Today, we're going to spend most of the class talking about the personality
characteristics of optimism and pessimism and the effect these attitudes have on a
person's emotional and physical being. First, what are optimism and pessimism?
Optimism is typically defined as the attitude of believing in and expecting
positive results, while pessimism is the tendency to believe in negative outcomes.
You may have heard this referred to as seeing the glass half empty or half full.
The idea is that pessimists see what's missing or that the glass is half empty
while optimists. See, what is there or? Or that, the glass is half full. Where do
these attitudes come from? What is it that makes 1 person generally optimistic?
While someone else is usually pessimistic, psychologists and researchers are not
really sure. Although it appears that genetics may play a part. What we do know, is
these 2 attitudes play a big part in the outcomes in a person's life. For example,
in medicine, studies have shown that patients who've scored highly as pessimists
take longer to recover for major surgery and are more likely to have complications
from that additionally. Pessimists tend not to take very good care of themselves.
In general, on the other hand people who were rated optimistic. And to be
healthier. Additionally, researchers looking at students in stressful majors have
found that optimists who consistently were more successful in the surmounting
obstacles. And in fact, when suffering a setback came back and overcame the
difficulty successfully. In contrast, pessimists did worse when attempting a
retribeye. Another interesting study followed salespeople and measured their
success in closing deals. As you might have guessed, the optimists outsold the
pessimists. Every time yes, you have a question. Yeah, isn't that possible that
optimists are just in denial about how bad things really are that they're not in
touch with reality? And so they're hopeful in helpless situations. Well, that's a
good question. At a glance, it might seem as if that were true. However, the
research shows that true optimists are not in denial that they do feel painful.
Emotions and work through traumatic experiences, but are hopeful about the eventual
result. Another advantage is that optimists seem to have a strong problem. Solving
skills and this helps them in dealing with stressful situations. Yet, how can you
determine if a person is pessimistic or optimistic? The most common ways that
researchers decide if you are an optimist. Or a pessimist are by studying your
answers to certain questionnaires and by listening to your speech patterns, so is
it possible to change? I mean, if you're a pessimist, can you suddenly become an
optimist another good question? Well, first, it does seem that people have one or
the other general tendency throughout their life. In fact, these traits show up in
early childhood and optimistic parents tend to have optimistic children. Of course,
as a parent, you can encourage your children to be optimistic, one suggestion is to
give them tasks that they can perform and succeed at as well as tasks that they can
attempt. Fail and try again successfully. This teaches them an attitude of optimism
in the face of failure. No to answer your question, if you are not a natural born
optimist, there are things you can do to develop a more positive outlook. Can you
guess what they might be? I guess you can force yourself not to think negatively.
That's true, if you catch yourself. Having negative thoughts about yourself like
many pessimists do stop and think about what's going right in your life is your
assessment of your abilities based in reality or are you too hard on yourself?
Okay, now I'd like to hear from the rest of you, what do you think? Are you an
optimist or a pessimist? And tell me subjectively, how that attitude has influenced
your life.