There Are Better Alternatives to Optimism and Pessimism According to Psychologists

Tragic Optimism, Defensive Pessimism, and How to Use Them to Your Advantage

Photo By Mauricio G on Adobe Stock Images

“It’s going to be awful. I’m being realistic,” I argued with my husband.

“You’re being pessimistic,” he argued back.

I lifted my eyebrows in doubt. I’d agreed to run a workshop and I thought he was being far too optimistic about how it would go.

Sound familiar?

We’ve Gotten Optimism and Pessimism All Wrong

We place ourselves in tidy pessimism vs. optimism boxes to understand each other and the world.

But the world is complex. And so are we.

Not only have researchers suggested we can train to be more optimistic, it’s also becoming clear that there are layers to the optimism/ pessimism spectrum that could be more helpful to us in our everyday lives.

• There’s optimism, but what about tragic optimism?
• You can be a pessimist, but is defensive pessimism more useful?
• Could optimism and pessimism be tools we use, rather than fixed personality traits?