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1-Page Summary of Learned Optimism

Overview

The next time you break your diet by eating a piece of cake, don’t say to yourself “I have no self-control and will always be fat”, and then eat the entire cake. Instead, use the ABC technique: “Okay, I just ate a piece of cake. Tomorrow I’ll get back on track with my diet again and see great results”.

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to be more successful than others? Or, why some people are healthier and happier?

If you feel that way, it’s possible that your positive outlook on life is the reason for your success.

The book Learned Optimism was written by Martin Seligman, who is considered the father of positive psychology. In his most famous experiment, he shocked dogs and observed their reactions. He discovered that some of the dogs were able to stop getting shocked by touching a button with their nose while others couldn’t do anything to get out of the situation. The latter group would later also not try anything in other situations where they could change things for themselves. This phenomenon became known as learned helplessness because these people develop a pessimistic explanatory style which leads them to feel powerless in many situations even when they actually have power over it (and can therefore change things).

Explanatory style refers to the way in which we explain negative events. Optimists tend to be more positive about them, while pessimists are more negative. Both optimists and pessimists tend to use distinct explanatory styles that affect their success or failure when under pressure. For example, sports teams that have a pessimistic explanatory style are less likely to succeed than those with an optimistic one.

In addition, you’ll learn why optimists tend to be healthier than pessimists. You’ll also find out that our outlook on life is learned and can change for the better.

Big Idea #1: People who are pessimists explain things in a certain way. People who are optimists explain things differently.

When we experience a negative event, we explain it in one of two ways: optimistically or pessimistically. Optimists consider problems to be temporary, while pessimists think they’re permanent. When you lose an important client, for example, you might think “I always lose the most important clients.” By using the word “always,” you make the explanation permanent; because that’s how things have always been and will continue to be.

On the other hand, if you’re optimistic about negative events, you might think that they’re temporary. For example, “I lost one important client, but I’ll do well with others.”

Pessimists tend to think about problems as being more global. For example, if a pessimist gets bad grades on an exam, they might assume that all exams are difficult and that it’s impossible to get good grades. Consequently, they may be less motivated to study for their next test.

However, if they thought about the problem in a different way, they would focus on it alone. For example, they might think: “This one professor is unfair to me, but perhaps the others will appreciate my work more.”

Third, optimists tend to think that negative events are caused by external factors and positive events are caused by internal factors. For example, if your spouse leaves you, an optimist could say: “He or she left because I’m not good enough.” A pessimist would say the opposite.

On the other hand, if you think that your relationship failed because of something external to it, then you might conclude: “He wasn’t ready for a commitment. The whole thing was pointless.” However, optimists and pessimists can change their ways of dealing with bad events by thinking about them differently.