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Making Yourself Miserable to Succeed?
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."
I'm not going to click on that link. The article's going to suck anyway.
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tend to deny responsibility when they perform badly
Ah yes, "blamestorming".
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/. Yess... The Dreamer above my desk definitely looks like the best way towards success...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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Dostoyevsky was right all along.
I'm going for first post! And if I don't make it, then, well, it's not my fault.
Those who stressed out and did well, or those who kicked back and blamed failure on others?
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.
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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 fucking knew it!
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.
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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." 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.
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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!
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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.
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?
An australian bartender I know always says, "cheer up, mate. It's just gonna get worse". Words of wisdom.
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Squirrel
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 their test performance was a reflection of their ability. The 'rose-tinted' group who did badly in the test tended to believe that it was not.
How is this a "rose-tinted" interpretation? These people are correct to deny responsibility for poor performance, since they performed below their expectations only because they were tricked into doing a harder problem set than expected. I think the optimistic group had a pretty clear interpretation.
When I was in college, there was an Optimist Club 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.
I'm not going to click on that link. The article's going to suck anyway.
I clicked it. And it sucked.
Somehow I think this is all your fault.
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.
"Christ, what a load of crap."
Careful, you will start a holy war with talk like that... next it'll be a cartoon featuring a depiction of Jesus Christ making disparaging remarks about Joni Mitchell then there will be flag burning and embassies being assaulted...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
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
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.
-Isaac Asimov, Foundation.
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.