Seeing the glass half full: A review of the causes and consequences of optimism

Forgeard, M., & Seligman, M. (2012). Seeing the glass half full: A review of the causes and consequences of optimism. Pratiques Psychologiques, 18(2), 107-120.

The psychological trait of optimism influences how individuals perceive themselves and their environment, how they process incoming information, as well as how they decide to act based on this information. Pessimists often behave in ways that are geared towards worst-case scenarios, while optimists tend to trust that the future will be favourable. According to past research, optimism and pessimism appear to have a particularly important effect on how individuals deal with challenging and stressful events. Even so, many people dismiss the effect of optimism, calling optimists naïve or in denial. This is because pessimism and its realistic view of the world seem appealing and rational when contrasted with the popular notion that optimism equates with foolishness, naiveté or denial; however, research shows that the way in which psychologists think of optimism does not involve forced enthusiasm or denial of the truth

What is Optimism?

Anthropologist Lionel Tiger defines optimism as “a mood or attitude associated with an expectation about the social or material future – one which the evaluator regards as socially desirable, to his [or her] advantage, or for his [or her] pleasure”. This means that optimism is a cognitive, affective and motivational construct - optimists both think and feel positively about the future.

The two ways in which researchers have operationalized optimism are the optimistic explanatory style approach, and the dispositional optimism approach

Optimistic Explanatory Style

This approach, developed by Seligman et al., is inspired by the observation that most (but not all) animals and humans give up when exposed to uncontrollable stressors and remain helpless when the situation

What is this article about?

The central question in this article is whether optimists and their romantic partners are more satisfied in their relationships and - if this is the case - this is due to optimists who experience greater support from their partners. It appears that couples in conflict conversations are more constructive when they are more optimistic and they solve their problems better. Optimism seems to promote a variety of beneficial processes in romantic relationships.

What are the most important concepts in this chapter?

The most important concepts in this chapter are optimism, relationship satisfaction, perceived support and close relationships.

About the effect of optimism in close relationships

What is this article about?

This is a research report of an experiment where 222 undergraduates were screened for high happiness. The upper 10% of consistently very happy people were compared with average people and very unhappy people. This study has tried to find out what some factor might be that influence high happiness: social relationships, personality and psychopathology, and variables that have been related to subjective well-being in correlational studies. It also examined whether there was a variable that was sufficient for happiness and a variable that was necessary for happiness (sufficient: everyone with the variable is happy, necessary: every happy person has the variable).

What were the results?

On a scale from 5 to 35, the very happy group scored about 30 on life satisfaction. The very happy people had virtually never thought about suicide, could recall many more good events in their lives than bad ones, and had many more positive than negative emotions on a daily basis. The very unhappy people were dissatisfied with life and had equal amounts of positive and negative affect on a daily basis. They reported this about themselves, but their friends and family also rated them dissatisfied. The average group was in the middle of these two groups. 

The biggest difference between the very happy group and the average and very unhappy group, was in their fulsome and satisfying interpersonal lives. The very happy people spent the least time alone and the most time socializing and valued their

What is this article about?

Two of the most widely held goals by which people measure and motivate themselves are happiness and a meaningful life. In this article, the relationship between these two goals is discussed. More specifically, although there certainly is (much) overlap between these two, the focus here is on the differences.

How can happiness be defined?

Happiness generally refers to a state of subjective well-being. Happiness be may narrowly or broadly focused: one can be happy to have found a lost key, but one can also be happy that the war has ended. Happiness is conceptualized and measured by researcher in at least two different manners. The first one concerns affect balance, which suggests that happiness is an aggregate of how one feels at different moment. Happiness is then defined as having more pleasant than unpleasant emotional states. The second one concerns life satisfaction, which goes beyond momentary feelings. It refers to an integrative, evaluative assessment of one's entire life. Generally, assessing both of these provides a useful index of subjective well-being.

How can a meaningful life be defined?

Meaningfulness is considered to concern both a cognitive and emotional assessment