Image Sophia Twigt
What exactly is optimism?
Optimism is the expectation that things will turn out well in the future. ‘Anyone who is optimistic assumes that more positive things will happen to him or her than negative things. The opposite applies to a pessimist,’ says Madelon Peters, professor of experimental health psychology at Maastricht University.
Optimists and pessimists deal with setbacks differently. ‘Optimists see setbacks as the exception to the rule. Problems are annoying, but solvable,’ says Bertus Jeronimus, assistant professor of developmental psychology at the University of Groningen. ‘A pessimist is more likely to avoid problems and the risk thereof. When a pessimist experiences a setback, he will tend to think: that always happens to me. The feeling of having control plays a role. An optimist has a greater sense of control over life than a pessimist.’
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Heleen van Lier writes for de Volkskrant about practical issues from daily life and (sustainable) travel.
What are the benefits of an optimistic view of the world?
Many Dutch people look at the world with a black-rimmed view, says philosopher and psychologist Kees Kraaijeveld. ‘While 85 percent of Dutch people call themselves happy and prosperous in 2020 according to SCP polls, the majority believes that the situation in the world has only deteriorated.’ And yes, climate change, wars, overpopulation and scary diseases are sometimes difficult to ignore, but the image of the world is distorted, Kraaijeveld believes. ‘Negative messages have a much greater influence on our brain than positive ones. We remember them better, they weigh more.’ Psychologists call this ingrained deviation the negativity bias.
As a weapon against this ingrained negativity, according to Kraaijeveld, Dutch people should ‘stop grumbling and work more on a positive mentality’. “The measure of things should not be the growth of material prosperity, but the growth of our ‘gross national happiness’.” According to Kraaijeveld, there are great opportunities for politics, healthcare, business and education to stimulate a positive mentality. Because an optimistic worldview is not only good for the individual, but for the entire society, says Kraaijeveld. ‘The side effects of a positive mindset include better motivation, higher productivity, less relationship distress and fewer illnesses.’
Professor Peters agrees with the latter: ‘Optimists run less risk on average heart and vascular disease in live longer. This is partly because people with an optimistic disposition, on average, eat healthier, drink less excessively and exercise more. But if you correct for that healthier lifestyle, there still appears to be a difference. Optimism probably also protects against the negative physical influence of stress.’
Why is one person naturally optimistic and another melancholy?
Why is it that some people continue to laugh and move on with their lives in difficult circumstances, while for others the glass always seems half empty? ‘It is an interplay of genetic predisposition and environmental factors,’ says Meike Bartels, professor of genetics and well-being at the Vrije Universiteit (VU).
Personality (how someone thinks, feels and behaves) is a mix of genes, upbringing and life experiences. ‘You can be genetically predisposed to be optimistic, but grow up in an environment that makes you pessimistic, for example because you have an unreliable father or mother. If that bonding goes wrong in the early years, something in your personality may become stuck differently,” says Jaap Denissen, professor of developmental psychology at Utrecht University. ‘But exactly how that mix works, which life events have the most influence on whom and how genes and upbringing interact is mysterious.’
People who live under better circumstances tend to be more optimistic. In Western countries, where gross national income is high and the government is (relatively) reliable, people are on average more optimistic than, for example, in many Sub-Saharan African countries, where income is often many times lower and citizens have little need for the government. expected. But the difference between countries is small, compared to the differences between people within countries, researchers emphasize.
Moreover, most people worldwide are more optimistic than pessimistic when it comes to their own lives. “The majority of people have an optimistic view of their chances in life, even when they are confronted with reality,” says Peters. She points out a British experiment where subjects had to estimate the likelihood that something negative would happen to them, such as having a car accident, becoming a victim of a robbery, or developing cancer. Most people estimate that too positively. Even after they saw the real numbers, they continued to underestimate their own chances.’
How optimistic am I?
When scientists want to know how optimistic or pessimistic someone is, they measure this on the basis of self-reports: the answers a subject gives about themselves. They have been doing this for decades on the basis of ten short statements. Such as: ‘I am always optimistic about my future.’ Or, “I rarely expect good things to happen to me.”
Who wants can do the so-called LOT-R test yesterday in just a few minutes, in English.
Can I become more optimistic?
“For a long time, the assumption was that our personality was more or less fixed,” says Jaap Denissen, professor of psychology at Tilburg University. ‘But it is now clear to personality psychologists that it is possible: changing your personality. Not in six steps or in five days of course, that is far too simplistic.’
You can also train yourself to be optimistic, according to Meike Bartels. ‘That sounds clearer than it is. Anyone who is deeply pessimistic by nature does not simply become an optimist. Compare it with sports: Those who have a talent for building fitness will progress more easily and faster. But everyone improves through training.”
Madelon Peters asks test subjects to imagine the most positive possible future for themselves in her research. ‘For a study of stress and optimism we had students do that exercise every day for two weeks. We were able to measure how many stress hormones they produced through saliva samples. They dropped immediately.’ The diaries that the students had to complete also showed that they suffered less from stress. And when the researchers then had them do a stressful task (giving an unprepared presentation), they experienced less stress than before they did that exercise, and less than the control group.
According to Peters, this works well in the short term, but these types of exercises are not easy to maintain in daily life. They get worn out quickly. Anyone who really wants to change will have to invest time and energy in it for the rest of his or her life and have to settle for small steps.
Does pessimism also have advantages?
Should we now try to see bright spots in every form of misery? That is certainly not necessary. According to research from Tilburg University People who experience a lot of pressure to be happy are generally less satisfied with their lives and often feel sad and anxious.
Therapist Whitney Goodman also warns against this pressure, which she calls ‘toxic positivity’. ‘Toxic positivity is denying that evil exists and that life can sometimes be bad.’ According to Goodman, the idea that we should have a purely positive outlook on life implies that anyone who is unhappy has it all to themselves. “Additionally, toxic positivity can lead to social problems not being addressed, because there is no room for criticism or complaint within toxic positivity,” Goodman said.
So don’t feel too much pressure to always try to be optimistic. According to Peters, there are also positive sides to pessimism. ‘If you, for example low expectations you can’t be disappointed either.’ Assistant professor Jeronimus sees another advantage: ‘Pessimists are less likely to have a traffic accident. They are more risk-averse: they don’t drive too fast and stay at home when it rains too hard.’
For this article we have bundled information from previous Volkskrant articles:
Stop that grumbling, let’s train ourselves as a society in happiness, February 23, 2018 – Kees Kraaijeveld
Therapist Whitney Goodman fights against toxic positivity: ‘That ideal version of yourself does not exist, February 18, 2022 – Kaya Bouma
Why is one person naturally positive and the other negative? The enigmatic interplay of genes and environment, July 21, 2023 – Kaya Bouma
Can you change your character? Well, at least a little bit, February 21, 2020 – Margreet Vermeulen
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2024-02-28 10:00:39
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