Working definitions of optimism
Aug. 8th, 2015 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett(or, Alex reinvents entire subfields of psychology in an extremely half-arsed fashion, Part N in an ongoing &c)
So. Optimism. I've been stalling on the concept more than somewhat, after this week's counselling session, because my immediate reaction is that's not realistic, followed shortly after by shit, that requires being brave. And then after a bit I take a deep breath and manage to be a touch more analytical, and I go okay, so, let's define our terms at the top of the page.
Alright, goes I, so there's optimism of the variety that states that obviously the subjective-best outcome, one's preferred outcome, and it turns out this is called dispositional optimism and gets measured by the strength of the subject's agreement with statements like "In uncertain times, I usually expect the best" versus "if something can go wrong for me, it will".
And I just... no. It's not (necessarily) the case that I believe that anything that can go wrong will go wrong; but it is the case that a fact of living with my disabilities is I need to have contingency plans, for everything, always; and that's something I internalised pretty thoroughly in the context of hiking before my health deteriorated enough that I thought about it this consciously. You make as sure as possible that you're not going to end up in a position where you have to call mountain rescue, and then you make sure that if you do have to call them you make it as easy as possible for them to find you and get you out: you have a brightly, unnaturally coloured garment of some description you can spread out on the rocks next to you for visibility, you make sure you carry a whistle and a torch and know the signals, you make sure you can splint yourself, you make sure you have enough water and clothing and iron rations that you won't be dangerously dehydrated or hypothermic if you have to stay out on the mountainside overnight and can't get down.
So: contingency planning. It's a thing. I'm not going to stop thinking about bad- and worst-case scenarios and how to handle them; it's ingrained, it's necessary, and the reasons I'm not talking about contingency planning with respect to disability rather than hiking is that it's considerably more emotionally fraught for me to discuss and makes me feel a lot more vulnerable and is a lot more specific than general.
But then I went: alright then, if I'm not willing to consider and plan for worst-case scenarios, what can I do instead? ... oh. I can do everything happens for a reason, I can work on the internal thing of trusting myself with being okay with bad- or worst-case scenarios, of trusting myself that I'll cope and I'll survive and I'll muddle through.
Which is not, in fact, explanatory optimism (have a wikipedia link), which appears to be more about attributing good things that happen to stable and internal-to-you factors, and bad things that happen as an unfortunate (series of) one-off(s). But it's a little closer.
In any case, that feels more realistic and more achievable. It promotes contingency planning in a way that I find soothing and validating (and doing what's comfortable is, as we know, always the best choice...).
But it all seems to get a bit complicated the moment it starts being contingent on other people rather than (or in addition to) myself. Which -- oh, that's because of anxiety about inadequate models of other people compared to my models of myself, isn't it, and their being unpredictable factors that won't necessarily communicate well or clearly about motivations and decision-trees of their own. Huh. Okay.
Which is a pity, because the uncertainty's what I actually hate; and people have a tendency, if you handle them right, to meet your expectations; so pessimism's easy if other people are involved and you're asking things from them, pessimism of the I-won't-get-what-I'm-after variety means you get to just stop worrying about the ethics of asking, you get to guide people oh-so-gently into a default-of-inaction, you get grim certainty. It's so much easier. It requires being so much less brave.
So I suppose what I'm really after isn't so much the optimism-pessimism split after all, because actually I am pretty okay with my ability to cope with all outcomes; it's learning to sit with uncertainty about things I care about. Again.
So. Optimism. I've been stalling on the concept more than somewhat, after this week's counselling session, because my immediate reaction is that's not realistic, followed shortly after by shit, that requires being brave. And then after a bit I take a deep breath and manage to be a touch more analytical, and I go okay, so, let's define our terms at the top of the page.
Alright, goes I, so there's optimism of the variety that states that obviously the subjective-best outcome, one's preferred outcome, and it turns out this is called dispositional optimism and gets measured by the strength of the subject's agreement with statements like "In uncertain times, I usually expect the best" versus "if something can go wrong for me, it will".
And I just... no. It's not (necessarily) the case that I believe that anything that can go wrong will go wrong; but it is the case that a fact of living with my disabilities is I need to have contingency plans, for everything, always; and that's something I internalised pretty thoroughly in the context of hiking before my health deteriorated enough that I thought about it this consciously. You make as sure as possible that you're not going to end up in a position where you have to call mountain rescue, and then you make sure that if you do have to call them you make it as easy as possible for them to find you and get you out: you have a brightly, unnaturally coloured garment of some description you can spread out on the rocks next to you for visibility, you make sure you carry a whistle and a torch and know the signals, you make sure you can splint yourself, you make sure you have enough water and clothing and iron rations that you won't be dangerously dehydrated or hypothermic if you have to stay out on the mountainside overnight and can't get down.
So: contingency planning. It's a thing. I'm not going to stop thinking about bad- and worst-case scenarios and how to handle them; it's ingrained, it's necessary, and the reasons I'm not talking about contingency planning with respect to disability rather than hiking is that it's considerably more emotionally fraught for me to discuss and makes me feel a lot more vulnerable and is a lot more specific than general.
But then I went: alright then, if I'm not willing to consider and plan for worst-case scenarios, what can I do instead? ... oh. I can do everything happens for a reason, I can work on the internal thing of trusting myself with being okay with bad- or worst-case scenarios, of trusting myself that I'll cope and I'll survive and I'll muddle through.
Which is not, in fact, explanatory optimism (have a wikipedia link), which appears to be more about attributing good things that happen to stable and internal-to-you factors, and bad things that happen as an unfortunate (series of) one-off(s). But it's a little closer.
In any case, that feels more realistic and more achievable. It promotes contingency planning in a way that I find soothing and validating (and doing what's comfortable is, as we know, always the best choice...).
But it all seems to get a bit complicated the moment it starts being contingent on other people rather than (or in addition to) myself. Which -- oh, that's because of anxiety about inadequate models of other people compared to my models of myself, isn't it, and their being unpredictable factors that won't necessarily communicate well or clearly about motivations and decision-trees of their own. Huh. Okay.
Which is a pity, because the uncertainty's what I actually hate; and people have a tendency, if you handle them right, to meet your expectations; so pessimism's easy if other people are involved and you're asking things from them, pessimism of the I-won't-get-what-I'm-after variety means you get to just stop worrying about the ethics of asking, you get to guide people oh-so-gently into a default-of-inaction, you get grim certainty. It's so much easier. It requires being so much less brave.
So I suppose what I'm really after isn't so much the optimism-pessimism split after all, because actually I am pretty okay with my ability to cope with all outcomes; it's learning to sit with uncertainty about things I care about. Again.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-08-08 02:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-08-09 04:22 pm (UTC)And, while noting the negatives in choosing the pessimism of the I-won't-get-what-I'm-after variety path, it takes fewer spoons, whether coping, people-wrangling, physical or emotional spoons. When you're living in a low-spoon availability mode, that's not an inconsiderable consideration. N.B. I'm not saying that automatically justifies taking the pessimism path, because I'd rather the optimism path was as viable, rather that I'm not sure you're measuring that aspect.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-08-11 08:04 am (UTC)For me, and possibly not for others, living in the middle but tending to one direction or the other maps quite neatly to whether my choices are influenced more by hope, or by fear.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-08-14 06:49 pm (UTC)- related but not identical to dispositional optimism, there's "the best might not happen, but the worst will be survivable and things won't always be this bad." Which is one of my favourite lifelines. ("It will be all right, Fleet Captain.")
- there's what one might call fatalistic optimism: "the die is cast, there is absolutely nothing I can do to affect the outcome, and I've done as much contingency preparation as I can, and tensing for the blow won't affect the outcome at all, so I might as well sit back and hope for the best." Which is kind of making lemonade out of the lemons of being powerless in a situation. (In a situation where one does still have power and control, this form of optimism is actively destructive, of course.)
- and there's, idk what to call it, despairing optimism? - the very quiet "I will rebuild it again" sort, when the worst has happened.