Episode 17: Is Optimism Logical?

In this episode, April outs herself as an optimist and spends a little over 12 minutes justifying her attitude.

Episode 17 Show Notes:
The American Psychological Association definiton of optimism: https://dictionary.apa.org/optimism

Oxford Language Dictionary definition of optimism: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/optimism

Psychology Today's article on optimism: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/optimism

Professor Brian Martin's blog post about the value of optimism: https://documents.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/comments/0701optimism.html

A good description of the optimism bias: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-optimism-bias-2795031

Oingo Boingo's 1983 hit that epitomizes the optimism bias: https://youtu.be/qpjHW4mr6qo

A rather long but interesting academic read about the optimism bias: https://taylorlab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/11/2002_When-Predictions-Fail.pdf

Some good information about the optimism bias in the Covid1-9 pandemic:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.26001
https://www.pcma.org/optimism-bias-downside-positive-thinking-during-covid-19/

Books by Suzanne Segerstrom: https://www.amazon.com/Suzanne-C.-Segerstrom/e/B001JP4MKY%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Shawn Anchor and "irrational optimism:" https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-happiness-advantage/201103/are-you-irrational-optimist

A transcript of Matt Ridley discussing his book at the 7th Annual Hayek Lecture at New York's Manhattan Institute: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/rational-optimist-how-prosperity-evolves-8316.html

More good Matt Ridley stuff: https://reason.com/2020/05/03/what-its-like-to-be-a-rational-optimist-in-a-pandemic/

Stephanie Caine's beautiful blog post about logical optimism: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/logical-optimism-stephanie-caines/?articleId=6649370011909660675

I didn't mention this in the podcast but it's a good read: https://medium.com/swlh/the-rational-case-for-optimism-6bc9a4dcbbc2

More potential evidence that being an optimist is good for business: https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-financial-upside-of-being-an-optimist

Transcript

Episode 17: Is Optimism Logical?

Hi everyone; welcome to Episode 17.Let’s start this episode by talking a little bit about…me! Over my life I’ve been accused of being just a little too optimistic. In fact I’ve been told by one of my chronically pessimistic friends that I always see the glass half full, but when he says it, it doesn’t sound like a compliment. I will admit to being the kind of person that tends to look on the bright side of things. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those overly cheerful peppy people that refuses to acknowledge when things are obviously terrible. I get upset, depressed and angry sometimes, just like any other human. But, my natural inclination is to try to find at least one thing about a terrible situation that is not so terrible, and may even give me something to be be happy about in the midst of misery, and give me something to look forward to when the situation has improved. And yes, I can see how that might be off-putting or annoying to people who would rather think about how crappy everything is. I have really tried not to try to help people see something positive in a bad situation, because I’ve also been accused of not allowing people to feel what they’re feeling at that moment, if what they’re feeling is obviously negative. So I will sit there and commiserate with someone who’s unhappy, and squash down that impulse to point out that one good thing about their situation. It’s hard, though.

So, let’s talk about optimism. In these days when everything is just so fraught with drama, is optimism a logical choice? Should a person like me who teaches critical reasoning and tries to motivate people to look rationally at themselves, their beliefs, ideas, opinions, and the world around them, cultivate an attitude of optimism in the face of so much negativity? Well, I’m pretty sure you can figure out what I think the answer to that question is---but let’s look at what the experts say, shall we?

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We’ll start by defining optimism. By the way, it’s not classified as an emotion. It’s an attitude; which is a psychological construct that we acquire through both our natural inclination and our experiences. The American Psychological Association defines optimism as “Hopefulness: the attitude that good things will happen and that people’s aims will ultimately be fulfilled.” The Oxford Language Dictionary says it is “hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something.” 

The website Psychology Today has an excellent discussion of optimism which I’ll of course link to in the show notes. The gist of it is that to some people, optimism is a way of thinking about the world that tends to be positive; others view it as a way to explain the causes of events. Optimists tend to see the causes of negative events as “temporary rather than permanent, specific rather than global, and external rather than internal.” So someone with a more pessimistic attitude might respond to a negative event by thinking that everything’s gone to hell and it’s never going to change, but someone with an optimistic attitude is more likely to think that, while the event was indeed bad, it won’t always be that way and things are very likely to improve. Brian Martin, emeritus professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia, says that being optimistic is good for you. Qualities like persistence and commitment to a goal are certainly necessary for success in the business world, and being optimistic is linked to greater persistence. So being optimistic may help make you successful.

And that sounds pretty good to me. However, there is something called the optimism bias. That’s one of our cognitive biases, which are mental shortcuts that we use to jump to conclusions about things and are based on emotions and assumptions rather than rationality. For a more detailed discussion of cognitive biases, you can listen to episode 1 of this podcast. But for now, just know that cognitive biases are errors in judgment. So what is the optimism bias? Depending on how old you are you may remember the 1983 Oingo Boingo hit, “Nothing Bad Ever Happens To Me,” the lyrics talk about how bad things happen to other people, but the person in the song really doesn’t care because it won’t happen to them. The optimism bias is the mistaken belief that our chances of experiencing negative events are lower than that of our peers, and that bias may cause us to act in ways that don’t serve our actual best interests. So if we don’t wear a seatbelt because we don’t think we’ll get in a car accident, or we don’t get the Covid vaccine because we are certain we aren’t at risk to get Covid, we are succumbing to the optimism bias. In fact, a study conducted over the past year at the University College London found that most people surveyed thought they were less likely to get Covid than the average person, whoever the “average person” is.  The lead author of the study said that this is exactly what the optimism bias is all about; it can affect our ability to assess risk and react appropriately to that risk. And this bias plays into other biases, like the confirmation bias, in which we pay more attention to things that we already agree with, and downplay or ignore information that doesn’t fit with our worldview. So things like refusal to wear a mask and refusal to get a vaccine can be the outcome of this combination of cognitive biases. 

The optimism bias is very common; but when you step back and look at it, it’s kind of obvious that it’s not logical. Does that mean that optimism itself is not a rational attitude to have, and that it’s more reasonable to have a pessimistic attitude about the world? 

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Many learned people understand the value of optimism while also seeing its potential shortcomings. 

·      Suzanne Segerstrom, Professor of Psychology at the University of Kentucky and author of the book “Breaking Murphy’s Law: How Optimists Get What they Want from Life—and Pessimists can too,” has done studies revealing that “optimism contributes to better physical health, greater resilience in the face of life’s twists and turns, and more satisfying relationships.” She says her optimism research is often treated as not serious by other scholars in her field, and because of that she was hesitant to initially label herself an optimist until she came up with a definition of optimism with which she could identify: "You expect the best in the future, and you work to achieve it. You believe that the future is something that you can control." So for her it’s absolutely not about simply hoping for the best, it’s about working towards the best. 

·      Shawn Anchor, the author of “The Happiness Advantage,” whose TED talk is one of the most popular of all time (with over 16 million views), writes in a Psychology Today article that he is very clear about the difference between rational and irrational optimism, and gives the following example of someone who doesn’t get it: (These are his words): After giving a lecture at a large tech company, I got into a cab bound for the airport along with one of the attendees. As I searched for my seatbelt in the bottomless crevice of the back seat, I noticed that my fellow passenger was not wearing his seatbelt. I said something clever like "Afraid of seatbelts?" and he replied, "Nope, I'm an optimist." Shawn Anchor’s response to that was, that’s not optimism. That’s insanity. He is well aware that optimism, while it’s good in lots of ways, will not stop bad things from happening to you. He defines rational optimism as "a realistic assessment of the present, while maintaining a belief that our behavior will eventually create a better reality."

·      And Matt Ridley, renowned evolutionary biologist and zoologist and author of “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves,” steps back and takes a very long view of our species and its place on the planet, coming to the conclusion that despite humanity’s tendency to be pessimistic about our chances of survival, the conditions of human life will very likely improve in the future.

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So how can we harness the positive aspects of optimism while avoiding irrational optimism and the optimism bias?

I’m happy to say that it is absolutely possible to be optimistic and rational at the same time. It’s all about balance. Suzanne Segerstrom recommends “Optimism Training.” Things like keeping a journal and writing three good things that happen to you each day; just doing something as simple as that has been shown to increase a person’s sense of well-being and give them a more optimistic outlook. 

But what if something truly bad happens? How can you be optimistic when things aren’t going well WITHOUT being in complete denial of the badness of the situation? 

I recently read an absolutely lovely blog post on Linked In of all places that perfectly sums up how to approach unfortunate events with logical optimism. Stephanie Caines, a product marketing manager at Microsoft, described how she and some of the people she’s encountered over the past year have weathered the Covid-19 pandemic with a balance of logic and optimism.  She says that her approach is two-fold: 

·      First, give yourself time to mourn but take logical steps to move forward. Don’t take the situation lightly, recognize the necessary work involved, be adaptable even as you mourn who and what you’ve lost, and focus on what needs to be done.

·      And second, look for opportunities to live in the present. She says that even in times of turmoil, taking “positive pauses” to appreciate beauty and choose optimism makes challenging times easier to process. 

Well, I have to say that I feel a little bit vindicated for my optimistic outlook.  Shawn Anchor says that the phrase “you’re being an optimist” should never be an insult. If I were an irrational optimist, however, I’d absolutely want someone to call me out on that. Understanding the difference between the way things are and the way we want them to be is key here. Rational , logical optimism is recognizing the existence and scope of a problem, dealing with its reality, and both hoping for and working for a better tomorrow. 

And that’s it for this episode. I hope you use the information here to help you Think It Through.