Pessimism (psychology)

Pessimism is a state of mind wherein a person believes that negative outcomes to life circumstances are inevitable and tends to make negative value judgments. This state of mind is often contrasted with optimism, which is when a person has a more positive worldview and makes more positive value judgments based on their circumstances. Pessimism is often understood as a philosophical disposition, with philosophers and authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Baltasar Gracián, Voltaire, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau promoting different schools of philosophical pessimism, such as nihilism and certain forms of existentialism.

However, pessimism can also be understood as a psychological condition. It can be a symptom of depression, but it can also be the product of life circumstances and past experiences. In the premodern world, psychological pessimism was associated with a state of melancholy, thought to be caused by a buildup of black bile in a person’s body. The modern understanding of psychological pessimism is more complex, with psychologists recognizing that while a pessimistic outlook may have negative effects on an individual’s mental and physical health, it can also be useful in certain situations.

Brief History

Starting in ancient times and persisting in some places as late as the mid-nineteenth century, psychological pessimism was often thought to result from a physical condition known as melancholia, which the ancient Greek medical philosopher Hippocrates believed was the direct result of an excess of black bile in the body. This was based on the theory of humorism, an ancient (possibly Egyptian or Mesopotamian) belief that Hippocrates is thought to have applied to medicine in order to explain the workings of human health and temperament. The treatise On the Nature of Man, generally attributed to Hippocrates’s son-in-law Polybus, explains that the human body contains four "humors," or bodily fluids—blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile—and that pain or illness, as well as changes in mood, can result when these fluids become imbalanced. Each of these humors was meant to correspond to a different part of the body; black bile was believed to be produced by the gallbladder. It was thought to be associated with the season of autumn and the element of earth.

Later, the Roman physician and philosopher Galen, who preserved much of Hippocrates’s teachings, established a system in which each humor corresponded to a particular temperament—sanguine (blood), phlegmatic (phlegm), choleric (yellow bile), and melancholic (black bile)—and an individual’s personality was determined by which humor predominated in their body. Although humorism was disproved in the nineteenth century, its influence on Western medicine and its conception of psychological pessimism has been felt for over two thousand years.

Pessimism Today

In modern medicine, psychological pessimism is most closely associated with depression, a complex disorder that is caused by a variety of genetic, experiential, and circumstantial factors. However, many experimental neuroscientists, including David Hecht of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, believe that psychological optimism and pessimism should be thought of not as opposite extremes but rather, as Hecht writes, "as a continuum with many degrees of optimism and pessimism." In his paper "The Neural Basis of Optimism and Pessimism," published in the September 2013 issue of Experimental Neurobiology, Hecht argues that both psychological optimism and psychological pessimism are necessary and are applied regularly to different aspects of a person’s life:

A person can be optimistic in regard to a specific area of life (e.g. expecting his/her marriage/relationship to succeed) but pessimistic regarding other aspects (e.g. expecting financial difficulties ahead). People also may shift positions on the optimism-pessimism continuum as the timeline unfolds. We all have "sunnier" days in which we wear the rosy and bright glasses, and "rainier" days when the world is seen through the gray and dark glasses.

Hecht goes on to characterize both optimism and pessimism as "experiential phenomena" rather than permanent and fixed states of mind, influenced not just by disposition but also by variable outside factors. To further clarify his point, Hecht outlines the three main factors that he believes affect where one falls on the continuous scale of optimism and pessimism:

1. Selective attention and information processing.
2. A belief (or lack thereof) that one has power to influence relevant situations, events and relationships (i.e. locus of control).
3. The general schema one holds for interpreting personal events (i.e. attribution style).

In other words, how a person responds to a given situation depends on whether they focus more on the positive or the negative aspects, the degree to which they feel able to affect the outcome, and whether they tend to attribute successful outcomes to their own actions and failures to external factors (optimistic view) or vice versa (pessimistic view). Hecht concludes that the healthiest worldview is one that strikes a balance between optimism and pessimism.

When discussing psychological pessimism, it is important to distinguish between dispositional pessimism and defensive pessimism. Dispositional pessimism is the tendency to habitually expect negative outcomes regardless of circumstances; defensive pessimism, on the other hand, is a mode of thinking that prepares a person for any situation. The concept was first identified as a cognitive strategy in the 1980s by social psychologist Nancy Cantor at the University of Michigan. As a professor, Cantor found that her students were better able to cope with anxiety related to public speaking when they set low expectations for themselves. Rather than becoming anxious over the possibility of a negative outcome, the students were able to think through the potential negative outcomes and take steps to either prevent or prepare for them. Cantor concluded that defensive pessimism can be used to an individual’s advantage rather than being considered a psychological weakness. She and Julie K. Norem, then a graduate student at the University of Michigan, ran a series of experiments on people who use defensive pessimism to cope with performance anxiety. The results of their study, published in 1986, showed that defensive pessimists performed best when they envisioned themselves performing poorly beforehand; if they envisioned themselves performing well, or if they were given assurances that they would perform well, their positive expectations increased their anxiety and caused their performances to suffer.

Pessimism, from both a psychological and a neurophysiological standpoint, has complex and varied effects on a person’s disposition and the way that they see the world. While it may be a symptom of depression in some cases, it can also be seen as a pragmatic tool that allows those prone to anxiety to create better outcomes by preparing for worse ones.

Bibliography

Chang, Edward C., ed. Optimism & Pessimism: Implications for Theory, Research, and Practice. Washington: Amer. Psychological Assn., 2001. Print.

"Galen’s Doctrine of the Four Temperaments." Elsevier’s Dictionary of Psychological Theories. Comp. J. E. Roeckelein. Boston: Elsevier, 2006. 235–36. Print.

Hecht, David. "The Neural Basis of Optimism and Pessimism." Experimental Neurobiology 22.3 (2013): 173–99. PubMed Central. Web. 17 Aug. 2016.

"Humoral Theory." Phisick. Phisick, 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 17 Aug. 2016.

Norem, Julie K. "Defensive Pessimism, Anxiety, and the Complexity of Evaluating Self-Regulation." Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2.1 (2008): 121–34. Web. 17 Aug. 2016.

Norem, Julie K. The Positive Power of Negative Thinking: Using Defensive Pessimism to Manage Anxiety and Perform at Your Peak. Cambridge: Basic, 2001. Print.

Norem, Julie K., and Nancy Cantor. "Defensive Pessimism: Harnessing Anxiety as Motivation." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51.6 (1986): 1208–17. MEDLINE Complete. Web. 17 Aug. 2016.

Rossman, Jeffrey. "The Surprising Power of Optimistic Pessimism." Rodale Wellness. Rodale, 11 Oct. 2010. Web. 17 Aug. 2016.

Stewart, Sharla. "The Worst of All Possible Worlds." University of Chicago Magazine Oct. 2002: n. pag. Web. 17 Aug. 2016.