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."

Comments

Forget it.

[PCM2]

I'm not going to click on that link. The article's going to suck anyway.

Re:Forget it.

[aevan]

Nah, click it, just don't expect much from it. :)

Groundless Optimism & Realistic Optimism Diffe

[SilentOneNCW]

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.

As usual, Heinlein said it best

[dtmos]

"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.

Invalid study conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

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.