Before I give you the answer, perhaps think through this scenario to see if you can come up with an answer.
Let's say we have a sales person whose job is to do a bunch of cold calls to try to get clients. Their sales skills is quite high, they are quite intelligent and personable, and they are motivated to get the commission.
What is an additional mental skill they may need to ensure they are successful in getting their clients?
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There are probably a few answers, but the one I'm focusing on today is Optimism!
When you hear "optimism," you may think of someone who's just happy-go-lucky and always thinking positively all the time.
But according to Dr. Martin Seligman, the "founder" of positive psychology, he defines optimism as an explanatory style.
An explanatory style is the typical thought pattern someone has in response to something that happens to them.
"Your habitual way of explaining bad [or good] events, your explanatory style, is more than just the words you mouth when you fail [or succeed]. It is a habit of thought, learned in childhood and adolescence. Your explanatory style stems directly from your view of your place in the world--whether you think you are valuable and deserving, or worthless and hopeless. It is the hallmark of whether you are an optimist or a pessimist."
Let's try it out for yourself. Let's say you;
got laid off from your job - what do you think caused this bad event?
won the lottery - what do you think caused this good event?
Imagine both scenarios, and jot down the first few thoughts that comes to mind. Do this before you read more below. You can later check to see what explanatory style you may have.
People who have an optimistic explanatory style vs those who have a pessimistic explanatory style would explain the cause(s) of these good vs bad events in characteristic ways.
And they differ on 3 dimensions of explanatory styles.
1. Permanence
Do you think the cause(s) of the event are Permanent or Temporary? This is the time dimension of your explanatory style.
Bad Events
Pessimists tend to think that the cause of something bad is likely to be permanent: "The bad events will persist, will always be there to affect their lives." For example, they may think "Diets never work." "My boss is a jerk." "You never talk to me." Basically, if your thought patterns for bad events tend to have words like "always" or "never", you probably have a more pessimistic explanatory style.
Optimists, on the other hand tend to think that the cause of something bad is likely to be temporary. For example, they may think "Diets don't work when you eat out." "My boss is in a bad mood." "You haven't talked to me lately." Basically, if your thought patterns for bad events tend to have words like "sometimes" or "lately" or some other qualifier that makes it a more temporary phenomenon, then you probably have a more optimistic explanatory style.
Relating this back to the sales person in the opening paragraph, if the sales person has an optimistic explanatory style, despite doing cold calls and being hung up on over and over again, they may think, "Oh this prospect was probably in a bad mood/in the middle of dinner." And not feel bad about themselves, and continue to make more calls. And the more calls they make, the higher the chance they have in getting clients.
But if the sales person were to have a pessimistic explanatory style, they may think "Sales scripts never work." And this may make them less likely to continue to make cold calls, which decreases their probability of getting clients.
Good Events
In explaining the causes of good events, pessimists and optimists would flip this around.
Pessimists tend to think that the cause of something good is likely to be temporary. For example, they may think "It's my lucky day." "I try hard." or "My rival got tired."
In contrast, optimists tend to think that the cause of something good is likely due to something permanent. For example, they may think "I'm always lucky." "I'm talented." or "My rival is not good."
Do you see the nuances of how optimists explain the cause of good events compared to pessimists? For optimists and good events, it's about traits, abilities, and "always." For pessimists and good events, it's moods, efforts, and "sometimes".
What if our sales person made a sale? If they're a pessimist, they may think, "Oh I just got lucky" vs an optimist may think, "I'm the shit!." How do you think that would influence their drive to continue making cold calls?
This Permanence factor is also quite important if you want to change. If you want to change, usually to change something bad, you should have a temporary explanatory style. Think about it, if you think the cause of something is permanent ("I was born this way." "I'm unlovable."), why would you try to change it? However, if you think something is temporary ("I am usually quiet." "Some people don't find me attractive."), then it can be changed!
Here's a 2x2 table to summarize the difference between how pessimists vs optimists explain the causes of bad and good events for the Permanence dimension.
2. Pervasiveness
Is this outcome Specific or Universal to domains of my life? This is the space dimension of your explanatory style.
Basically, when something happens, do you explain the reason of the outcome as specific to that domain only? Or do you explain the reason of the outcome due to a universal cause that impacts all areas of your life.
Bad Events
For bad events, pessimists tend to think that the cause is likely to be something that's universal. For example, "All teachers are unfair." "I'm repulsive." "Books are useless." Notice how the language and thought pattern is sweeping generalizations. They catastrophize.
Optimists, instead, think of the cause for something bad as due to something specific. For example "This professor is unfair." "I'm repulsive to him." or "This book is useless." They don't make sweeping generalizations for the cause of something bad happening.
A pessimistic sales person may think, "No client wants to talk to me," while an optimistic sales person may think, "That particular client didn't want to talk to me." Again, do you see how the different explanatory styles may help this sales person be successful at their job, above and beyond their own skillset?
Good Events
As before, pessimists and optimists think in opposite ways for the pervasiveness of good events.
Pessimists tend to think that the cause of something good is specific. "I'm smart at math." "My broker knows oil stocks." "I was charming to her."
Conversely, people with optimistic explanatory styles tend to think that the cause of a good even it universal. "I'm smart." "My broker knows Wall Street." "I was charming."
Similar to before, a pessimistic sales person may think, "I made a sale because I vibed with that client," but an optimistic sales person may think, "I made a sale because I'm good at it."
The pervasiveness domain is related to how many life domains you feel helpless in. For example, an optimist who gets let go from their job may obviously be temporary upset about this, but they could continue to function in other domains of life; continuing to be a loving partner, a doting parent, a good friend, and going to work out.
But a pessimist who gets let go from their job may not just be temporary upset about this particular life domain, it would spill into other life domains; they may become a moody partner, ignore their child, withdraw from friends, and not feel like exercising at all.
Here's a 2x2 table to summarize the difference between how pessimists vs optimists explain the causes of bad and good events for the Pervasive dimension.
3. Personalization
Do you think the event was caused by you (Internal) or by something else, like other people or circumstances (External)?
Bad Events
Pessimists tend to think that the cause of something bad is likely due to themselves (internal). For example, they may think "I'm stupid." "I have no talent at poker." "I'm insecure." Sadly, this type of thinking style tends to make people have low self-esteem.
Optimists, on the other hand tend to think that the cause of something bad is likely to be due to something external. For example "You're stupid." "I have no luck at poker." "I grew up in poverty." The cause or responsibility is shifted outside of the self, which protects them from low self-esteem.
Our sales person may think, "I'm so useless" as a pessimist (low self-esteem) but think "This client doesn't know what they're missing" as an optimist (high self-esteem).
Good Events
In explaining the causes of good events, pessimists and optimists would again think the opposite.
Pessimists tend to think that the cause of something good is likely to be due to something external. For example, they may think "It was a stroke of luck." or "It was my teammate's skill." This doesn't help boost their self-esteem.
In contrast, optimists tend to think that the cause of something good is likely due to their own doing (internal). For example, they may think "I can take advantage of luck." or "My skill...", which helps promote their self-esteem.
A pessimistic sales person may think "I was just lucky today" but an optimistic one may think "I was the one to help this client get what they want."
Here's a 2x2 table to summarize the difference between how pessimists vs optimists explain the causes of bad and good events for the Personalization dimension.
Note that this dimension of Personalization only affects how you feel about yourself.
It's the other two dimensions, Permanence and Pervasiveness, that would affect what you choose to do, and how long you feel helpless across many situations.
Dr. Seligman also states that the first two dimensions, Permanence and Pervasiveness, determines if we have Hope, which is "the perception that one can control and harness the unpredictability in one's environment." Although there are newer theories of what Hope is (i.e., Richard Snyder's Hope Theory), for this article's purpose, Hope is the combination of an optimistic's Permanence and Pervasiveness explanatory style for Bad events. When something bad happens to you, do are you hopeful or hopeless? If you're hopeful, you would think that the cause of this set back is temporary, or limited in time, and the cause is specific, thus limiting helplessness to the original situation (and not bleed into other domains of your life).
Your Turn
So now that you know explanatory styles, and what an optimistic vs pessimistic style looks like, what about you?
Revisiting your answer before for the reasons why you got laid off from the job and why you won the lottery, do you lean more towards being an optimist or pessimist? More so in the good or bad event? And which specific domains; permanence, pervasiveness, or personalization?
If you want to try out the Explanatory Style Assessment that Dr. Seligman shares in his Learning Optimism book, drop me an email, and I will send you the link to the version I put into a Google Sheet that will create automated scoring for you.
Why is it good to have an Optimistic Explanatory Style?
As mentioned in this blog's title, optimistic explanatory styles help you succeed at work, not get depressed, and also wards off diseases.
Job Success
In one field case study, for an insurance company, sales agents who scored in the top half of the optimistic explanatory style sold 20-37% more insurance on average in the first two years than those who scored in the pessimistic half, the top quarter sold 50% more than the bottom quarter, and the top 10% sold 88% more than the most pessimistic 10%. (Note that in this study, they looked a both incumbents, sales people already in the job, and new hires. For new hires, they had to past or be very close to passing on a skills testing test, and the explanatory style test, the ASQ - Attributional Style Questionnaire, was used to determine their official explanatory style scores.)
Depression
In a study using rat models, some rats were made to become more helpless, which is the same state that humans end up in with pessimistic styles of thinking. In the rates, they found that the psychological states of rats such as helplessness actually caused cancer. The mechanism was such that rats who were helpless had a more passive immune system. "T-cells from the blood of rats that became helpless no longer multiplied rapidly when they come across specific invaders they are supposed to destroy. NK [Natural Killer] cells from the spleens of helpless rats lost their ability to kill foreign invaders."
In humans, a professor (doing a study with his own class), "found that the pessimists went on to have twice as many infectious illnesses and make twice as many visits to the doctors as the optimists did." (Even when controlled for their illnesses and visits before the study.)
"Other studies looked at breast cancer. In a pioneering British study, sixty-nine women with breast cancer were followed for five years. Women who did not suffer a recurrence tended to be those who responded to cancer with a "fighting spirit," whereas those who died of who suffered a recurrence tended to respond to their initial diagnosis with helplessness and stoic acceptance."
(Note that this is not to say mindset alone can cure cancer! Modern medicine helps, and there seems to ba e protective mechanism from the mindset also.)
Is Pessimistic Thinking All Bad?
So, based on a few studies that Dr. Seligman cited, turns out that pessimistic and depressed people tend to see the world more accurately. In fact, looking at the scores from the Explanatory Style Assessment (email me for the link to it), you'll see that depressive people tend to score slightly Above Average for all 3 dimensions of explanatory style for both good and bad events, thus the score comes out around 0 (G-B = 0). Depressives are pretty evenhanded in how they explain both good and bad events happening to them.
However, despite having a more accurate view of reality, pessimistic thinking has been linked to:
Depression
Inertia rather than activity in the face of setbacks
It feeling bad subjectively (blue, down, worried, anxious)
Self-fulfilling prophecy - Pessimists don't tend to persist in the face of challenges, and therefore fail more frequently--even when success is attainable.
Poor physical health
Defeat when they try for high office
Furthermore, "even when pessimists are right and things turn out badly, they still feel worse. Their explanatory style now converts the predicted setbacks into a disaster, a disaster into a catastrophe."
And it's actually the optimistic people who tend to see the world in a distorted way (i.e, self-serving way). They have lopsided score that is G-B = well above 0. They tend to think "If it's bad, you did it to me, it'll be over soon, and it's only this situation" and "If it's good, I did it, it's going to last forever, and it's going to help me in many situations."
Should You Have an Optimistic or Pessimistic Explanatory Style?
Dr. Seligman actually promotes flexible explanatory styles. If you're a pessimist, he encourages you to develop an optimistic thinking style when you need it (which is more often than you think you would from a baseline as pessimist). This is for you to gain empowerment in how you think, and not succumb to your natural thinking style that may not be serving you. Developing an optimistic style is very beneficial in responses to setbacks. It is normal for us to feel temporarily depressed when we experience a setback or a lost, and developing an optimistic style can help you get back on track quicker.
“If you were a pessimist you had no choice but to live in pessimism. You would endure frequent depressions. Your work and your health would suffer. It would always be wet weather in your soul. In exchange for this you might have gained a keener sense of reality and a stronger sense of responsibility.
[But] If you learn optimism, you can choose to use its techniques whenever you need them—without becoming a slave to them...Learning optimism does not erode your sense of values or your judgement. Rather, it frees you to use a tool to better achieve the goals you set. It allows you to use to better effect the wisdom you have won by a lifetime of trials.”
And for optimists, to also be flexible to switch into a more pessimistic thinking style when their situation warrants it. For example, an optimist may tend to blame something external to them (personalization dimension) when faced with work failure. However, if it's actually due to their own lack of skills, they would benefit more from realizing that they messed up, and they may need to go take a course to improve their skills on that aspect.
“And what about the born optimists? Until now, he was much a slave to the tyrannies of optimism as the pessimists was to the tyrannies of pessimism. He got great benefits: less depression, better health, higher achievement. He was even more likely to be elected high office. But he paid a price: benign illusions, a weaker sense of responsibility. Until now. The optimist is also set free by the knowledge of what optimism does and how it works. He too can invoke his values and his judgment and say to himself that the present moment does not call for his very effective habits of disputing dire thoughts. This moment is time for heeding their call.
What we want is not blind optimism but flexible optimism—optimism with its eyes open. We must be able to use pessimism’s keen sense of reality when we need it, but without having to dwell in its dark shadow. The benefits of this kind of optimism are, I believe, without limit.”
Guidelines on When to Use Optimistic vs Pessimistic Explanatory Styles
Dr. Seligman proposes the following.
Guidelines for Adopting an Optimistic Explanatory Style
If your G-B score is less than 8 (i.e., Moderately Optimistic and below), you will benefit from changing from your general pessimistic style into more optimistic style.
If your G-B score is 8+ (i.e., Very Optimistic across the board), ask yourself the following questions. If any is a "yes", you could also use a more optimistic style.
Do I get discouraged easily?
Do I get depressed more than I want to?
Do I fail more than I think I should?
Situations where you should deploy an optimistic explanatory style:
If you are in an achievement situation (getting a promotion, selling a product, writing a difficult report, winning a game).
If you are concerned about how will you feel (fighting off depression, keeping up your morale).
If the situation is likely to last for a long time, and your physical health is an issue.
If you want to lead, if you want to inspire others, if you want people to vote for you.
If the cost of failure is low.
Jobs that require more optimistic style — the extent to which it requires persistence and initiative, and may have frequent frustration, rejection, and even defeat.
Sales
Brokering
Public Relations
Presenting and Acting
Fundraising
Creative jobs
Highly competitive jobs
High-burnout jobs
Entrepreneurship <--My add, now that I'm an entrepreneur myself!
Guidelines for Using a Pessimistic Explanatory Style
You don't want to use an optimistic style if the cost of failure is high. If the cost of failure is high, optimism is the wrong strategy use pessimism instead:
If your goal is to plan for a risky and uncertain future (i.e., pilots in cockpit deciding whether to de-ice the plane one more time, partygoer deciding whether to drive home after drinking).
If your goal is to counsel others whose future is dim, do not use optimism initially.
If you want to appear sympathetic to the troubles of others, do not begin with optimism, although using it later, once confidence and empathy are established, may help.
Jobs that require more pessimistic style — because a pronounced sense of reality is required. Moreover, these tend to be "low-defeat" jobs with low turnover that requires some technical skills in low-pressure settings. You would want "reflective realists" rather than "hard-charging individuals" in these types of roles
Design and safety engineering
Technical and cost estimating
Contract negotiation
Financial control and accounting
Law (but not litigation)
Business Administration
Statistics
Technical Writing
Quality control
Personnel and industrial-relations management
As you can see, developing an Optimistic explanatory style for Good events in terms of
i) Permanent (Permanence)
ii) Universal (Pervasiveness)
iii) Internal (Personalization)
and for Bad events in terms of
i) Temporary (Permanence)
ii) Specific (Pervasiveness)
iii) External (Personalization)
can help you rock it at life in many domains!
If you're curious about this topic in more detail, I highly recommend you check out the book Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, as this blog has basically been a summary of this great and practical book! (Note: This is an affiliate link. If you make a purchase, I may earn an affiliate commission.
It also have chapters for developing Optimistic thinking in your children, and also to gauge whether your child is depressed, which could be super helpful for parents.
If you want to change your Explanatory Style, I share Actionable Tips and Exercises with my Newsletter Subscribers. So if you’d like the exercises, subscribe to my Monthly Newsletter below!