Learned Optimism
zacharyburt.com
zacharyburt.com
However, it seems to go even broader than simply converting your mental programming from saying "i must go to work" to "i want to go to work". The way I read this article is: - Optimism: The bad parts of my life are temporary. (implying that the good parts are the way it should be). - Pessimism: The good parts of my life are temporary. (implying that the bad parts are the way it should be)
1. a realist can use these ideas to be more accurate in their thinking. By being aware of when we are generalizing and personalizing, we can reconsider whether that is accurate or not. Although he said that a pessimist is more accurate than an optimist, it seems that a pessimist is not perfectly accurate, because pessimism creates distortions when over generalizing or over personalizing.
2. Your premise here, of insisting on positive knowledge, is a trap, because many things are unknown, and when failure has a low cost, experimentation is the rational strategy. Optimism supports this approach (you don't take failure seriously, and you keep trying.) But when failure has a high cost, being cautious is a more rational strategy. Pessimism supports this.
That is, for acting in the world, one should weight probabilities of success/failure by costs and rewards/dangers (as opposed to only observing, in order to discover probabilities for their own sake, as a scientist might, who isn't concerned about making something happen).
3. a bonus thought from my 101 Philosophy: studies have shown that athletes who believe they will perform better, actually do perform better. That is, an inaccurate estimation becomes accurate. Other Pygmalion effect:
> "Simply put, when teachers expect students to do well and show intellectual growth, they do; when teachers do not have such expectations, performance and growth are not so encouraged and may in fact be discouraged in a variety of ways" http://www.ntlf.com/html/pi/9902/pygm_1.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect http://chir.ag/wiki/pygmalion
For a literary perspective, there's also "My Fair Lady" (based on a play called Pygmalion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(play)#Adaptations) and this intriguing sequence from Paris Je T'aime http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIa0454xfyI