Depending on our life experiences, we become either pessimists, believing we have no control over our fate, or optimists, feeling a sense of control over our destinies. Our explanatory style derives from our individual experience. 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. 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.”
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.” 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 instance, they might think: “Ok, this one professor is unfair, but perhaps the others will better appreciate my work.” However, if they instead thought about the problem they encountered in a specific manner, then they’d focus only on the event itself. Consequently, they might find it a lot harder to study for their next exam. Second, where optimists think of problems as being specific to a certain situation, pessimists tend to generalize.įor 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. For instance, you might think, “I lost this one important client, but I'll do well with other ones.”
In contrast, if you use an optimistic explanatory style, then you consider negative events to be fleeting. Whenever we experience a negative event in our lives, we always explain it to ourselves in one of two ways: optimistically or pessimistically.īut what exactly characterizes our explanatory style?įirst, pessimists consider problems to be permanent, while optimists consider them only temporary.įor 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? You'll find out why talking to yourself in a pessimistic way can lead to depression.įinally, and most importantly, you'll discover that our explanatory style is learned, and that it's possible to change your outlook on life for the better. For example, all other things being equal, explanatory style is a predictor of the success and failure of sports teams, especially when under pressure.Īlso in these book summary, you'll discover the reason why optimists tend to be healthier than pessimists. Both optimists and pessimists tend to use very distinct explanatory styles.Īs you'll see in the following book summary, this style does not only pertain to individuals, but also to entire teams. While it is quite normal for people to feel helpless in a situation of defeat, one thing makes the helplessness stick, or enables us to “shrug off” the situation and move on: our so-called explanatory style.Įxplanatory style refers to the way in which we explain the negative events of our lives to ourselves : optimistically or pessimistically. Instead, they would simply lay there, apparently defeated. What fascinated Seligman was that the dogs who couldn’t change their fate in this experiment would later also not even attempt to do anything about their situation when they actually could. Some of these canine subjects had the ability to put an end to the shocks by touching a button with their nose, while others couldn't stop the shocks no matter what they did. In perhaps his most famous experiment, Seligman administered electric shocks to dogs. Its author, Martin Seligman, is considered the father of the positive psychology movement, a movement which began with Seligman's studies of, what he called, “learned helplessness.” Learned Optimism is about exactly this phenomenon. If so, you've probably thought at least once that such people were just “born under a lucky star.” But have you ever considered that perhaps their good fortune is the result of their optimistic outlook on life? Have you ever wondered why some people seem to find it easier to get through life than others? Or, why some people are far healthier and enjoy more success?
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