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Self Awareness > More than a glass half full
By Janice Fenton
December 16, 2010


If someone asks you whether your glass is half full or half empty, typically they don't actually care how much liquid is in the glass... unless it's your child and they're waiting for you to give them what's yours!  Rather, they're asking whether you're an optimist or a pessimist. Usually, we think of optimism as a sunny disposition, a she'll be right mate attitude, every cloud has a silver lining, or a tendency to look on the bright side of things.


But optimism is much more than this. Optimism is about the way we think about causes. We each have an explanatory style that we use to explain why any good or bad event happens to us. And these explanatory styles can be either optimistic or pessimistic.


It's useful to understand what your explanatory style is because research shows that pessimistic people are more prone to depression, may achieve less than their talents suggest they can and can have poorer physical health.  Sounds like pessimism is a drag!


According to psychologist, Martin Seligman, our explanatory style consists of 3 dimensions.  These are permanence, pervasiveness and personalisation.  Today I'm going to wax lyrical about permanence.


Permanence means that when a bad event happens to a pessimist she believes that the cause is permanent so will last forever. In contrast, when a bad event happens to an optimist, she believes that the cause is temporary.


So a pessimist will think about failures, rejections, and challenges in terms of "always" and "never", whereas an optimist will think about them in terms of "sometimes" and "lately". If a pessimist's job application is rejected she might think "I'll never get a job. No one will ever want to hire me". In the same situation, an optimist might think "It takes time to find a new job".

That's bad events. What about good events?  By now, you can probably guess that optimists and pessimists explain the causes of good events differently. When a good event happens to an optimist, she will see the cause as something permanent like a trait she possesses, and she will use words like "always" to describe the cause of the good event. In contrast, a pessimist will think the cause of the good event is temporary and will use words to qualify that good event like "sometimes, today or this time". For example, an optimist might say "The client hired me because I am a hard worker and I always do a good job". The pessimist might say "The only reason the client hired me is because I got lucky this time".


So to recap, pessimists see the causes of bad events as permanent and good events as temporary. Optimists see the causes of bad events as temporary and good events as permanent.

Now, applying this glass half full test, are you thinking like an optimist or a pessimist today?
(For more information about explanatory styles I highly recommend Seligman's book, The Optimistic Child: Proven Program to Safeguard Children from_ Depression & Build Lifelong Resilience.)

 


Janice Fenton is a personal coach who helps working mums work it out. With her support, clients identify what truly matters to them in their personal and professional lives, and they set and achieve meaningful goals.
Janice can be contacted at http://www.consideryourself.com.au.