am not in a hurry anyway."
Over time, responses like this are predicted to change feelings to be more hopeful and positive. Successful disputation leads to energization, the E in the ABCDE model. One is energized, and should indeed try to actively celebrate, the positive feelings and sense of accomplishment that come from successful disputation of negative beliefs. Disputation and Energization (celebration) are the keys to Seligman's method.
Teaching children learned optimism by guiding them through the ABCDE techniques can help children to better deal with adversity they encounter in their lives. [ citation needed ] If children are taught early then the thought process of disputation is claimed [ by whom? ] to become ingrained in them. They do not, then, have to focus on being optimistic, but rather optimism becomes automatic and leads to a more positive life for the child. [ dubious ]
If learnable, optimism techniques could be practical in life. They are used today in many areas such as parenting, business, therapy, and education. [ citation needed ]
Business would benefit from more optimistic workers, as they are more successful [ citation needed ]. Seligman's focus in business is on "the personal wall" that is each individual worker's set-point of discouragement. Putting the ABCDE model into practice attempts to allow workers to respond to this "wall" with a readiness to conquer rather than to feel dejected. The Attributional Style Questionnaire is often used to measure optimism of job candidates during the interview process by asking the participant to write down causes for situational failures. Participants attributions may be used to help understand if the candidate will be a high or low performer in his/her projected role based on his level of optimism. [3]
Learned optimism has been used to combat depression during cognitive behavioral therapy. [ citation needed ]. This is based on the idea that patients may be depressed in part because they have a pessimistic outlook [ citation needed ]. Rather than perceiving adversity as a constant thing that cannot be overcome, and taking personal blame for that adversity, patients come out of cognitive behavioral therapy with the belief that they can control how they respond to adversity. A shift toward optimism is a shift away from depression.
Pessimism is a mental attitude in which an undesirable outcome is anticipated from a given situation. Pessimists tend to focus on the negatives of life in general. A common question asked to test for pessimism is "Is the glass half empty or half full?"; in this situation, a pessimist is said to see the glass as half empty, or in extreme cases completely empty, while an optimist is said to see the glass as half full. Throughout history, the pessimistic disposition has had effects on all major areas of thinking.
Positive psychology studies the conditions that contribute to the optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions... it aims to improve quality of life."
Learned helplessness refers to an alleged correlation between the behavior exhibited by a subject and that subject's experience of enduring repeated aversive stimuli beyond their control. It was initially thought to be caused by the subject's acceptance of their powerlessness, by way of their discontinuing attempts to escape or avoid the aversive stimulus, even when such alternatives are unambiguously presented. Upon exhibiting such behavior, the subject was said to have acquired learned helplessness.
Martin Elias Peter Seligman is an American psychologist, educator, and author of self-help books. Seligman is a strong promoter within the scientific community of his theories of well-being and positive psychology. His theory of learned helplessness is popular among scientific and clinical psychologists. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Seligman as the 31st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external forces, have control over the outcome of events in their lives. The concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an aspect of personality psychology. A person's "locus" is conceptualized as internal or external.
Homesickness is the distress caused by being away from home. Its cognitive hallmark is preoccupying thoughts of home and attachment objects. Sufferers typically report a combination of depressive and anxious symptoms, withdrawn behavior and difficulty focusing on topics unrelated to home. Experienced by children and adults, the affected person may be taking a short trip to a nearby place, such as summer camp, or they may be taking a long trip or have moved to a different country.
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Lyn Yvonne Abramson is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was born in Benson, Minnesota. She took her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1972 before attaining her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at University of Pennsylvania in 1978.
Optimism bias is a cognitive bias that causes someone to believe that they themselves are less likely to experience a negative event. It is also known as unrealistic optimism or comparative optimism.
Attribution is a term used in psychology which deals with how individuals perceive the causes of everyday experience, as being either external or internal. Models to explain this process are called Attribution theory. Psychological research into attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in the early 20th century, and the theory was further advanced by Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner. Heider first introduced the concept of perceived 'locus of causality' to define the perception of one's environment. For instance, an experience may be perceived as being caused by factors outside the person's control (external) or it may be perceived as the person's own doing (internal). These initial perceptions are called attributions. Psychologists use these attributions to better understand an individual's motivation and competence. The theory is of particular interest to employers who use it to increase worker motivation, goal orientation, and productivity.
Positive illusions are unrealistically favorable attitudes that people have towards themselves or to people that are close to them. Positive illusions are a form of self-deception or self-enhancement that feel good; maintain self-esteem; or avoid discomfort, at least in the short term. There are three general forms: inflated assessment of one's own abilities, unrealistic optimism about the future, and an illusion of control. The term "positive illusions" originates in a 1988 paper by Taylor and Brown. "Taylor and Brown's (1988) model of mental health maintains that certain positive illusions are highly prevalent in normal thought and predictive of criteria traditionally associated with mental health."
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Defensive pessimism is a cognitive strategy in which an individual sets a low expectation for their performance, regardless of how well they have done in the past. Individuals use defensive pessimism as a strategy to prepare for anxiety-provoking events or performances. Defensive pessimists then think through specific negative events and setbacks that could adversely influence their goal pursuits. By envisioning possible negative outcomes, defensive pessimists can take action to avoid or prepare for them. Using this strategy, defensive pessimists can advantageously harness anxiety that might otherwise harm their performance.
Optimism is an attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the outcome of some specific endeavor, or outcomes in general, will be positive, favorable, and desirable. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass filled with water to the halfway point: an optimist is said to see the glass as half full, while a pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
In psychology, an individual's perceived control (PC) is the degree to which they believe that they have control over themselves and the place, people, things, feelings and activities surrounding them. There are two important dimensions: (1) whether the object of control is in the past or the future and (2) whether the object of control is over an outcome, behavior, or process.
Suzanne C. Segerstrom is a professor of Psychology and biostatistician at the University of Kentucky. She is known for her clinical research on optimism and pessimism in relation to health, stress, and general well-being.
The Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PCQ) is an introspective psychological inventory consisting of 24 items pertaining to an individual's Psychological Capital (PsyCap), or positive psychological state of development. The PCQ was constructed by Fred Luthans, Bruce J. Avolio, and James B. Avey with the goal to assess the dimensions of PsyCap. The PCQ measures four dimensions of PsyCap: hope, efficacy, resiliency, and optimism. The PCQ takes between 10–15 minutes to complete and can be administered to individuals or groups. The PCQ is protected by copyright law and published by Mind Garden, Inc.
Elaine Fox is a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Oxford Centre for Emotions and Affective Neuroscience (OCEAN) at the University of Oxford. Her research considers the science of emotion and what makes some people more resilient than others. As of 2019 Fox serves as the Mental Health Networks Impact and Engagement Coordinator for United Kingdom Research and Innovation.