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Science News

Making Yourself Miserable to Succeed? 150

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the rose-colored-denial dept.
PeterAitch writes "Nature is reporting that expecting the worst - emotional cushioning - does not usually make you feel any better when you flunk or flop. The reported study indicates that you are just making yourself miserable. On the flip-side, people who are anxious are more likely to motivate themselves better to prepare for the forthcoming ordeal - defensive pessimists. Those with a generally sunny outlook on life expect to succeed and tend to deny responsibility when they perform badly."
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Making Yourself Miserable to Succeed? More

Making Yourself Miserable to Succeed?

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  • Forget it. (Score:5, Funny)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:32PM (#14642736) Homepage
    I'm not going to click on that link. The article's going to suck anyway.

  • Denial (Score:2, Funny)

    by massivefoot ( 922746 )
    tend to deny responsibility when they perform badly

    Ah yes, "blamestorming".
    • Well, not specifically told, but it was heavily implied in a "team building" exercise I went to at an old company.

      It's about your mental position. If you "know" that you're good at something, then you will BE good at that. Any problems will be because of external issues.

      If things accidentally work out, that's because you're so good.
      If things accidentally fail, that wasn't because of you.

      And by "accidentally work out" I include hiring people who pay more attention to the problem than you do.
  • Is it just me, or is science starting to do not much more than gather statistical confirmation for the evident facts of life? I mean, anyone can tell that this is how it is; does it matter that we know with what confidence level each trope covers its portion of the behavioral spectrum?

  • www.despair.com (Score:5, Interesting)

    by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:35PM (#14642747) Homepage
    I have always thought that this guy has a point. Now it is scientifically proven. Time to buy some of the Y2006 demotivators http://www.despair.com/ [despair.com]. Yess... The Dreamer [despair.com] above my desk definitely looks like the best way towards success...

    • Re:www.despair.com (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The difference is that the Despair guy is also arguing that executives should crush the dreams and souls of their subordinates- so that they'll expect less from the corporation. (He's even releasing instructional videos about how to do that now- which I think my own boss may be watching and implementing...)

      Somehow I think it's better to be intrinsically pessimistic than to be turned into a miserable wretch by someone else...

    • Re:www.despair.com (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Pozican ( 864054 )
      Interesting how the favicon is the yahoo favicon...

      Subliminal message?

    • Given the choice.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Calm down for a moment and ask yourself: Given the choice, how would I rather feel right now? Would I rather feel happy, or unhappy?

      Or, how about this one: If forced to choose between justifiably pissed-off, or unjustifiably happy, which would I prefer?

      Now, with your answers firmly in mind, ask yourself this one: Do I have a choice?

      If you answer "No," then I highly recommend an independent study of human psychology, focusing on emotional management and meditation techniques.

      Don't be a slave.
  • Behind my bolt-locked door the Eagle and the Serpent are at war in me,

    the Serpent fighting for blind desire, the Eagle for clarity.

    What strange prizes these battles bring,

    these hectic joys, these weary blues.

    Puffed up and strutting when I think I win,

    down and shaking when I think I lose.

  • I believe my liver is diseased... (Score:5, Funny)

    by brian0918 ( 638904 ) <[brian0918] [at] [gmail.com]> on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:36PM (#14642756)
    Dostoyevsky was right all along.

  • going for first post! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm going for first post! And if I don't make it, then, well, it's not my fault.

  • ah (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 )
    This just makes despair.com so true. [despair.com]

  • So who was happer? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:41PM (#14642778)
    Those who stressed out and did well, or those who kicked back and blamed failure on others?
    • Or those who have learnt to get a grip on reality and can take a knock on the chin :)

      No, I didn't RTFA, just about too.
    • Sounds like the difference between a voter (stressed out and expecting failure no matter how they vote) and a politician (happy looking forward that million dollar bribe lobbyist caimpagn contribution and blames some bureaucrat scapegoat when it all fucks up).

  • Huge leaps.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PornMaster ( 749461 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:42PM (#14642779) Homepage
    So they think that it sucks to think you're going to fail unless it makes you anxious enough to study.

    How do they get to making that leap when the study they did didn't afford people an opportunity to prepare in a way that they'd be able to perform better?

    That whole thing sounded like they were taking what they learned -- the concept that if you think you can't, you can't -- and appended to it their own thoughts, unrelated to the study, to make people feel better.

    • I agreed at first until I read the article and didn't see that conclusion. They offered several speculations, debunked an old myth, and in the very last paragraph refrained from saying people should be one way or the other. What they're getting at is EXTREME pessimism or optimism is bad.

      Which makes me wonder if we should have more studies that prove old addages like, "Everything in moderation." or "Don't run with scissors." I know I've been wondering if I'm actually about to go blind...

    • How do they get to making that leap

      If you RTA you'll see that the study doesn't seem to claim this, it only states "it is thought (by psychologists) that". That hardly sounds like a conclusion to me.

    • That whole thing sounded like they were taking what they learned -- the concept that if you think you can't, you can't -- and appended to it their own thoughts, unrelated to the study, to make people feel better

      Yes; it seems they redefined the wisdom into something it isn't, and then disproved that.

      See, the age-old wisdom is not to expect the worst. The age-old wisdom is a two-parter: First, accept the worst to eliminate worry. Then, do what it takes to improve upon the worst that can happen.

      But the cav

  • Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:46PM (#14642797)
    I, for one, welcome our happy, upbeat, responsibility-denying overlords! May they ever smile at whatever disaster unfolds before them! They don't need to avoid any prophesies of doom - they can embrace them and enjoy the support of all they bring with them into an unknowable oblivion. Hooray!

    It's not pessimism if you WANT the world to end!

    [/insanity]

    Really though, this article reads much akin to a classic story of political gamesmanship. People generally would rather be lead to a horrific war on words of false hope than actually deal with the uncertainty of complex politics. Labelling optimism and pessimism as stark good or bad is a misleading guide to live your life - one should rather feed one's emotions as they need to, while striving to look at reality as clearly as one can. It'll never be an easy game to play, but it's easier to improve one's outlook through honesty than many would suspect.

    Ryan Fenton
  • I think the lesson is not to make yourself miserable all the time so that you will face each challenge with depressive and pessimistic resolve, but to know when to be light-hearted and fluffy and when to get back to business -- Obviously, when individuals are optimists without a basis for such, then they will be less equipped to deal with situations and failure, but it they are optimists tempered with realism, logic, and fact, they will be more likely than a pessimist tempered with realism, logic, and fact to successfully move on; the important point being that their optimism has to be grounded in the real world, not denying reality but instead merely looking for the greater good in the world.
  • the spillign erroes are NOT my fault, it's thist website!

  • Learned Optimism (Score:5, Informative)

    by feldsteins ( 313201 ) <scott @ s c ottfeldstein.net> on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:52PM (#14642829) Homepage
    those with a generally sunny outlook on life expect to succeed and tend to deny responsibility when they perform badly.

    This kind of reminds me of Martin Seligman's book "Learned Optimism [amazon.com]." Among other things it discusses research on how different kinds of people attribute their successes and failures. It's not at all "pop" psychology. Seligman was (is?) a research psychologist at Penn State. Definitely worth a read.

    • Re:Learned Optimism (Score:4, Insightful)

      by erikharrison ( 633719 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @04:35PM (#14643176)
      Seligman is one of the more brilliant psychological researchers working today. Learned Optimism is an extension of his earlier work on learned helplessness.

      If your goal is to be happy, then not blaming yourself for you failures is a pretty decent tactic. If you tend to believe that causes of your failure are external, temporary, and specific to the incident, then you tend to feel good about yourself, and continue to take risks. If you feel that the causes of your failure are internal, permanent and generalized, you will stop taking risks, and become depressed.

      Seligman himself said it best. "Stupidity abides" - if you believe that you are too stupid to get a job, you'll stop trying, and become miserable. If you blame the job market - well, the job market changes. You'll keep trying, and be happier about it
      • If your goal is to be happy, then not blaming yourself for you failures is a pretty decent tactic. If you tend to believe that causes of your failure are external, temporary, and specific to the incident, then you tend to feel good about yourself, and continue to take risks. If you feel that the causes of your failure are internal, permanent and generalized, you will stop taking risks, and become depressed.

        I don't buy it. It's one thing to think that everything you touch becomes a failure and another to

      • If your goal is to be happy, then not blaming yourself for you failures is a pretty decent tactic.

        For the short term. And only in a protected environment.

        That means that someone else has to take the hit for your failure.

        If you tend to believe that causes of your failure are external, temporary, and specific to the incident, then you tend to feel good about yourself, and continue to take risks.

        Taking risks is fine, as long as there's someone else who is NOT taking a risk to protect you.

        Example: Any dange

        • "For the rest of us, we look at what happened and why it happened and if it was because of something we did or did not do or didn't know enough about, we WORK to IMPROVE our skills or knowledge so that the NEXT time we will succeed."

          I second you on that. And there is something that I don't understand... If i take the risk, and it failed, I face the consequences and work around it. I knew it was risky, why should I feel bad?

      • If your goal is to be happy, then not blaming yourself for you failures is a pretty decent tactic.

        Happiness aside, that's hardly a path to success. I'm reminded of those losers who go from one burger-flipping job to the next and are never able to hold down even such a simple job for very long without getting fire. Almost always there is an "I'm too good for this job" attitude.

        Isn't the best to try to be realistic? I.e. recognise when failures were not your fault, and recognise when failures were? It will

  • Bottom Line (Score:4, Funny)

    by Shky ( 703024 ) <shkyolearyNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:57PM (#14642846) Homepage Journal
    Sadly, this means there is no simple advice about whether we ought to expect the worst.

    So keep doing whatever you usually do, seems to be the advice here.

    Unless, of course, you're a pessimist. In that case, you probably think you're wrong and you'll change to thinking positively, but the positive thinkers already thought they were right, so they'll keep thinking positive... So, I predict, everyone will soon be optimists, if this study gets around.

    I'm pretty confident that I'm correct... See, it's already begun!

  • As usual, Heinlein said it best (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dtmos ( 447842 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @02:58PM (#14642851)
    "Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament--it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can't avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome." -- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love.
    I think it's especially important for engineers to be pessimistic by policy; I like to think, while crossing a bridge, that the engineers involved thought through all the worst-case scenarios and didn't just assume that everything was going to work out right.
    • "Optimism is an accident waiting to happen".

    • Re:As usual, Heinlein said it best (Score:5, Interesting)

      by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @06:43PM (#14643584) Homepage
      As an engineer who works on some equipment that could really do bad things if it messed up, I can tell you that pessimistic engineers do better work. That's the defensive pessimist that the article talks about.

      However, we're miserable most of the time, and we burn out quick. That's because we blame ourselves for every single little thing that goes wrong, and we feel guilty about every mistake for the rest of our lives. It's a pretty high standard to hold yourself to.

      I imagine it's worse for Doctors, but that profession allows you to blame something else for your screw up a lot more, so maybe not.
      • Not that you were comparing the two, but being a Doctor is almost never like being an engineer.

        For the most part, engineers get to model and test their plans before ever having to create something real. Doctors OTOH, often go in with incomplete information, have patients who don't follow instructions (take this medicine twice a day, for a month), and deal with anywhere from 15~20 wildly different problems in a given day. And that's just being a general practitioner.

        Engineering is based on principles discove
        • That's a good point. After visiting a doctor, I've often said to my friends that doctors are nothing more than overpaid tech support. They investigate the symptoms, do a cross reference to figure out what it might be, and consult a reference to look up the correct course of action. When they don't know what it is, they tell you to take some painkiller and come back if it hasn't improved in a few days. That's just a little too close to "reboot your computer, and see if that fixes it." :)

          As you can tell I

  • Mod this! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )
    Please don't mod me down. I am paranoid that you are going to mod me down and ruin my Karma. So I beg you, please please don't mod me down. If you do, I'll tell your mother, you filthy me-hating slimebag!
           

  • Invalid study conclusions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04, 2006 @03:07PM (#14642885)
    Once again I disagree with the study conclusion after RTFA.
    Let's examine what they did:

      1. They gave people a "medium" practice session.
      2. They asked people to guess how they did on it (i.e. rate how they think the will perform on "medium" task.)
      3. They gave 1/2 of the group "easy" tests and the other half "hard" tests.
      4. They asked the individuals to rate themselves and explain the situation.

    confident failures: They concluded that those who expected to do well decided to blame the test when they did poorly on the "hard" test? No kidding?!?! They pulled a bait and switch on them and gave them something completely different than they were asked to rate themselves. They have every right to blame the test. It's like playing a pool shark.

    disappointing success: They also concluded that those who expected to do poorly didn't feel any better when they did well on the "easy" tests. No kidding ?!?! People don't feel better when you "let them win." These people also felt slighted.

    The whole testing methodology is flawed. Call me when they do a real study on the matter.
    • Don't expect decent research to pop up anywhere except on some esoteric journal somewhere that nobody but other researchers read. People like stupid science, like why does your breath stink, or why you get tired on thanksgiving.
    • There seems to be one problem with your reasoning. None of the participants knew that they were given something any different than what they were told. For all they knew, a "hard" test would have been much harder than what they received, even if what they received was difficult. The same applies to those who received the easy tests. So, the results of the study are based on what the participants knew at the time of the study, not what we might attribute after the fact.

    • You're missing the point of the experiment.

      It says,

      Students who expected to do badly, the researchers found, actually felt worse when they messed up than those who predicted they would do well but similarly botched their test.

      That is what the experimenters are reporting for that experiment. Not what you wrote up there as conclusion.

  • I wonder if old Knobby Walsh was wrong when he told us that the best philosophy was to "Hope for the best, expect the worst, and take whatever comes".
    • Hope for the best, expect the worst, and take whatever comes

      I agree with "hope for the best" — as the article says, people who expect bad things to happen are just making themselves miserable, without actually gaining anything from it.
      I certainly don't agree with "expect the worst", that's exactly what's wrong. One must be prepared for the worst, not expect it. That is, you must think about the worst-case scenario and how to handle it instead of being foolishly optimistic and not worrying about it at all, but that does not mean you must actually believe that the worst-case thing is what will happen. The best state to be in is "I feel everything will turn out well (but if it doesn't, then I'm prepared for that too)."

      (And as for "take whatever comes", you don't really have a choice there, do you? :p)

  • General life. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I feel that this applies to life in general.

    For example: The first time I moved out of my mothers basement, age of 16, I did not have a job. I would do web development, PC Repair, etc on the side while still trying to make it through high school. I found that the first two months were terrible. Around then I was literally crying myself to sleep due to stress. But, I found that this stress motivated me to be more productive, and allowed me to set and achieve higher goals. Around mid-month 3, I managed to mak
    • In general, people will work as hard as they need to in order to stay in their "comfort zone".

      This also applies to achieving beyond your comfort zone. Once you have more than you need to be "comfortable", most people get just lazy enough to fall back into their comfort zone.
  • When I once failed a exam, I became REALLY depressed. I didn't want to do anything, and actually wanted to feel myself even worse. So I started preparing for the next exam and found out that my concentration was much better that it usually is. I got excellent marks for all exams following the one I failed.
    Following that event, I sometimes deliberately tried to force depression on myself when I wanted to play UT2004 instead of studying. Beleive me, it works. It worked so well that I prepared three times more

  • In other news... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Life's a bitch, and then you die!

    -AC
  • I used to share the defensive pessimists view throughout my teenage life. Confidence was low in general life, borderline agrophobic, I was not miserable but I was never happy. I could thank my new outlook on life on my medication but I put it down to wisdom and experience. If you expect to succeed in something, you will. If you do fail, accept responsibility for it and fix it, don't hide from your problems, Attack them head on. Simple truths about life like if you don't have a solution to a problem, yo
  • The pessimist says: damn, I hit rock bottom, it can get any worse...
    The optimist replies: yes, it can.

  • reminds me of a bartenders advice (Score:5, Funny)

    by Pompatus ( 642396 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @03:40PM (#14643004) Journal
    An australian bartender I know always says, "cheer up, mate. It's just gonna get worse". Words of wisdom.
  • To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin (whom history has consistently under-rated),

    "Expect the worst. If all goes well, you'll be pleasantly surprised."

    I prefer to think of myself as a pessimistic optimist.
  • it's what my kintergarden teacher always told me! being happy makes people happy sp you can be happy and happy people are better happy! sunshine happy yayz!

  • True (Score:1)

    by K3V!N ( 895278 )
    If you're pessimistic, you're either going to be right or pleasantly suprised. If you're optimistic, you're either going to get let down or you'll be right.

  • Rose-tinted? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jamoncito ( 951499 )

    The team then gave half the students problems that were slightly easier than the first set, while half were given more difficult puzzles. This ensured that the students' performances would either exceed, or fall short of, their expectations.

    ...

    These people [the optimistic group], who see the world through rose-tinted spectacles, also tend to deny responsibility for their poor performance. Marshall and Brown showed this in a second part of the study, in which students were also asked whether they felt t

  • Pessimist club (Score:5, Funny)

    by Linknoid ( 46137 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @04:03PM (#14643078) Homepage
    When I was in college, there was an Optimist Club [optimist.org] that met in our cafeteria once a month or so. I always talked about starting a pessimist club to make fun of their club, but I never got enough motivation to do it because I figured I'd never be able to get anyone to join.
    • In high school, we had a Procrastinator's Club. Every week the school newspaper would have an announcement that the weekly meeting of the club was put off to the following week. About a month and a half later the school administrators figured out the joke and put a stop to it.
  • From TFA:
    "Those who continually brush off their failures at the office might be overlooking the larger picture - such as the fact that they are about to be fired."
    That means you, Bush!
  • Those emo kids may be on to something.
  • 1) the economy: the government is lying to us about the value of our money and pretending that the economy can pay off all its debt when it can't. Even worse, when they try to print money to pay it off - they will drive up prices, but not income or pay - so the debt problem will become worse. Got Gold?

    2) copyrights and patnets - and all the industries that bend you over and butter you up into using proprietary products. While there are always these glossy, we'll save your life and make it sooo perfect,

  • Progammer mentality not always compatible socially (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Saturday February 04, 2006 @04:29PM (#14643159)
    One thing that I've noticed is that computer programmers often come off as being "negative" but I think this is a mischaracterization. A programmer by nature, seeks to "find bugs" and this mentality manifests itself in a way where we constantly look for things that are wrong to correct them. This doesn't always work well interpersonally. I've been accused of being negative, when I consider the act of finding problems and fixing them to be a very optimistic, positive practice. The problem is, your average person has a severe aversion towards being made aware of his/her mistakes or ways in which things could be improved. At least in the business world, the value of criticism can ultimately be qualified, but interpersonally, it's a much more difficult, more complicated process that often backfires.

    I think people confuse criticism with negativity too much. You can anticipate something going wrong in both a productive and non-productive way, and many don't note the distinction. In one scenario you're preparing for every contingency; in another, you're making excuses for failure. But there's a profound difference in the way people deal with these situations.

    In my experience, many tech people are profoundly positive and hopeful. However, they achieve this degree of self confidence via a process of identifying and subsequently solving problems. Along the way, this appears to an outsider as being negative, but it's a very optimstic process.

    Unfortunately being critical is taboo these days. Nobody wants to be told they're doing anything wrong, yet we still want everything to be perfect, so people who anticipate and adjust for potential failure are the ones that actually make things work, but nobody wants to be around during the process it seems.
    • Your post reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a friend of mine who is an excellent software salesman. There is a positive and negative way to offer criticism. Programmer/Engineering types usually go about this in a logical, aggressive way that comes across as negative to other people. This approach works fine, and is very efficient, when dealing with inanimate objects without feelings. People who excel at sales and management approach these issues differently. I have had conversations wit
      • I would agree with that. I think good engineers are people who have good analitical skills and naturally pay close attention to detail. These qualities are often offset by what may be considered as underdeveloped social skills, as seen in the "nerd" architype. Engineers may be seen as picky or obsessed with detail in the way that they deliver criticism. A defining point of social skill may be the ability to offer criticism in a way that is seen as entirely positive. This probably comes more naturally to tho
      • I agree with what you're saying as well... the next step it seems is to ask ourselves, in trying to make these social situations more productive, what is better? Becoming more political? Embracing ambiguity and the supposed benevolence of bullshitting? Or conditioning people to be more receptive to criticism?

        Most engineers will definitely say the latter and have a plethora of rational arguments to back it up... however useful yet ironic that ultimately is. Maybe this explains the "nerd virgin" concept m
    • A big part of this, IMHO, is the difference between physical/objective reality vs. social reality. The fact is that in many cases, simply believing that things will work out has a major influence in social situations, in ways that are both subtle and profound. Other people respond to a positive attitude, and can be influenced to change their beliefs based solely on our confidence in our own beliefs. So cheerful optimism, even when it conflicts with the reality of the situation, is a successful tactic. OTOH,
      • As engineers, we tend to take a realistic approach based on the facts of the situation. This is a successful trait for the problems on which we work. However, for a marketing person, sales person, or really anyone who deals with people, an optimistic approach is actually better than a realistic one.

        I agree with you.

        However I think we all are aware of the misuse of optimism outside of its appropriate context, or the same thing with pessimism.

        For example I have one of these types of friends and I'm probably n

    • Unfortunately being critical is taboo these days. Nobody wants to be told they're doing anything wrong, yet we still want everything to be perfect, so people who anticipate and adjust for potential failure are the ones that actually make things work, but nobody wants to be around during the process it seems.

      Interesting theory. If true, it's likely because everyone nowadays wants to reap but not sow.
  • When failure is disappointing, but motivates you to look deeper and figure out what went wrong? And with a firm idea of what doesn't work wouldn't it be natural to expect a better result the second time? I think it would've been more valuable to figure out if the pessimists were any more or less likely to try harder the second time. Of if being gloomy increased your chances of doing poorly.

    I'm generally optimistic but if I fail there's the ability to think I might have screwed up and that it wasn't any

  • Nature is reporting that expecting the worst - emotional cushioning - does not usually make you feel any better

    There is a big, huge distinction between "expecting the worst" and "preparing for the worst". The former is an excuse to quit and not try as hard along the way, and the latter is a positive, optimistic process of doing your best to succeed by developing contingent plans.

    The study, published in Cognition and Emotion, suggests that a person's reaction to disappointment or failure is determined mainl
  • Research I've seen also seem to agree on that you don't just feel worse for no good when being a pessimist, but that there's effects beyond the psychological [lclark.edu] as well. It's often believed that optimists are both psychologically and physiologically healthier, although that link above indeed speaks of some possibly negative effects from optimism as well, and this science is probably still quite hotly debated.

    Anyway, I can very well see the purely evolutionary reasons for negative effects from pessimism and unh

  • my meditation (Score:2, Insightful)

    by QAChaos ( 793637 )
    I when I am about to enter into a stressful time, such as a speech, I imagine the worse possible thing happening but I also imagine myself smiling and feeling calm during this disaster. this usually prepares me and it is never as bad as I imagine it to be - I believe I got this from the dalia lama - but I could be wrong - QA K
  • Ever heard about natural medicine? Our body is amazing, it have the ability to HEAL itself.

    And how in the heck has that got to do with learning you ask? It is the same thing. You tell yourself to be negative and that you are unable to complete this task...you will most likely be unable to complete it - even if you know your stuff.

    Let me take myself as an example, Ive failed many a test in my younger years and that made me quite sad as a kid. Other factors that made me even sadder was the fact that other
  • Because they're happy and they know it.

    They clap their hands.

  • The post appears to draw several unwarranted inferences. Perhaps, for example, people develop a sunny outlook as a result of a long string of successes, punctuated only by failures caused by uncontrolable factors, whereas people who screw up a lot end up with a dismal outlook.
  • You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
  • Reduce expectations to minimize disappointment. The less you expect from people, the less disappointed you'll be.
  • I so rarely get to actually recommend this book on-topic in a conversation... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394750799/103-05 21598-0730242?v=glance&n=283155 [amazon.com]
  • thing always pissed me off.
    When asked, I would always say the glass is half empty and everyone calls me a pessimist. So?

    MY take on the question?

    The glass is half full - Optimist (irresponsible, unwilling to face reality, accept responsibility, unprepared for the future.)

    The glass is half full - realist (sees the truth, accepts responsibility, prepares for the future NOW.)

    When you have the "don't care" attitude (glass is half full) you feel that "everything is fine, stick your head in the sand and party on
  • until Jesus made me fumble!
  • Cheerful backstabbing optimists tend to sleaze and buck-pass their way up the corporate ladder. People who actually perform risk management are labelled overtly or covertly as nay-sayers. We need an article to explain this?
  • The problem with the study in the article is that it's comparing optimism among natural optimists vs. pessimism among pessimists. Basically they're assuming that the two strategies will work the same way for everyone. But what if the natural pessimists picked that strategy because optimism just didn't work for them?

    The book linked below has an interesting take on all this. The idea is that optimist strategies don't work for some people, and that defensive pessimism is particularly useful for this group. So

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