Pessimism and your health
Explaining
bad events in a pessimistic way may jeopardize your health.
Everybody has something bad happen
to them at some point. People differ,
however, in how they explain why the bad event happened. Some people have a pessimistic style of
explaining why bad things happen to them, whereas others have an optimistic
style of explaining bad events.
Pessimists tend to explain bad events using internal (it's my fault),
stable (it's going to last forever) and global (it's going to affect every
aspect of my life) explanations.
Optimists, on the other hand, explain bad events using external (it's
not my fault), unstable (it won't last long) and local (it's only this one
thing) explanations. For example, after
failing a test a pessimist may think, "I failed the test because I'm
stupid (internal cause). I'm going to
keep failing my upcoming tests in this class (stable). My grades will go down, I'll never graduate,
I'll never get a good job and all my friends will hate me (global)." The optimist thinks, "I failed the test
because the teacher's lectures were very confusing (external cause). I'll do better on the next test (unstable). After all it's just this one test, which is
only 15% of my class grade, and I'm still doing well in my other classes
(local)." Research has shown that a
pessimistic way of explaining bad events is linked to stress and
depression. Could a pessimistic outlook
on life also make a person more susceptible to illness? To answer that question researchers from the University
of Missouri University
of Michigan
What was the research about?
The study followed 198 students
over a 9-week time period. During the
first week all participants completed a questionnaire indicating how stressful
they felt their life was at that time.
During the second week all participants completed a questionnaire that
measured how they tended to explain hypothetical bad events. The researchers used this questionnaire to
classify participants as having either a pessimistic or optimistic way of
explaining bad events. During every week
of the study participants also completed a questionnaire that measured how
often they had felt ill, missed class because of illness and visited a doctor
because of illness. In addition
participants reported how much they had been bothered by various health
problems such as colds, headaches and extreme tiredness.
Results indicated that participants
who had a pessimistic style of explaining bad events showed a positive
relationship between their level of stress and how many illness symptoms they
reported. In other words, the more
stress the pessimists were under, the more they experienced illness
symptoms. Participants with an
optimistic style of explaining bad events, however, showed no relationship
between stress and illness symptoms.
Therefore, an optimistic style of explaining bad events seems to help
protect a person from getting ill while under increased stress.
Why should it matter to me?
Although people often can't
completely prevent bad things from happening to them, they can control how they
deal with those events. Of course people
should acknowledge their role in bad outcomes and learn from their mistakes,
however, there is no need to beat oneself up over bad
events. Explaining events in a way that
blows them out of proportion only enhances stress and may increase your odds of
contracting an illness. Instead try to
realize the limits of a bad event and see the positive side of things. Using this strategy will not only limit your
stress, it may also help maintain your health.
Source: Jackson
